“Uhuru" means liberation in kiSwahili. It's also a befitting name for Dr Uhuru Phalafala, who is playing a key role in helping to free the minds of young students at Stellenbosch University (SU). Dr Phalafala is only 34 years old and has already achieved a lot in her academic career, while also lecturing in the English Department at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of SU.
She is a fellow of the University of Michigan African Presidential Scholars (2018), a recipient of the African Humanities Program Postdoctoral Award (2019) from the American Council of Learned Societies and the principal investigator of an inter-institutional Andrew Mellon-funded five-year project geared towards decolonising the curricula in higher education in South Africa.
“I've always been passionate about curriculum development since I was significantly traumatised by both primary and high school learning. In university, the South African literary history taught to me also heightened my calling to address overt biases and blind spots in our education system," says Dr Phalafala.
Growing up in Polokwane, Limpopo, Dr Phalafala learned from an early age that she could shape the world through her imagination, which ultimately led her into the literary field. “I am in awe of the sheer force of the imagination in moulding alternative realities, which in turn has visceral and very real consequences in the 'real' world. It is the power of imagination that has always pushed me to question everything. This has had tremendous effects on my development, until today."
Since her undergraduate years, Dr Phalafala has always been interested in uncovering unknown South African literature exiled by the spectre of apartheid. She believes that the process of repatriating South African literature from exile will be key to decolonising the curricula in higher education, addressing the gaps in our knowledge system and repatriating African literature that has been lost in academia.
“In my training as a literary scholar and, in particular, in South African literary history, I often came across a certain narrative of our cultural production that presented a robust productivity by black artists since the beginning of the 20th century. However, I was made to believe that the decade of the 1960s was a 'silent decade' for black literary production. I found that of course, it is not sufficient to label the 1960s a silent era of black literary production only because our national literature at the time was deterritorialised. I started to search for that literature outside of its national borders and that is how I came across the important work of Keorapetse Kgositsile, amongst other notable figures."
Dr Phalafala has been awarded the National Research Foundation Sabbatical Grant to relieve her of teaching duties for two years in order to write a book on the recently deceased South African National Poet Laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile. “I feel privileged to have been awarded research leave – time that will allow me to consolidate my personal research on Kgositsile, work on the larger project of recovering exile texts and invest time in the digital project that is tied to the project of South African culture in exile."
Dr Phalafala hopes that her teaching and research of African literature and passion for curricula development will inspire her students to follow the calling of their hearts as well, identify their own struggles and have enough courage to confront them squarely.
Photo supplied by Uhuru Phalafala.
