Briefs

African novelist for Steve Biko lecture

Leading African novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o will deliver the Steve Biko Memorial Lecture in the Jameson Hall on September 12 to mark the 26th anniversary of the death of the South African black consciousness leader.

The topic of the Kenyan-born novelist's lecture will be: Consciousness and the African Renaissance: South Africa in the Black Imagination.

The doors will open at 17h00 for 18h00. To avoid disappointment, those who wish to attend are advised to arrive early.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o, who is director of the International Centre for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine, wears multiple hats as novelist, playwright, theorist, theatre director, editor and academician, with wide interests in theories of language, literature, performance, culture and their interactions with politics.

He burst onto the literary scene as a 24-year old undergraduate with the performance of his play, The Black Hermit, at the National Theatre in Kampala, Uganda in 1962. His novel, Weep Not, Child, was published to critical acclaim in 1964 and was followed by The River Between in 1965 and A Grain of Wheat in 1967.

Banda represents Africa at youth conference

Third-year law student Tendai Banda was the only representative from Africa to attend the fifth International Youth Leadership Conference in the Czech Republic.

Banda, who joined students from over 90 universities across the world in Prague from July 20 to 25, wants to encourage other students, particularly women, to apply to attend next year's conference to swell the ranks of African delegates.

The conference, which is held twice a year (in January and July) in the city, aims to see how student leaders function when they are put together, and how much they understand the state of affairs beyond their own borders. The hope is that from the experience global thinkers are born who will aspire to be nation leaders.

Organised by the Civic Concepts International Group, the event runs over a week and brings together student leaders to work on political issues and international law.

A strong believer in woman's rights and equality, Banda joined the Association of Woman's Rights in Development while part of the SRC delegation that attended the World Summit for Sustainable Development last year.

Through this association, she heard about the Youth Leadership Conference, and applied. Once accepted, she approached the university authorities who agreed to fund her trip, with the Vice-Chancellor's Office, the Student Travel Fund and the International Academic Programmes Office (IAPO) all contributing.

"I want to make students, especially women, aware of the opportunity," she said.

" I believe that women should get into leadership and have a desire to get out there."

Seminar on higher education studies

UCT's Department of Education and Centre for Higher Education Development (CHED) have introduced a series of seminars under the banner Higher Education Studies: Policy and Practice. The aim is to stimulate research, policy development and scholarly work in this area. The next seminar in this series will be presented by Dr Paul Trowler, Reader in Higher Education and head of the educational research department at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. His talk is titled Change Thinking, Change Practice and will take place on September 15 from 13h00-14h00 in the CHED Seminar Room, Level 6, Hlanganani Building, on the upper campus. Contact the co-convenors Rob Moore on tel 650-4074 or Joe Muller on tel 650-2770 for more information.

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