Ndebele on finding value 'beyond the shadows of apartheid'
Professor Ndebele interacting with delegates taking selfies
PHOTO: ALA 2014
APC Honorary Research Fellow Professor Njabulo Ndebele delivered the keynote address at the 40th annual African Literature Association conference, which was hosted by the School of Literature, Language and Media at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, from 9 to 13 April 2014.
Titled 'Texts, modes and repertoires of living in and beyond the shadows of apartheid', this international conference comprised over 100 parallel panels and a number of roundtables which facilitated a diverse range of dialogues by global scholars on the work of African literary figures, such as Chinua Achebe, JM Coetzee, Bessie Head, Athol Fugard, Alex La Guma, Mbulelo Mzamane, Zakes Mda and Nadine Gordimer, among others.
Twenty years since apartheid's official demise, delegates and presenters engaged in dialogue, retrospection, introspection and predictions in relation to the 'unfinished business of apartheid' and the possibilities of imagining a more just and humane world.
Close to 200 universities from across the continent and globe were represented in the programme and in the vast range of papers delivered. Notable participants included literary figures such as world-renowned Mozambican writer and winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Mia Couto; South African activist, Sindiwe Magona; UCT African Studies Professor Harry Garuba (author and poet); Professor Carol Boyce Davies (Cornell) and Professor Simon Gikandi (Princeton).
The programme also featured book launches, performances (such as Soundings of African Languages) and a special screening of Rehad Desai's documentary film, Miners Shot Down, about the Marikana massacre of 2012.
APC Research Fellow Dr Victoria Collis Buthelezi chaired the panel, 'Black Internationalism and networks of resistance', as part of which she also delivered her paper on 'Empire and Diaspora: South Africa and defining the African Diaspora'.
APC Research Manager and African Studies Research Associate Dr June Bam chaired the panel on 'Autobiography, Memoir and Testimonial' and presented a paper, 'Peeping through the Reeds: Is it too soon to remember or forget the daily social experience of apartheid South Africa?', on her semi-autobiographical novel.
Ndebele delivered his engaging keynote address 'To Be Or Not To Be, No Longer At Ease', on 10 April. He reflected on his journey toward a critical 'self' through the reading of (among others) Chinua Achebe's novel, No Longer at Ease. He narrated the various historical turning points in his own unease as a 'black' person, which he experienced in relation to 'a flood of world history', and which shaped his social and political imagination of what it means to be 'human'. In the concluding remarks of his keynote address, he reflected: 'Wherever we will be, at home or at school, or on the factory floor, or in the office somewhere in the high-rise cityscape, or in the dark depths of the mine, or in the farms and rolling rural landscapes, or in the township or city, or in the tavern, or in the theatre, or on the catwalk, or in a conference, we find our deepest value.'
The ALA2015 conference will be held in Germany.