Faculty of Humanities: Sol Plaatje University

Please join us for the commencement of the Heritage Month Activities!!

STEP INTO HISTORY

Join the Faculty of Humanities and Dit is ’n Noord-Kaap Ding (D**K) for the 2025 Heritage Month Celebration.

📍 Highlight: The |haru oms (Nama hut) – an ancient mobile home of the Nama people, reflecting the fluidity of culture, language & tradition across SA.

🎶 Expect cultural performances, films, workshops, panels & more!

📅 29 Sept – 2 Oct 2025
📍 Humanities Building, Central Campus

Let’s celebrate our shared heritage together.

Read more about this event here: https://bit.ly/4nneeJL

⛏️ 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗨𝗽: 𝗦𝗣𝗨 𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗸 🏞️🧠🌿

Our Honours and 3rd-year Archaeology students recently took part in an unforgettable Field School at Wonderwerk Cave in the Northern Cape! 🏞️🧗‍♀️

It isn't just any site—Wonderwerk Cave is a Grade 1 National Heritage Site and preserves the world’s longest continuous archaeological record of human occupation, stretching back an incredible 2.6 million years! 🌍🤯 It's also home to the earliest known evidence of controlled fire use anywhere on Earth, dating back to ~1 million years ago! 🔥🔍

Students gained hands-on excavation experience and collaborated with an international team from the University of Toronto, learning first-hand what it takes to study the deep human past.

We’re proud to offer our students such world-class, local opportunities right here in the Northern Cape Province! 🌄👣



📸: Kelita Shadrach

📢 Sociology Tuesdays Seminar 📢

We’re thrilled to welcome Dr. Miriam Driessen to Sociology Tuesdays on 25 March 2025!

She will be sharing insights on “Pidgin Play: Linguistic Subversion on Chinese-Run Construction Sites in Ethiopia.”

Miriam Driessen is a social anthropologist. She studied at the University of Amsterdam, the Berlin Institute of Technology, and the University of Oxford, and previously taught at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies.

Miriam’s research explores Chinese-led development from below, looking at issues such as migration, labour, gender and sexuality, language, and, more recently, law. She is the author of Tales of Hope, Tastes of Bitterness: Chinese Road Builders in Ethiopia and the essay The Restless Earth: Rural China in Transition.

📅 Date: 25 March 2025

📍 Venue: Meeting Room 154, Humanities Building, SPU

⏰ Time: 14h00 – 15h00

You are invited to the first Faculty of Humanities Seminar Series Talk for 2024.

Dr Simbarashe Gukurume (Senior Lecturer: Sociology) will be presenting a seminar with the title: "Mobile Money, crypto-currency Ponzi schemes and the temporalities and socialities of waiting".

Please join us on Wednesday 6 March, 12:30-14:00, in Classroom 1, Heritage Studies & Humanities-Building (C010).

Join us for the book launch of Lynthia Julius's new Afrikaans poetry collection, Kinderlê, on Wednesday 6 March here on campus.

On Monday 12 February, three of our MA students in Afrikaans, Carl and Sisca Julius and Bridgette Brandt, together with our deputy vice-chancellor (Teaching & Learning), Prof Debra Meyer, represented SPU at the Afrikaanse Taalberaad (Afrikaans Language Summit) at the Johannesburg Country Club. The summit was hosted by the Dagbreek Trust.

Many Afrikaans language activists, including VivA (Virtual Institute for Afrikaans), the Afrikaans Education Network (AON), MOS online home school, Maroela Media, Heinrich Wyngaard (presenter of Klop! and chairperson of the Cape Forum), and academics from Wits , SPU, NWU and CPUT participated in the summit.

Discussions were held about the state of Afrikaans today, and what is being done to promote the language in different spheres such as education, tertiary institutions, and the media. Discussions were also held about the state of Afrikaans in South African schools (specifically parallel medium schools) and the BELA legislation. Input was also given on the state of Afrikaans at South African universities and private institutions such as Sol-Tech and Akademia.

Sisca spoke about problems regarding Afrikaans literature within the curriculum for Afrikaans First Additional Language. Bridgette spoke about the opportunities that SPU offers to Afrikaans students from the Northern Cape. Carl gave input on the importance of including Afrikaans varieties in the school syllabus as part of mother-tongue education.

On Monday 11 December 2023 Dr Frederick Botha, Lecturer in Afrikaans within the Department of Languages & Communication, graduated from Stellenbosch University with a Masters in Creative Writing. For his Masters Dr Botha wrote a mini thesis on the theme of abjection in the short story collection "Bloedfamilie" (2012) by MS Burger, and his own creative manuscript: a collection of Afrikaans short stories titled, "Seuns wat weet".

On Friday 8 December 2023 Dr Simbarashe Gukurume, Senior Lecturer in Sociology within the Department of Social Sciences, received the Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research. This prestigious award is based on Dr Gukurume's remarkable research achievements in 2022/2023 and the recognition he received both nationally and internationally.

Congratulations, Dr Gukurume! The School of Humanities are proud to have a researcher of your calibre as one of our academics.

VICE-CHANCELLOR’S AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH

It is with distinct honour we announce that Dr Simbarashe Gukurume has been awarded the Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research. Dr Gukurume exhibited an exceptional level of dedication towards his field and institution through remarkable research achievements in 2022; nationally he was bestowed with recognition due to his inclusion into the future professor’s program while internationally received high acclaim from prestigious fellowship granted by American Council of Learned Society Carnegie Corporation specifically for African Humanities researchers. Congratulations on your incredible success, Dr Gukurume!

The fifth Humanities Seminar Series Online Talk will take place tomorrow, Wednesday 6 December at 13:00 via MS Teams. The speaker is Ms Anaïs Empereur-Buisson from the University of Bordeaux.

As part of her Masters research project, this work addresses the conservation of Wonderwerk Cave’s paintings (Northern Cape Province, South Africa). A condition assessment of the paintings was made, by identifying and recording the different weathering forms and their relations to the rock art. To do so, the rock art area was studied in its entirety, from its geological setting to the wall facies. The different weathering forms impacting the rock art were identified, using chemical analysis when necessary. The relations between the weathering forms and the rock art were recorded in detail in two chosen study zones. In parallel, the weathering factors in the cave were monitored, in order to understand and quantify their impact on the walls. This work enabled her to calculate a dangerousness index, and to make recommendations regarding conservation measures and future monitoring of the cave.

To join, please click on the following link: https://tinyurl.com/5hbvafd7