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READ MORE Technics & Urban workshop takes off

“They conduct their lives with a wry resilience. They have a front row seat to the apocalyptic – birds falling out the sky – but they go on, with a cruel optimism towards the everyday within the age of extreme climate change. To translate that into formal strategies is the work of documentary.” READ MORE Publication Announcement: New Contrast, Issue 212, In Memory of Diana Ferrus and Zoë Wicomb

We are pleased to announce the publication of New Contrast’s 212th Issue, In Memory of Diana Ferrus and Zoë Wicomb, which includes contributions from Premesh Lalu who holds the UK-SA Bilateral Chair in Culture and Technics at the CHR, and Bongani Kona (Department of Historical Studies, UWC). READ MORE Humanities in Sesssion, Artists’ Forum: Underwater Cables & Global Digital Infrastructure

This session, titled ‘Underwater Cables & Global Digital Infrastructure’, will be led by Ian Purnell, and Southbound Studio members, Kamil Adam Hassim, and Benji Anstey, who will be in conversation with the CHR’s Premesh Lalu.
January 21, 2026

ACIP: Call for workshop proposals and for Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Award Applications, 2026

The African Critical Inquiry Programme is pleased to announce the 2026 Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards to support African doctoral students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences and invites proposals from scholars and/or practitioners in public cultural institutions in South Africa to organise a workshop to take place in 2027. ACIP is a partnership between the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape and the Laney Graduate School of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia (USA).
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January 19, 2026

CHR statement on the cancellation of Gabrielle Goliath’s Elegy from the South African Pavillion at the Venice Biennale

The Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape adds its voice to many others who are deeply concerned about the cancellation of Gabrielle Goliath’s Elegy that was officially selected for the South African Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of 2026.
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November 5, 2025

Good Morning Cape Town with Lester Kiewet: Remembering the Trojan Horse Massacre

Lester Kiewit speaks to Premesh Lalu, a UWC research professor, on the lessons we can learn from the Trojan Horse Massacre in 1985, as well as the misconceptions about those at grassroots level fighting the apartheid machine with intellect and limited resources.
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October 10, 2025

In Black Women’s Hands: A History of Gestures in Photography and Textile

Contemporary Black female artists have reclaimed the everyday labor and domestic motions women have historically performed, as artistic gestures in their own right. For example, the ceramic and bronze sculptures of the African-American artist Simone Leigh have referenced vernacular processes like washing chores and needlework.
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October 10, 2025

Together Apart The Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement

In April 1964, the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement (IAAM) was launched in Dublin by Kader Asmal, a South-African professor of law in Trinity College. Lobbying for improved human rights and liberation in South Africa, the Movement raised awareness of the racism experienced by communities and campaigned for the release of political prisoners.
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October 10, 2025

Book Announcement: Undoing Apartheid, by Premesh Lalu, Turkish translation.

We are delighted to announce that Undoing Apartheid by Premesh Lalu has been translated into Turkish and published by Afrika Vakfi Yayinevi. See below for more information about Undoing Apartheid and its Turkish translation, Apartheid’ı Ortadan Kaldırmak.
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