Uploaded July 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Keynote address by Prof Kgomotso Masemola during the book launch of Black Academic Voices; the South African Experience edited by Grace Khunou, Edith Phaswana, Katijah Khoza-Shangase and Hugo Canham
Black Academic Voices captures the personal accounts of lived experiences of black academics at South African universities in the context of the ongoing debate for transformation and decolonization of higher education. This debate has not only raised epistemic, ideological, relational and identity issues in the academy, but also offers possibilities for deconstructing hierarchies of authoritarianism that are racist, sexist, patriarchal and colonial. While many scholars have had the opportunity to explore the challenges of higher education transformation since 1994, very few black academics have had the chance to tell their stories in the biographical form. This book, therefore, seeks to fill this gap with the aim of defining what it means to be black in the South African Academy Post 1994, South Africa has presented us with a plethora of structural and relational challenges that perpetuate the precarious state of black people in many institutions, including the academy.
Keynote address by Prof Kgomotso Masemola during the book launch of Black Academic Voices; the South African Experience edited by Grace Khunou, Edith Phaswana, Katijah Khoza-Shangase and Hugo Canham
Black Academic Voices captures the personal accounts of lived experiences of black academics at South African universities in the context of the ongoing debate for transformation and decolonization of higher education. This debate has not only raised epistemic, ideological, relational and identity issues in the academy, but also offers possibilities for deconstructing hierarchies of authoritarianism that are racist, sexist, patriarchal and colonial. While many scholars have had the opportunity to explore the challenges of higher education transformation since 1994, very few black academics have had the chance to tell their stories in the biographical form. This book, therefore, seeks to fill this gap with the aim of defining what it means to be black in the South African Academy Post 1994, South Africa has presented us with a plethora of structural and relational challenges that perpetuate the precarious state of black people in many institutions, including the academy.




![2018 International Womens Day lecture & panel discussion
The 2018 International Womens Day lecture and panel discussion is held to celebrate and reflect on the challenges and opportunities facing women across the world with a particular focus on women on the Africa continent. This year event will focus on what Feminism is and is not.
Lecturer:
Professor Pumla Gqola; Dean of Research at Fort Hare University
Panellists:
H.E. Ms Cecilia Julin, Ambassador of Sweden
Dr Brigalia Bam, Chairperson: Thabo Mbeki Foundation
Prof. Siphamandla Zondi, Head: Department of Political Science, University of Pretoria
Background:
Majority of women in Africa live outside state infrastructure that continues to nurture the ruling class[1]. The women’s movement witnessed during the struggle for independence has lost public visibility. Co-optation; partisan loyalties and corporatist arrangement made the movement ineffectual as women leaders resort to what McFadden calls ‘self-censorship’. These women ‘self-censor’ to express their loyalty because of fear of social and economic exclusion. Today many women’s movements on the continent declare themselves as feminist yet in practice they reinforce patriarchy. This has created a situation where some younger generation of women prefer to distance themselves from the notion of feminism. This public gathering seeks to call scholars, women leaders, activists and general public to an intergenerational discussion on these issues. 2018 International Womens Day lecture & panel discussion](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/t2LBKMcUawY/mqdefault.jpg)





