Undoing Apartheid – seminar

The Centre for Cultural Studies and the Critical Life research collective will be co-hosting Professor Premesh Lalu for a seminar on his recently published book, Undoing Apartheid.

In Undoing Apartheid, Lalu argues that only an aesthetic education can lead to a future beyond apartheid.

To find ways to escape the vicious cycle, he traces the patterns created by three theatrical works by William Kentridge, Jane Taylor and the Handspring Puppet Company which coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of apartheid: Faustus in Africa, Woyzeck on the Highveld and Ubu and the Truth Commission.

Through the analysis of these works, Lalu uncovers the roots of modern thinking about race and affirms the need to revitalise a post-apartheid reconciliation endowed with truth – if only to keep alive the rhyme of hope and history.

The seminar is free to attend and all are welcome. There is no need to book.

For more details, please email Dr Ross Truscott at R.Truscott@leeds.ac.uk.

About the speaker

Premesh Lalu is a Research Professor and former director of the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa.

More information

The Centre for Cultural Studies is based within the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies. It aims to create an interdisciplinary forum for the study of cultural practices, texts and institutions, drawing on a wide range of departments and disciplines.

Based in the School of English, the Critical Life research collective engages with what it means to live and read critically in the present. We are committed to examining the conditions under which life, both human and non-human, can be lived, renewed and revitalised.

Image

Detail from ‘Read, man, read’ by Chumisa Fihla. Photograph by Rhetha Ferguson.