The School of Humanities invites you to an online seminar entitled: “Reviving “the Black Archives”: Resurrecting Benedict Wallet Vilakazi with a focus on the utility and meaning of African languages and Literatures in higher education” by Prof. Nompumelelo “Mpume” Zondi – Professor and Head of the African Languages Department at the University of Pretoria.
“The works of Benedict Wallet Vilakazi deserve some recuperation to a central position in the Southern African literary canon especially at a time when decoloniality is a buzzword in our institutions of higher learning. This outcome (one among others) is for Vilakazi to be recognised and acknowledged as a pillar of excellence in African scholarship, and his work to be awarded a pivotal position in various disciplines, both locally and internationally.
Having been awarded (posthumously, in 2016) the Order of Ikhamanga: Gold, the highest national acclaim the South African government can bestow on a citizen, confirms the relevance and stature of the re-interpretation of Vilakazi’s work, within the framework of his life and the socio-historic context that shaped it.”
Nompumelelo “Mpume” Zondi is a Professor and Head of the African Languages Department at the University of Pretoria. She is an NRF-rated scholar and has published a corpus of work with high impact journals such as Folklore Society, South African Journal of African Languages, Education as Change, Literator and Agenda, to mention a couple. Her exposure to gender studies at the State University of New York at Albany almost two decades ago, shaped her scholarship which converges on redressing gender (in)equality, ‘languaging’ and the interrogation of power in patriarchal societies.
The seminar will take place as follows:
Date: Friday, 16 April 2021
Time: 16h00
Venue: MS Teams (click here to join the event)
