With all the talk about “decolonising” university curricula (see http://thoughtleader.co.za/bertolivier/2016/03/23/decolonisation-the-new-ideology/), which has again cropped up among the demands of the protesting students, I thought it might be productive to remind students and academic staff alike of one of the most eloquent – in fact, together with Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, exemplary – critical literary […]
Decolonisation
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Decolonising knowledge doesn’t contradict ideal of academic excellence
By Shose Kessi Real and lasting social change does not take place without theory. Theory crafts, guides, sustains and legitimises social systems. In order to dismantle the social systems we live in, which are characterised by racism and other forms of oppression, we need to advance our theories. These theories should and must emerge from […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
On decolonising Africa and studying abroad: A response to Zinhle Manzini
By Kgaugelo Sebidi As a Rhodes Scholar who will be heading to the University of Oxford in a few months to read for a master of philosophy in development studies, I must admit that the arguments made in Zinhle Manzini’s blog post “If you are serious about decolonising Africa, don’t study abroad” are short sighted […]
Posted inEquality, General
If you are serious about decolonising Africa, don’t study abroad
By Zinhle Manzini In 2017 I will hopefully be registering for my PhD in philosophy. In thinking about this decision, I was charmed by the idea of doing my postgraduate degree abroad, hoping it would broaden my horizons as a scholar, an academic and as a person. Most academics that I have interacted with during […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
‘Decolonisation’, the new ideology
Everywhere one looks today in South Africa you find a new imperative: “Decolonise!” In certain academic quarters it has evidently already attained the level of a new ideology, where academics are expected to “decolonise” the courses they teach (and presumably the articles they submit for publication as well). What astonishes me is that academics do […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Devil’s advocacy for decolonised curricula
Shouting fire in a crowded theatre may not always be accurate, but it will typically get one attention. Such is the analogue regarding those who bemoan the “whiteness” of university curricula. The terms used to diagnose the problem are frequently emotively charged and difficult to understand. If “the curricula” shall be Africanised then, one may […]
Posted inEquality
Theory vs praxis in decolonisation
Two recent articles by Shaun Stanley have caught my attention. The first argued that not all pale-skinned people are “white” and the second took issue with the vagueness of words like “transformation” and “decolonisation”. Stanley’s primary interest in these two articles seems to be the proper definition of concepts, ie a focus on the need […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Transformation, decolonisation and other vague words
“Transformation” has become a vague word. Yet the demand for university transformation is growing ever more vocal. What to make of this demand, then, is a matter of importance. This is about the only thing on which Mashupye Herbert Maserumule and I agree. I believe the other things he has said to be misguided. I […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence
Transforming higher education: UCT students’ visions for the future
By Josie Cornell Vicky* had not thought much about her blackness, or what it meant. This changed rapidly upon her arrival at the University of Cape Town (UCT) as a first-year student where, for the first time, Vicky felt black. This “feeling of blackness” for Vicky and for other black students like her, particularly those […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The world won’t slow down for Africa to catch up
By Dr Noah Manyika Let me start with a confession: I have not always been my wellbeing’s best friend. I have bristled when others have described my lapses in judgment as … lapses in judgment. I have not always been man enough to consider as friends those who point out my shortcomings, and at times […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Rhodes Fell
Rhodes tripped on the steps and fell Rhodes skid on a piece of soap in the shower and fell Rhodes slipped from the window of the tenth floor of Caledon Square and fell Rhodes accidentally broke his ribs and cracked his skull in his prison cell and fell Rhodes drowned in the shower and fell […]