You are invited to a Public Dialogue at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein:
“South Africans Speak about the Crisis of Moral Leadership”
Speakers include some of South Africa’s most thoughtful social commentators and a community activist:
- Barney Pityana
- Prince Mashele
- Pierre de Vos
- Faeza Meyer
Date: 7 December 2012
Time: 18h00 – 19h30
Venue: Centenary Complex, The Reitz Hall, University of the Free State
This public dialogue forms part of an international conference taking place at the University of the Free State titled “Engaging the Other: Breaking Intergenerational Cycles of Repetition”
An interdisciplinary group of scholars, experts and practitioners will gather at UFS from 5 - 8 December. The conference intends to open new avenues of inquiry into the generational effects on communities that have experienced extreme violence.
According to conference coordinator, Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, The Engaging the Other conference is an attempt to "draw from the global trends of reconciliation and deepen our understanding of the elements necessary to develop empathy between victims/survivors and perpetrators".
Speakers include:
Jonathon Jansen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State
Opening address
Mark Solms, Head of Department of Psychology at the University of Cape Town.
When Solms inherited the family wine estate in Franschhoek, he also inherited the farm workers, a consequence of apartheid. These people were descendants of slaves and the families had worked on the farm for more than three centuries. His presentation takes on the dialogue with the workers on his wine estate—digging into the past—in order to investigate the hidden history of the land he inherited and understand the wounds inflicted by his forebears.
Marguerite Barankitse, survivor of the Rwandan genocide
Marguerite holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Louvain-la-Neuve in France. She has received several awards and distinctions for her work for her work aimed at transforming the lives of Hutu and Tutsi children affected by war. Among these are the highly prestigious humanitarian prize, the Opus Prize, the UNESCO Prize, and the World's Children's Prize. Marguerite will be in conversation with Desmond Tutu.
Jessica Benjamin, on the faculty of New York University's Postdoctoral Psychology Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
Jessica has made significant contributions to the concept of intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis. More recently she has directed a project on inter-group dialogue in the Middle East for Palestinian and Israeli mental health professionals and written about collective trauma and witnessing.
You are invited to attend the conference in full, or to attend those sessions of interest to you. Download the full programme here: http://www.engagingtheother.co.za/full-programme.html
Please RSVP to Andrea Kirk andrea@hwb.co.za
Please see press release attached for a more detailed overview of the conference.
For more information visit:
www.engagingtheother.co.za
Facebook: Engaging the Other
Twitter: @EngagingUFS
Conference main hashtag: #ETO
