People
Committee Members
Ingrid Fiske
Ingrid Fiske (Chair) is a Professor at the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies at the University of Cape Town. She is well-known as a poet (under the name Ingrid de Kok) and has published four volumes of poetry, most recently Seasonal Fires: New and Selected Poems. Her work, which has been translated into eight languages, has appeared in anthologies around the world as well as in many Canadian journals. She has also published literary reviews and essays on South African cultural issues, and edited journals such as the World Literature Today issue on South African literature in transition. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards and fellowships, including the Herman Charles Bosman Award for English Literature, a Rockefeller Fellowship at Bellagio, Italy, and a Civitella Fellowship in Umbria, Italy. She did her MA at Queens University in Kingston Ontario, and lived in Canada for seven years. In 2004 she was a visiting writer at Capilano College in Vancouver and in Sept/Oct 2006 she gave poetry readings and talks at universities in the United States and Canada.
David Kaplan
David Kaplan (Vice-Chair) is Professor of Business and Government Relations at the University of Cape Town, with extensive experience in working with and in government. He has worked for the Department of Science and Technology (DST), and for Trade and Industry (DTI)) where he was also Chief Economist in 2000–2003. He is currently Chief Economist (part-time) in the Department of Economic Development and Tourism in the Western Cape. He has served for four years as a member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI). With support from the IRD in France, he established the South African Network of Skills Abroad (SANSA), a network to engage South Africans located abroad in utilising their skills to support development in South Africa. In 1994 Professor Kaplan founded the Science and Technology Research Centre (STPRC) at UCT, with the support of the IDRC (Canada). Together with two colleagues, he also established the Development Policy Research Unit at UCT. He was Director of the STPRC and the DPRU for much of the period 1995–2000, before joining the dti. He focuses on policy-oriented research, particularly in the fields of industrial and technology policy and his critical concern is how government and business collectively can develop policies and strategies that best enhance development. Research on innovation within South African companies and how this is affected by the policy environment is a central thrust of his research and teaching. He and his family spent a sabbatical in Toronto in 1998–1999 and his connection with Canadian academics is extensive.
Medee Rall
Medeé Rall (Secretary/Treasurer) is Director of the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies at the University of Cape Town. She previously worked at Iziko Museums of Cape Town as Public Relations and Press Officer and as the Co-ordinator of Publications and is the Secretary and also honorary life member of the Friends of the South African Museum. Her research area is adult education, life-long learning and heritage studies, and she has edited many publications on heritage topics and written popular articles on the subject. She has a particular interest in adult literacy and non-formal learning in the heritage sector. Her research towards her PhD degree focuses on museum studies.
Antjie Krog
Antjie Krog is a poet, writer and journalist. She has published twelve volumes of poetry in Afrikaans, two volumes of verse for children and two non-fiction books in English: Country of my Skull and A change of Tongue. Country of my Skull was named as one of the top 100 books written by Africans in the twentieth century. Her work has received many prestigious international awards and fellowships, including an award from the Hiroshima Foundation for Peace and Culture, the Hertzog Prize, the Alan Paton award for non-fiction and the Olive Schreiner award for prose. She teaches at the University of the Western Cape. She was the chief reporter for radio on the South African Truth Commission (TRC) and is a regular participant in debates and conferences on the TRC. Her most recent book is a volume of poetry, Verweerskrif, (in Afrikaans), Body Bereft (in English version). She is interested in translation theory and practice, arranges poetry readings and workshops and other cultural events in South Africa and has given readings and talks throughout the world, including Canada.
Lungisile Ntsebeza
Lungisile Ntsebeza is a Professor of Sociology and head of the Land and Governance Research Group at the University of Cape Town, and Chief Research Specialist in the Democracy and Governance Research Programme of the HSRC. He has been awarded the National Land Reform and Democracy Research Chair. Since 1995, Professor Ntsebeza has focused on the South African land reform programme, including the thorny issue of democratisation in South Africa’s countryside. This research culminated in his book, Democracy Compromised: Chiefs and the Politics of Land in South Africa, released internationally in 2005 by Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden and in 2006 South Africa by the HSRC Press. He has co-edited, with Ruth Hall, The Land Question in South Africa: the Challenge of Transformation and Redistribution, HSRC Press, 2006. Professor Ntsebeza also works and supervises students on themes around agrarian movements and on land and poverty in southern Africa, and is interested in Canadian land claims and land policy issues.
Crain Soudien
Crain Soudien is a Professor in and Director of the School of Education at the University of Cape Town and teaches in the fields of Sociology and History of Education. He has published over eighty articles, reviews, and book chapters in the areas of race, culture, educational policy, comparative education, educational change, public history and popular culture. He is the co-editor of two books on District Six, Cape Town, and another on comparative education. He was educated at the University of Cape Town and holds a PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is involved in a number of local, national and international social and cultural organisations including Goedgedacht Forum, The Cape Town Festival, The District Six Museum and The Krakadouw Trust. Professor Soudien has taught at various North American universities and at York University in Toronto. He is interested in comparative notions of multiculturalism and cultural identity.
Martin Nicol
Martin Nicol is an economist and Practice Leader: Economic Policy and Research at ODA, a multi-disciplinary consultancy that specialises in urban sector reform, business strategy and institution development. Martin was the Senior Trade Commissioner and Consul (Trade) for South Africa in Toronto from 1997–2000. In this role, he organised trade shows promoting SA mining equipment and wine in Canada and participated in networking fora to enhance relationships between Canada and SA. Previously, he was head of collective bargaining at the National Union of Mineworkers and was on sabbatical in Canada with the United Steelworkers in 1993/4. He undertook field research on worker participation in mines in Canada and used this material in a NUM training course on international approaches to worker participation in management. He held broad positions on the Canadian Friends of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (board member 1998-2000); Canada – South Africa Chamber of Business (board member 1997-2000) and Canadian Council of South Africans (board member 1998-2000). In 2000 he published Mining leads the Way, Rainbow, August 2000 (SA High Commission, Ottawa) – an article on the leading role of the mining sector in economic relationships between Canada and SA.
Harry Garuba
Harry Garuba is an Associate Professor at the Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, with a joint appointment in the English Department. In the recent past, he has been a Mellon Fellow at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin and a Mandela Fellow at the WEB Du Bois Institute, Harvard University.
His publications include Masked Discourse: Dramatic Representation and Generic Transformation in Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests Modern Drama (Fall 2002), Mapping the Land/Body/Subject: Colonial and Postcolonial Geographies in African Narrative (Alternation, 2002), Explorations in Animist Materialism: Notes on Reading/Writing African Literature, Culture, and Society (Public Culture, Spring 2003), The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Re-Figuring Trends in Recent Nigerian Poetry (English in Africa, May 2005).
David Hornsby - committee member
Shirley Walters
Shirley Walters is a leading figure in adult and continuing education in South Africa, recognized internationally for her pioneering work. In 1985 she was founding director of the Centre for Adult and Continuing Education (CACE) and, in 2000, the Division for Lifelong Learning (DLL), at University of Western Cape (UWC). The DLL works across faculties, to assist with the implementation of the lifelong learning mission which includes providing access to higher education for many adult learners.
She has been rated by the National Research Foundation as a B rated scientist, which is a peer review process which acknowledges her as an internationally recognised researcher. Her publications, amongst others, include edited books on Globalisation, adult education and training: impacts and issues (1997) and with Linzi Manicom Gender in Popular Education: Methods for Empowerment(1996), both published by ZED Books, UK; and most recently with Linda Cooper Learning/Work: Turning Work and Lifelong Learning inside out, (2009) HSRC Press, Cape Town.
She received her doctorate from the University of Cape Town in 1986. She was inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education (IACE) Hall of Fame in 2005, which is a USA based initiative, and awarded a doctorate (HC) by University of Linkoping, Sweden , in recognition of her contribution to adult education internationally. Shirley Walters bio & publications