South African Association of Canadian Studies

Launch of the South African Association of Canadian Studies – 7 November 2005

Diversity, multiple loyalties and citizenship: Canadian and South African experiences.

This public lecture to inaugurate SAACS was given by philosopher, historian and author John Ralston Saul. He also gave other presentations while in Cape Town and Johannesburg, including seminars at the Centre for Conflict Resolution and at the University of the Western Cape.

John Ralston Saul is an eminent Canadian. He was born in Ottawa and studied at McGill University and the University of London, where he obtained his PhD in 1972. His numerous publications address contemporary topics such as cultural diversity, globalisation, citizen state, and the crisis of modern power. He has received many awards, including Companion in the Order of Canada and the Pablo Neruda Medal of Honour. He has had a growing impact on political and economic thought in many countries. Declared a “prophet” by TIME magazine, he is included in the prestigious Utne Reader’s list of the world’s 100 leading thinkers and visionaries. Former President of the Canadian Centre of International PEN, he is a patron of Engineers without Borders, the Canadian Landmine Foundation, and a 1995 Massey Lecturer.

His latest book, The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World, confronts the reigning economic ideology known as globalization. Far from being an inevitable force, Saul believes globalization has already met its demise and that citizens are reasserting their national interests in both positive and destructive ways.

Public lecture – 31 March 2005

Narrating identity: the in-between world of MG Vassanji

Prize-winning Canadian writer MG Vassanji gave a reading and talk to 150 people on the topic above. His novels deal with the influence of the colonial past on the individual lives and choices of people migrating between India, East Africa, Europe, Canada and the USA.

His first novel, The Gunny Sack (1989), was awarded the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize – best debut novel in the African region. He has since won the Canadian Giller Prize for his novels, The Book of Secrets (1994) and The In-between World of Vikram Lall (2004).