AVReQ The Podcast

Prof Susanne Klausen traces the apartheid state’s obsession with suppressing interracial sex between white men and black women, revealing how Afrikaner nationalism relied on a punitive, puritanical masculinity to preserve its imagined racial order. Drawing from her archival research and critical race theory, Klausen explores how laws such as the Immorality Act and its amendments were used to criminalise not only acts of intimacy but even the suggestion of desire. White men who transgressed were publicly shamed, flogged, imprisoned, and in many cases driven to suicide, punishments meant to reinforce racial loyalty and sexual discipline. The conversation facilitated by Dr Anell Daries explores the contradictions of white masculinity, shame, and the limits of state power in regulating intimacy.SUSANNE M. KLAUSENSusanne M. Klausen is the Julia Gregg Brill Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. Her main areas of research are the history of fertility politics in modern South Africa, nationalism and sexuality, and transnational movements for reproductive justice. She is the author of Race, Maternity, and the Politics of Birth Control in South Africa, 1910-1939 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) and Abortion Under Apartheid: Nationalism, Sexuality, and Women’s Reproductive Rights in South Africa (Oxford University Press, 2015) that won the Women’s History Prize awarded by the Canadian Committee on Women’s History (2016) and the Joel Gregory Prize awarded by the Canadian Association of African Studies (2016). Prof Klausen has published articles in a range of scholarly journals and is currently writing a monograph on the criminalization of interracial heterosex in South Africa during apartheid.

In this episode, Prof Neil Roos discusses how whiteness operated not only through state violence but also via the bureaucratic disciplining of the white working class. Drawing on archival material and personal memory, he illuminates how apartheid’s structures absorbed and managed misfit white bodies, from the expansion of the civil service to the little-known ‘work colonies’ where white men deemed deviant were reformed through labour therapy. Through exchanges with Dr Anell Daries and the audience, Prof Roos grapples with the psychological and generational complexities of complicity. He underscores that the task of history is not only to record the past but to provide moral and political off-ramps—ways to imagine futures beyond the prison of whiteness.NEIL ROOSNeil Roos is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Fort Hare. He is also one of the lead implementers of the South African Department of Higher Education and Training’s national collaborative Future Professors Programme (FPP). He writes on histories of race, and his recent research has focused on the historical, moral and political dimensions of white everyday life in apartheid South Africa. From this body of work, he has published essays in Social History, the Journal of Social History, The Historical Journal and International Review of Social History. Roos is also interested in historiography and theory, especially the theoretical moorings of a post-Marxist, left wing social history.

In this powerful and unflinching lecture, Prof Joel Modiri challenges us to reckon with South Africa’s unfinished liberation and the symbolic transformation that has failed to deliver substantive justice. Drawing on the life and legacy of Steve Biko, Modiri frames his argument around three “deaths” of Biko, his physical death under apartheid, the juridical death through post-apartheid legal compromise, and the ongoing erasure of Biko’s radical vision in the present. Modiri’s address traverses’ law, philosophy, politics, and history, offering a sobering account of post-1994 South Africa and a call for the radical reimagining of justice, belonging, and historical redress.Professor Joel ModiriJoel M Modiri is the acting Deputy Dean: Teaching and Learning and Head of the Department of Jurisprudence in the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria. He holds the degrees LLB cum laude (Pret) and PhD (Pret). His PhD thesis was entitled “The Jurisprudence of Steve Biko: A Study in Race, Law and Power in the ‘Afterlife’ of Colonial-apartheid.” His research and teaching interests are located in the broad field of jurisprudence and relate to critical race theory, Black political thought and African philosophy. His current projects intersect under two umbrellas rooted in the ethics and politics of the global Black radical tradition: Azanian critical theory and constitutional abolitionism. He was recently appointed as a United Nations Independent Eminent Expert in the area of race and racial discrimination.

Professor John Brewer explores the powerful and paradoxical question: Why do people kill and die for religion? The conversation confronts the ways in which monotheistic religions have been entangled with violence throughout history. Brewer offers a sociological lens on how sacred beliefs, identity politics, and historical trauma create conditions ripe for religious conflict. Dr Demaine Solomons responds by pushing back against overly deterministic readings of monotheism, arguing for a more nuanced understanding that recognises socio-political forces and the potential of religion to foster justice and solidarity. Facilitated by Professor Robert Vosloo, the event also features rich reflections from attendees, making for a deeply layered discussion on faith, power, nationalism, and peacebuilding in both historical and contemporary contexts.JOHN BREWERJohn Brewer is Professor Emeritus in the Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast. He was awarded an Honorary DSocSci from Brunel University and is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow in the Academy of Social Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has held visiting appointments at Yale University, St John’s College Oxford, Corpus Christi College Cambridge and the Australia National University. He has been President of the British Sociological Association. He is Honorary Professor Extraordinary at Stellenbosch University, Honorary Professor of Sociology at Warwick University, and a member of the United Nations Roster of Global Experts. He was the recipient of the British Sociological Association’s Distinguished Service to British Sociology Award in 2023. He is the author or co-author of eighteen books and editor or co-editor of a further six. He is also Series Editor of two book series.

In this intellectually rigorous and emotionally resonant conversation, Professors Jacqueline Rose, Vasti Roodt, Jaco Barnard-Naudé, and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela examine what it means to “think without banisters” in the spirit of Hannah Arendt. Roodt reflects on Arendt’s call for unending, solitary thought as a practice of ethical responsibility, while Barnard-Naudé traces how Arendt’s idea of the banality of evil has become spectacular in today’s media-saturated political landscape. Rose brings a psychoanalytic and political lens to bear on Zionism, affect, and the destructiveness of “impotent bigness.” Gobodo-Madikizela grounds the discussion in South African experience, particularly the lessons and limits of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A powerful audience engagement section expands the conversation to include poetry, witnessing, and the importance of memory as political resistance. Together, the panellists issue a challenge to scholars and citizens alike: to think critically, act justly, and imagine new forms of moral repair.PROF JACQUELINE ROSE is a leading scholar at Birkbeck, University of London, internationally recognized for her groundbreaking contributions to feminist theory, psychoanalysis, and literary criticism.PROF VASTI ROODT is a distinguished philosopher at Stellenbosch University, whose research navigates the intersections of political thought, ethics, and intellectual history.PROF JACO BARNARD-NAUDÉ is a critical legal theorist and professor of jurisprudence at the University of Cape Town, exploring the complexities of law, power, and justice in contemporary society.

In this episode, we engage with Professor Mays Imad's transformative lecture, Addressing Continuities of Trauma in Higher Education: Fostering Equity and Intergenerational Wellbeing. A neuroscientist and educator, Prof Imad seamlessly combines personal anecdotes, cutting-edge research, and student narratives to explore the profound impact of trauma on academic spaces. Drawing from her own experiences growing up in Baghdad and her journey as an educator, she highlights how the 2020 pandemic made trauma more visible, exposing its collective and systemic dimensions. Moderated by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, the conversation delves into the physiological effects of trauma, the role of institutional courage in fostering resilience, and the importance of empathy and love as guiding principles in education. Prof Imad’s call for educators to reimagine their roles as catalysts for healing and transformation offers an inspiring vision for a more humane higher education system. Through thoughtful engagement with the audience, Prof Imad challenges traditional approaches to education, urging educators to recognise the ancestral wisdom students bring into classrooms. She emphasises that true resilience stems from supportive systems, not individual endurance, and advocates for rethinking academic spaces as environments for growth, healing, and connection. This episode is a powerful reminder of education’s potential to transcend its academic purpose, becoming a force for care and societal transformation. Tune in for an enlightening conversation that will inspire educators, students, and leaders to embrace a more compassionate and inclusive vision for higher learning. Mays Imad Dr Mays Imad’s academic journey began at the University of Michigan–Dearborn, where she pursued philosophy and minored in chemistry. She earned a doctoral degree in cellular & clinical neurobiology, with a minor in biomedical sciences, from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona’s Department of Neuroscience, she joined Pima Community College (PCC), teaching a variety of biology-related subjects. During her tenure at PCC, she founded their Teaching and Learning Center (TLC). Currently an associate professor at Connecticut College, Dr. Imad is interested in understanding the social determinants of student wellbeing and success and conducts research on equity pedagogy. Her work reflects a deep commitment to equity and justice in and through education. With fervor, she advocates for institutions to pay close attention to intergenerational trauma and to prioritize healing and wellbeing. She is a Gardner Institute Fellow, AAC&U Senior STEM Fellow, and a Mind and Life Institute Fellow.

In this episode, Professor Kopano Ratele and Dr. Sophia Sanan engage in a profound dialogue on the intersections of African art, black subjectivity, and African psychology. They explore the challenges of racialized structures within aesthetic and identity theories, particularly against the backdrop of South Africa's colonial legacy. The conversation investigates the radical potential of African psychology for black students, the need to reframe African art as part of the broader art world, and the transformative power of creativity and decolonial thought in redefining African identities and knowledge systems. Kopano Ratele Kopano Ratele is professor of psychology at the University of Stellenbosch and head of the Stellenbosch Centre for Critical and Creative Thought. He is the former director of the SAMRC-Unisa’s Masculinity and Health Research Unit and former research professor at the Unisa where he ran the Transdisciplinary African Psychologies Programme. Ratele was a member of the second Ministerial Committee on Transformation of South African Universities, former chairperson of Sonke Gender Justice, and past president of the Psychological Society of South Africa. He is on the national advisory board for the Future Professors Programme. Ratele has published extensively and his latest books are Why Men Hurt Women and Other Reflections on Love, Violence and Masculinity (2022) and The World Looks Like This From Here: Thoughts on African Psychology (2019). Sophia O Sanan Dr Sophia Olivia Sanan (nee Rosochacki) holds a master’s degree in Sociology (from the Universities of Freiburg, Germany; Jawaharlal Nehru University, India and the University of Cape Town, 2014) and a PhD in Sociology through the University of Cape Town (2024). Her doctoral dissertation investigated politics of identity, loss and heritage through a study of the African art collection at the Iziko South African National Gallery. She has a professional background in African cultural policy development, education and art related research and has taught university students in South Africa, as well as travelling academic programs in Uganda, the USA, Brazil and India. Since late 2020, she has worked with 12 museums in Africa, South America and South Asia, exploring ideas and practices of museology from Southern perspectives. She publishes on themes related to museology in the Global South; race and arts education; race, inequality and visual culture. Resources: https://www.iziko.org.za/news/masterpiece-of-the-month-johannes-phokela/

In this episode, Professor Homi Bhabha engages in a conversation with acclaimed artist William Kentridge. Their dialogue revolves around Kentridge's latest project, "The Great YES, The Great No," a chamber opera set amidst a surreal 1941 sea voyage. They examine the thematic underpinnings of surrealism, fragmentation, and social dialogue in Kentridge's work, shedding light on his collaborative artistic process. Kentridge reveals his inspiration from historical moments and his approach to creating cohesive narratives from fragmented texts. The conversation delves deep into the universality of questions posed by Kentridge's art, touching on themes of migration, colonialism, and the ongoing quest for social justice. This episode explores art's role in reflecting and shaping our understanding of the world. HOMI K. BHABHA Professor Homi K. Bhabha is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. He was founding director of Harvard University’s Mahindra Humanities Center and director of the Harvard Humanities Center. He has received numerous awards and distinguished honorary professorships, including Extraordinary Professor affiliated with AVReQ, as reported in the Harvard Crimson here. Professor Bhabha is the author of numerous works exploring postcolonial theory, cultural change and power, contemporary art, and cosmopolitanism. His book Location of Culture has recently been reprinted as a Routledge Classic and has been translated into seven languages. He has written an introduction to a new translation of Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. WILLIAM KENTRIDGE From his base in Johannesburg, where he was born, William Kentridge works across artistic mediums, often with dozens of collaborators, to make art that is grounded in history, literature, politics and science. His work has been seen in museums and galleries internationally since the 1990s and can be found in private collections and institutions across the globe. He has directed operas for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan, the English National Opera in London, the Salzburg Festival and others. His original works for stage combine performance, projections, shadow play, voice and music. Kentridge is the recipient of honorary doctorates from several universities including Yale, Columbia and the University of London. He has been awarded the Kyoto Prize (2010), the Princesa de Asturias Award in 2017 and the Praemium Imperiale Prize in 2019

Rabia Abba Omar is a researcher and curator working towards a MA in Visual Studies from Stellenbosch University’s Visual Arts Department. She likes to think with/of the ocean, memory, archives, and is currently exploring the body as an archive of violence. She is a MA Fellow of Imagining Futures of Un/Archived Pasts project (Exeter University) and based at AVReQ. She holds a MA in Heritage Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand, where she was part of the Oceanic Humanities of the Global South and is an alumni of the UnSchool of Disruptive Design’s Emerging Leaders Fellowship. In this episode, Rabia speaks about her research on the slave ship São José, expanded and developed upon through the AVReQ reading group sessions. This paper was recently presented at the South African Visual Arts Historians conference at DUT and is based on a section of Rabia’s MA Research Report completed while I was at Wits. On 27 December 1794, the São José Paquete d’Africa wrecked just off the shores of Cape Town. Battling the rough winds, high swells and stuck between two reefs, the crew set about to rescue the 512 enslaved people held in the ship’s hold. Despite this 212 enslaved people succumbed as the ship broke into pieces. This paper looks at the ghostly echoes of the concreted shackles found on the São José wreck site. It uses the stone-like concretions of the shackles to explore how we can begin to consider human and more than human assemblages that lie below the waterline and how we can use these to think about their hard and violent histories and the legacies, and objects, that remain with us. Former ConCourt Judge and anti-apartheid activist lawyer, Justice Albie Sachs also joined us for this event. What was special about a visit from Justice Sachs this time around is the fact that the São José slave ship was discovered in front of his home in the oceans of Clifton/Camps Bay Beach. In 2015, Justice Sachs also hosted a special event at his home to commemorate the enslaved people that died in the shipwreck.

Andrea Gullotta is lecturer in Russian at the University of Palermo. He has also worked for the University of Glasgow, the Ca' Foscari University of Venice and the University of Padua, where he obtained his PhD. He is co-editor of the journal AvtobiografiЯ, which deals with life-writing and the representation of the self in Russian culture. His main research area is Gulag literature. He has authored dozen of works on Gulag literature, Gulag poetry and Gulag culture.

Professor Heidi Grunebaum is a writer and academic, and Director of the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape. Her work focusses on the afterlives of genocide, war and forced displacement, and on the relationship between art and politics. She is author of Memorialising the Past: Everyday Life in South Africa after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2011), co-editor of Uncontained: Opening the Community Art Project Archive (2012) and Athone in Mind (2017) amongst other writings. With Mark J. Kaplan, she made the documentary film, The Village Under the Forest (2013) on the Palestinian Nakba. She is currently making a second documentary film with Kaplan set in Germany on weaponization of Jewish memory politics.