SLL Research Seminar Series | School of Languages and Literatures
During term time, the School of Languages and Literatures runs a regular research seminar series.
During term time, the School of Languages and Literatures runs a regular research seminar series. In addition to talks by visiting scholars and established academics, SLL encourages presentations of work in progress by postgraduate students and early-career researchers as part of this series. These seminars showcase diverse research across languages, literature, linguistics, translation studies, cultural studies, historical perspectives, and indigenous knowledge systems. Topics range from decolonial approaches and identity representation to cross-cultural exchange and contemporary applications of language. The series provides an opportunity for academic exchange and intellectual engagement across various language disciplines, with emphasis on African languages and literatures, European-African connections, and critical frameworks. All interested faculty, students, and members of the public are welcome to attend.
The 2025 Seminar Series convenors are:
Dr Katia de la Cruz G katia.delacruzgarcia@uct.ac.za
Dr Hleze Kunju hleze.kunju@uct.ac.za
Mr Ebrahiem Moos ebrahiem.moos@uct.ac.za
2025 Seminars
2024 Seminars
Translating Jericho Brown's The Tradition into Italian. A poetic journey
Dr Raphael D'Abdon (University of South Africa)
Thursday 17 October
Beattie 115 17h00
Hearing voices: Pier Paolo Pasolini’s African inquiry and legacy
A/Prof. Gian Maria Annovi (University of Southern California)
Wednesday 16 October
Beattie 115 17h00
"Kalika kuloo ndawo”: Representation of black (Isixhosa) identities through language in SuperSport’s Isixhosa rugby commentary
Dr Wanga Gambushe (African Languages and Literatures)
Thursday 10 October
Beattie 115 17h00
Exploring the Unity and Diversity of Bantu Languages: A Comparative Study
Mr Madinda N. Kanyiki (Independent Linguist and Language Researcher)
Thursday 26 September
Beattie 115 17h00
Theorizing ubulungisa and umthetho at the precipices of crisis and change: A thickly layered reading of justice and law in iTyala Lamawele
Sanele kaNtshingana (African Languages and Literatures)
Thursday 12 September
Beattie 115 17h00
The Italian language (and culture) in the Cape Town linguistic landscape. The case of the restaurant names
A/Prof. Alessandro Aresti (Università di Cagliari)
Thursday 29 August
Beattie 115 17h00
Literature as a space for identity negotiation
Paulina Chiziane (Portuguese Language and Literature)
Wednesday 28 August
Beattie LT 13h00
Classical Historiography in Context(s): Appian of Alexandria and the Late Roman Republic
Professor Tanja Itgenshorst (Fribourg)
Thursday 15 August
Beattie 115 17h00
Salomon Grumbach (1884-1952), an intellectual biography between France and Germany, war and peace, journalism and politics
Professor Fritz Taubert (Université de Bourgogne)
Thursday 8 August
Beattie 115 17h00
Decolonial approaches to teaching German as a foreign language in a South African context
Dr Gesa Singer (UCT)
Wednesday 22 May
GEOL SIM 17h00
Zulé Revé's journey: Exploring Gagá and Cross-Border Dynamics Between Haiti and the Dominican Republic
Dr Katia De La Cruz (UCT)
Thursday 9 May
Beattie 115 17h00
Creative Spirit and Writing. A Seminar on the Writer's Craft
Carmen Garcia (UCT)
Thursday 2 May
HUM LT1A 13h00
Texts in Migration. Circulation of African Verbal Arts in the first half of the 20th Century
Dr Jehanne Denogent (UCT)
Tuesday 23 April
Beattie 115 17h00
The Ectopic Insider. Exploring the Interstices of Travel Writing, Memory and History in M. G. Vassanji’s And Home Was Kariakoo
Dr Felicity Hand (Universitat Autonoma, Barcelona) and Dr Esther Pujolràs-Noguer (Universitat de Lleida)
Wednesday 10 April
Beattie 114 17h00
Shaaban Robert: Toward an Ecopoetics of Kiswahili Language
Prof. Xavier Garnier (Francophone and African Literature, Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle)
Thursday 4 April
Beattie 115 17h00
Past Seminars
The Italian Diaspora in South Africa
Prof. Maria Chiara Marchetti-Mercer and A/Prof. Anita Virga
Tuesday 31 October
Hum LT 1A
Translation and storytelling in the era of social and new media
Mr Massimo Gardella
Thursday 19 October
Beattie 115 17h00
A Panorama of Contemporary Mozambican Literature
Mr Lucílio Manjate
Tuesday 3 October
Beattie LT 13h00
‘Call Me by My Name’: Portrayal of Albinism in Swahili Literature [Fasihi ya Kiswahili]
Dr Elizabeth Godwin Mahenge (UCT)
Thursday 28 September
Beattie 114 13h00
Necropolitics and Forms of Life: Writings of Dispersion in Contemporary Francophone African Novels
Dr Karel Plaiche (UCT)
Thursday 14 September
Beattie 115 17h00
Mapping Linguistic Logic and Syntactic Structures: Contrastive Linguistics as a Key to Activating Learners’ Linguistic Awareness of Chinese
Associate Professor Yang Zeng (UCT)
Thursday 31 August
Beatte LT 13h00
Disturbed graves and disturbing afterlives: Reimagining the remains of Hendrik Witbooi and Sitting Bull
Dr Sonja Loots (UCT)
Thursday 17 August
Beattie LT 13h00
Roman Noses, and the sense of smell in antiquity
Professor Mark Bradley (Nottingham)
Thursday 3 August
Beattie 115 17h00
2023 Mezzabotta Memorial Lecture
Speaking in Tongues: the Creative Transformation of Jhumpa Lahiri
Dr Mara Boccaccio (UCT)
Thursday 11 May
Robert Leslie 2D 17h00
Re-reading the Literary Representation of Child-Animal Interactions
Dr Anita de Melo (UCT)
Wednesday 26 April
Robert Leslie 2D 16h00
Horace in The Natal Mercury
Dr Jeffrey Murray (UCT)
Thursday 13 April
Beattie 114 17h00
Cohesion in second language writing and in translation: A case for research into varioversals
Professor Carola Strobl (Antwerp)
Thursday 23 March
Beattie 114 17h00
May we always do what we can do? Discourse ethics for science and technology
Professor Ernest W.B. Hess-Lüttich (UCT)
Thursday 9 March
Beattie 114 17h00
Colonial Utopias and Dystopias in Bourbon and Mauritius during the 19th Century
Professor Françoise Sylvos (Réunion)
Thursday 02 March
Beattie 114 17h00