The Colloquium is a biannual public forum where a particular, relevant issue is examined and discussed. Its purpose is to give students a chance to participate in an informed, open and exploratory dialogue. By using this platform, we satisfy an increasingly urgent need to develope a critical conscience on contemporary discourses and contested issues, often with reference to the role of literature and other artistic forms in our complicated company. The opportunities also serve to celebrate that it is possible to discuss any difficult matter with informal grace, by maintaining self-respect, respect for others and a courteous, witty rhetorical style. Our invited guests hail from a broad spectrum of writers, thinkers, musicians and activists from within and outside Stellenbosch University. The format ranges from presentations to lectures to panel discussions and extensive personal interviews.
| Colloquium 2022
Around the corner
Four
Afrikaans writers, Jolyn Phillips, Alettie van den Heever, Ryan Pedro
and SJ Naude discuss how they envision South(ern) Africa in 2050.
Will the first 50 years of this century be as dramatic and as world altering as the first 50 of the twentieth century were? What will our world look like politically, culturally, economically, ecologically, socially? What languages will we use in 2050? What will the landscape look like? In Milnerton, Mitchells Plain and Mossel Bay? What about the gap between rich and poor? Will we have loadshedding 24/7, or will energy generation and provision as we know it today be a relic from the past?
Join our writers as they present their critical yet playful visions in prose and poetry.
Date: 4 October 2022 Time: 19:00 for 19:30
Place: Fismer Hall, Conservatorium RSVP:  Dr Alfred Schaffer |
Previous colloquia![]()
| 2016 | The Anthropocene and climate change
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| 2015 | Build your own Department of Afrikaans
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| 2014 | Mens dier ding. Alfred Schaffer on his poetic versatility. A conversation with Marlene van Niekerk
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| 2012 | Johnathan Zapiro in conversation with Marlene van Niekerk
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| 2010 | A letter to South Africa: Poets write a poem as “answer” to Allen Ginsberg’s poem “America”, but with reference to South Africa
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| 2009 | Larkin in Afrikaans: An experiment in translation
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| 2008 | Mystic Boere: Lyrics in Afrikaans rock music
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