Upcoming Conferences and Meetings

University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

The Es'kia Mphahlele Postgraduate Colloquium and Arts Forum is an annual event initiated in tribute to renowned writer and intellectual, Es'kia Mphahlele, who had a life-long interest in the training and mentoring of emerging artists and scholars.

Es'kia Mphahlele was one of South Africa's literary giants; a prolific writer and academic, he was also an arts enthusiast and African humanist. He dedicated his life to not only his own work but also to recognising and uplifting African art, promoting education and as a human rights activist. His death has meant a profound loss for South Africa, Africa and the world. This colloquium is an effort to honor and celebrate his life.

This year's Key note will be addressed by acclaimed scholar and writer Imraan Coovadia, winner of the Sunday Times Award for fiction in 2010 for his novel High Low In-between. Professor Coovadia teaches in the English Department at the University of Cape Town. He was born in Durban, in 1970, educated at Harvard College, where he studied with J.M. Coetzee, and then at Yale where he earned a doctorate in English Literature.

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Potchefstroom, North-West, South Africa

This conference will provide academics and education practitioners from different countries involved in open learning and distance education an opportunity to meet and exchange ideas on aspects regarding policy, theory, ethics and practice.

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Johannesburg, South Africa

The two day conference will focus on for the conceptualization, design, development, evaluation and application of innovative ways to use Information and Communication Technologies in the rural domain.

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Lisbon, Portugal 

How does Africa look at its past, its present, its future? Rather than wondering about the reality of specific African conceptions of historical time, the CIEA7 proposes to examine the terms by which African societies refer to a transformative vision of the past and the dynamics of the present, in search of visions of the future. Our aim is to see how their visions transcend the particular identities of societies and nations of the continent and evaluate their regional, political and religious variations.

Fifty years after the independence of most African countries, the continent is facing a range of new opportunities for international dialogue. Such new opportunities undermine traditional assumptions that relate to their historical relationship with their former colonizing countries while valuing the nature and variety of their cultural heritage.

Various African societies have found innovative responses to the challenges of globalization, either relating to the fields of trade, politics and culture or to the complex scenarios of economic, environmental and energy crises that have been affecting all humanity. These responses and the accompanying re-readings of the past have been the basis of profound identity shifts that reveal the weaknesses of attempts to apply external models of society and state of European and American origin to African countries.

For the three plenary sessions of the Congress, the Executive Board considers it important to define a set of specific topics focused on recent transformations in African historiography, an analysis of the contemporary dynamics of African states, and conflicting perceptions of the continent's future.

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Leeds, United Kingdom

In the history of every museum there has been a significant engagement with the wider market structures and yet these engagements rarely feature in the interpretation of the history of the objects as we encounter them in the modern museum. The museum has also, since its inception, been involved in the cultural and the economic structures of society. Indeed, museums are now seen as crucial signifiers and influential catalysts in what we now call the ‘cultural economy'. It is therefore appropriate, given the current interest in the commercial aspects of the history of collections and the interest in the museum itself as part of the ‘market', to look anew at the role played by the market in the history of the museum. This innovative conference, one of the first of its kind, focuses on the intersections, the formal and informal spaces where the market and the museum meet and overlap. The papers reflect a wide range of interests and perspectives and bring together leading academics and museum professionals in order to further discussion and debate around this increasingly significant subject. Located at the new Leeds City Museum, the conference will be of interest to academics, museum professionals, and all those who are interested in the history of the museum and its role in society.

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