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Recording: Conversation on Undoing Apartheid

The recording for a book launch of Premesh Lalu’s Undoing Apartheid is now available via the below link.

Undoing Apartheid responds to the CHR’s inaugural question of the meaning of post-apartheid freedom, especially through sustained research projects on aesthetic education, the becoming technical of the human, and communicating the humanities. The book is the product of conversations with colleagues, graduate fellows, visiting scholars, and researchers at the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) of the University of the Western Cape over more than ten years. Building on the debates and discussions of annual winter schools, local and international conferences and colloquia, and collaborations with site-specific engagements in Athlone and the rural town of Barrydale, the book responds to the inaugural intellectual inquiry of the centre aimed at overcoming the sensory ordering of apartheid while connecting the initial inquiry to the next phase of the CHR’s DSI-NRF Flagship project in the Greatmore Street Arts and Humanities Hub.

Synopsis

Post-apartheid South Africa still struggles to overcome the past, not just because the material conditions of apartheid linger but because the intellectual conditions it created have not been thoroughly dismantled. The system of ‘petty apartheid’, which controlled the minutia of everyday life, became a means of dragooning human beings into adapting to increasingly mechanised forms of life that stifle desire and creative endeavour. As a result, apartheid is incessantly repeated in the struggle to move beyond it. In Undoing Apartheid, Premesh Lalu argues that only an aesthetic education can lead to a future beyond apartheid. To find ways to escape the vicious cycle, he traces the patterns created by three theatrical works by William Kentridge, Jane Taylor, and the Handspring Puppet Company – Faustus in Africa, Woyzeck on the Highveld, and Ubu and the Truth Commission – which coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of apartheid. Through the analysis of these works, Lalu uncovers the roots of modern thinking about race and affirms the need to revitalise a post-apartheid reconciliation endowed with truth – if only to keep alive the rhyme of hope and history.

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Centre for Humanities Research

5 days ago

Centre for Humanities Research
The 2025 International Workshop on Visual History & Theory will take place between October 14-15 and includes two keynotes which are open to the public. The second instalment, 'An Archive and Forms of Sight: Gestures of Madness " by Nancy Rose Hunt will take places on Wednesday 15 October. ... See MoreSee Less

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Centre for Humanities Research

5 days ago

Centre for Humanities Research
The 2025 International Workshop on Visual History & Theory will take place between October 14-15, and includes two keynotes which are open to the public. The first, 'In Black Women’s Hands: A History of Gestures in Photography and Textile', will be given by Sandrine Colard and Giulia Paoletti, and takes place on Tuesday 14 October.Venue: CHR’s Iyatsiba Lab, 66 Greatmore Street, Woodstock (enter via Regent Road)Time: 9:30am-11:00am ... See MoreSee Less

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1 week ago

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Please join us on Thursday 16 October for a screening of Dublin Short, a short documentary capturing the magic of the Little Museum of Dublin’s famous guided tour. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Dr Daryl Hendley Rooney, deputy curator at the Little Museum and visiting researcher on the Charlotte Maxeke-Mary Robinson Research Chair.Date: Thursday 16 October 2025Time: 15h00-16h30Venue: The CHR’s Iyatsiba Lab,66 Greatmore Street, Woodstock(enter via Regent St) ... See MoreSee Less

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Centre for Humanities Research

3 weeks ago

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We are pleased to announce that Premesh Lalu 's Undoing Apartheid has been translated into Turkic and published as part of the Afrika Vakfi Yayinlan series... ... See MoreSee Less

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4 weeks ago

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Our fifth announcement of the Artist Forum is themed: Art Science Humanities Research Date: Thurs 25th Sept 2025Time: 11:00 am - 13:00pmVenue: The CHR's Iyatsiba Lab,66 Greatmore Street, Woodstock (enter via Regent St) ... See MoreSee Less

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  • Culture and Technics Workshop: 10-12 November
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