John Higgins, highly respected Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Cape Town (UCT), will discuss “A lyric by William Blake – Never seek to tell thy love, love that never told can be” at GIPCA’s Great Texts / Big Questions lecture series.

Higgins will show how readings of a single poem can also serve to exemplify some of the main intellectual and analytic currents of the past forty years, including radical social movements of the ‘60s; feminism and psychoanalysis in the ‘70s; and the recent problematization of racism and xenophobia.

Professor Higgins is the Andrew Mellon Research Professor in the Archives and Public Culture project at UCT. The politics of higher education, contemporary literary and cultural theory are his main research interests. One of the first humanists to be awarded an A-rating by the National Research Foundation, he received the Cape Tercentenary Award of Excellence for his services to literature and culture in South Africa in 2000 and in October this year became a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.

Great Texts / Big Questions is one of several exciting GIPCA initiatives intended to engender a culture of exchange of ideas, opinion and conjecture. The audience is encouraged to familiarise themselves with the subject beforehand, so they will be able contribute to discussion if they wish.

John Higgins audio recording available for download.

John Higgins video recording:

Start: 22 Oct ’09 5:00 pm

End: 22 Oct ’09 6:30 pm

Cost: Free

Category: 

Organizer: GIPCA

Email: fin-gipca@uct.ac.za

Venue: Hiddingh Hall 

Phone: +27 21 480 7156 

Address: UCT Hiddingh Campus, 31 Orange Street, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa