Historical Trauma and Transformation
Welcome to Stellenbosch University

Russia-South Africa Roundtable Programme

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Aesthetics of Cruelty: Representations of Violence   and Dehumanisation in Russia and South Africa

9 – 10 December 2020

Aesthetics of Cruelty will engage an interdisciplinary lens to explore the intersection of the politics of memory and the arts in the context of ongoing debates about histories of repression and violence, and more specifically the traumatic pasts of the Soviet Gulags and apartheid. Focusing on the transgenerational repercussions of these violent histories, this project is part of our interest in both scholarly research and public scholarship on the representation of past crimes through film, visual arts, photography, performing arts, and narrative representation of stories of suffering. The colloquium will be organised along three categories: (a) trauma narratives and bearing witness; (b) visual arts and photography; (c) performance art and exhibitions.

View speakers' bios here: http://www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/arts/historical-trauma-transformation/Pages/Russia-South-Africa-Roundtable-Speakers.aspx

Programme

9 December 2020

SESSION 1

REGISTER HERE: https://maties.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GgjCdt_kQAKZgsKg_X_aNQ

CHAIR: Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela

12:00 – 12:15 PM

NB: GMT+2

WELCOME

 

Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
(Research Chair, Historical Trauma and Transformation, Stellenbosch University)

 

Prof Anastasia Mitrofanova
(Research Fellow, Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation)

12:15 – 13:15 PM

NB: GMT+2

OPENING KEYNOTE LECTURE

 

Prof Nanci Adler
(Memory, History and Transitional Justice, NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies/University of Amsterdam)

 

Title: "Representing, or Re-conceptualizing Suffering? Case Studies of the Narratives of Gulag Survivors"

 

Respondent: Prof Katya Tolstaya
(Director of the Institute for the Academic Study of Eastern Christianity (INaSEC) at Vrije University, Amsterdam)

 

Virtual Audience Discussion

13:15 – 14:00 PM

NB: GMT+2

LUNCH BREAK

   

SESSION 2

REGISTER HERE: https://maties.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_cjOn18j0S0W6G6SdQyadqQ

CHAIR: Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela

14:00 – 15:30 PM

NB: GMT+2

PANEL PRESENTATION: Curator in Dialogue with Artist Scholars

 

Title: After Fire"

 

Greer Valley
(Lecturer, Wits School of Arts, Doctoral Candidate in Art Historical Studies at Michaelis School of Fine Art)

 

Stephané Conradie
(Lecturer, Visual Arts Department, Stellenbosch University)

 

Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja
(Performer, Educator, PhD Artist at the Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies at the University of Cape Town)

 

Virtual Audience Discussion

15:30 – 16:15 PM

NB: GMT+2

CLOSING KEYNOTE LECTURE

 

Prof Björn Krondorfer
(Director, Martin-Springer Institute and Endowed Professor of Comparative Religious Studies, Northern Arizona University)

  Title: "All That Is Left: Memory Objects and the Aesthetics of Cruelty"
 

Virtual Audience Discussion

10 December 2020

SESSION 3

REGISTER HERE: https://maties.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HSVYXYVPTYSlmOE7cCNLuw

CHAIR: Dr. Melike Fourie

12:00 – 12:50 PM

NB: GMT+2

OPENING KEYNOTE LECTURE

 

Prof Siona O'Connell
(School of Fine Arts, Pretoria University)

 

Title: "What Might We Become?  Understanding Catastrophe from Slavery to Post-apartheid"

 

Virtual Audience Discussion

12:50 – 14:15 PM

NB: GMT+2

PANEL PRESENTATION

  CHAIR: Prof Anastasia Mitrofanova
 

Prof Anna Suvorova
(Department of Culture Studies, Perm State National Research University, Russia)

 

Title: “Outsider Art and Soviet Psychiatry: Alexander Lobanov's Case"

  Dr Andrea Gullotta
(Lecturer, School of Modern Languages & Cultures, University of Glasgow)
 

Title: "Where is Hell"? Representational Challenges of the Virtual Exhibition "Beauty in Hell Culture in the Gulag"

  Pfunzo Sidogi
(Lecturer, Department of Fine and Studio Arts, Tshwane University of Technology)
 

Title: “'Apartheid Concentration Camps': The Brutalities of Urban Segregation in the Work of Black South African Artists"

 

Virtual Audience Discussion

14:15 – 14:30 PM

NB: GMT+2

CLOSING REMARKS: Brief Reflections and Acknowledgments

 

Dr. Melike Fourie
(Senior Researcher, Historical Trauma and Transformation, Stellenbosch University)

 

Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
(Research Chair, Historical Trauma and Transformation, Stellenbosch University)