HUMA Doctoral Seminar Series

Speaker: Chikezie E. Uzuegbunam (HUMA – Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape Town, South Africa)

Mental health is one of those topics less talked about in the academia and similar spaces. In this talk, Dr Uzuegbunam will tie the issue of mental health to two factors. First, the near-absence of kindness, generosity and vulnerability within the neo-liberal, postcolonial academia, and second, the‘isolation factor’. The consequence of the former is the perpetuation of academia as a kind-less, aggressive, adversarial, competitive space, often extolling toxic-excellence and performance above wellbeing, generosity, humanness, and conviviality. The consequence of the latter is a host of issues such as loneliness, depression, suicides, anxiety, mental stress, other mental health issues, and even impostor syndrome. In this presentation, the precarity of academic life broadly, and doctoral or postgraduate work in particular, as it relates to mental wellbeing will be highlighted. The presentation will comprise some self-reflexivity from Dr Uzuegbunam’s own personal experiences with mental health struggles during his PhD programme and even after. It is from this standpoint that he will share some practical steps which doctoral and postgraduate students might take to navigate this challenge. The tips will cover areas such as the role of the student, their supervisors, departments and faculties, and the university at large. It invites us to make intellectual generosity and kindness a democratic tool for healing, transformation, inclusivity, sustainability, and genuine care for oneself and others.

 

Chikezie E. Uzuegbunam Biography

Chikezie E. Uzuegbunam is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at HUMA – Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape Town, South Africa. He holds a PhD in Media Studies from the University of Cape Town's Centre for Film and Media Studies. Earlier, he had obtained an MSc in Mass Communication from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria. He has a demonstrated trajectory of working in the higher education industry in Nigeria and South Africa as researcher, teacher and youth mentor for almost a decade. Chikezie serves as editorial reviewer for journals and is editorial assistant to African Journalism Studies and Annals of the International Communication Association, both published by Routledge. He was a 2019 fellow of the Oxford Media Policy Institute at Oxford University, UK. His research interests include digital media and young people, digital cultures, political and health communication, and popular culture in Africa. He has published widely in these areas in addition to opinion pieces appearing in various media and academic blogs. At HUMA, his current project explores the ecosystem of medical misinformation and digital health communication amongst youth in Nigeria.

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