Decolonisation in the humanities discussed at the FoAD Seminar

FoAD Deputy Dean, Professor Brian Pearce and Professor Michael Chapman.


The Faculty of Arts and Design recently held a Deans Seminar to discuss decolonisation in Humanities.

The seminar which saw the auditorium filled to capacity was themed: “To Decolonise: Where to the Humanities”. This seminar was well attended by DUT students, staff and academics.

In his address, Professor Michael Chapman said the process of decolonisation was a challenge. “To decolonise is a more complex and challenging process that currently constitutes the discourse of decolonisation, either in South Africa or the globe,” he said.

He further explained that it was more complex and challenging since we did not inhabit a world of singularities, whether political, economic, racial, religious or cultural.

The Faculty of Arts and Design correspondingly makes an effort to zoom into the issue of decolonisation. Chapman further reiterated that the University itself had an enormous role to play in the issue of decolonisation with reference to the humanities, more specifically on literature.
“In attending to curriculum change, the University may have a role to play and that could shock the prevailing populist character of demands to decolonise,” said Prof Chapman.

While referring to the recent calls for decolonisation all over the universities in Africa, Prof Chapman stated that the Bandung Conference that was held in Indonesia in 1955 and the 10th BRICS Summit that was recently held in Johannesburg, has allowed him to consider research and teaching from a perspective of his own disciplinary field in the Humanities, literary studies.

“It is the Humanities- the Arts and Social Sciences, after all, that feel the need to respond to calls to decolonise the curricula, the ‘hard’ sciences, in contrast, are sceptical of decolonising demands,” he explained.


-NASIPHI GIGABA

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