This colloquium asks how universities in South Africa, and the scholars and activists housed within them, can respond to stormy political waters and to potentially competing visions of justice and transformation. Date: Thursday, 4 September 2025 Time: 13:00-17:00 (SAST) In-person venue: Ground Floor, Wartenweiler Library, Wits University Online: Link to be shared once RSVPed. RSVP: Lenore.Longwe@wits.ac.za, stating whether you will attend in-person or online. Description: This colloquium considers competing and complementary approaches to race and nationality in South African higher education, at a moment that marks ten years since the RhodesMustFall and FeesMustFall protests as well as being characterised by the increasing visibility and weaponisation of national and international xenophobia. It poses this question as a reflection not just on the Fallist movements, but on a three-decade long history of contentious post-Apartheid efforts to align the country’s universities with broader commitments to equity and progressive social change. Current attacks on academic institutions represent them as sites of illicit patronage of apparently unqualified foreigners, while foreign academics themselves navigate bureaucratic mazes and hostile atmospheres. What can these contradictions tell us about the processes of transformation and change that were meant to be invigorated by #RMF? The colloquium also considers future institutional […]
