PhD presentations dominate UL Spring lectures

spring lec 1 2022 For the first time ever, most research presentations during the University of Limpopo (UL)’ Spring Lectures this year featured doctoral students in response to the University’s Doctoral Review Quality Improvement Plan (QIP)

According to the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Prof Satsope Maoto, this year’s lectures came at a time when the UL QIP was addressing the constructive inputs of the Council on Higher Education (CHE)’s National Doctoral Review. Among other recommendations, the review implies that all PhD students are required to present papers at platforms such as the UL Spring Lectures. It is for this reason that for the first time ever, 28 of the 58 papers featured PhD students. This also featured one Master’s and one Honours student respectively, while the remaining papers came from internal staff members, and academics from other institutions.

The lectures were themed “Anchored in Africa with a Global Mindset: reflections, contestations and prospects”.  The lectures further adopted subthemes:  The (shifting) aesthetics and content of African arts, crafts, culture, education, heritage and history; Contested terrains: Afrocentric epistemes, coloniality, decoloniality, diaspora, LGBTQIA+,  gender based violence, identity, IKS, migration, post-coloniality, and ruralness; Probing the relevance of IKS today:  human and social sciences; Pandemics and climate change vis a vis the digital divide in a 4IR context:  propaganda, intercultural communication and globalization; and Africanisation of pedagogy; digital literacy; and multimodal teaching.

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During the lectures, a PhD student in the Department of Languages, Lethabo Mashaba presented on: Violent masculinities and abused femininities: A Stiwanist perspective of Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. The aim of the paper is to explore the negative effects of toxic gender ideologies which encourage male domination at the expense of those seen as inferior such as children and females.  Such toxicity, according to the paper manifests itself through domestic violence, which encompasses Gender Based Violence (GBV), a current pandemic in African societies.

English Professor at the University of Johannesburg, Marzia Milazzo was the guest speaker. She highlighted that poverty has worsened for the Black people since 1994 in democratic South Africa, while White people have become collectively wealthier than they were during apartheid. According to Prof Milazzo, this growing inequality is also the logical result of white dominance in South Africa, enshrined in the constitution through a clause that protects private property, specifically White property.

Prof Lesibana Rafapa, Research Professor in the Faculty alluded that this year’s theme was motivated by the global phenomena of climate change, Covid-19 pandemic, and the advent of 4IR in everyday life, together with international research trends focusing on the phenomena. He added that the subthemes served to relate the main theme of the disciplines offered across the three schools constituting the Faculty of Humanities.

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Tshepho Kgasago, a PhD student in Communication Studies presenting a paper titled: Technology, intangibility and music consumption patterns of older adults in semi-urban South Africa

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Mmetlane Mashiane, a PhD student in English Studies presents a paper titled: Assessing Grammar Proficiency of Exit-level Students at Universities. The Case of the University of Limpopo

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Maphuthi Choung, a PhD student in Communication Studies presents a paper on: Public health communication for cervical cancer awareness in South Africa

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Mishumo Nephawe, a PhD student in English Studies presenting a paper titled: ‘Pray and Obey”: Exploring patriarchal notions of male ego and identity preservation at the expense of women ‘sexual pleasure and procreation

By Evans Khalo