Prof. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela has been named the 2020/2021 Walter Jackson Bate Fellow at Harvard University’s Institute for Advanced Study

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study’s 2020-2021 cohort, was announced on the 22nd of May 2020, including 42 fellows representing six countries. The acceptance rate for the incoming class was 2.8 percent, from a pool of nearly 1,400 applicants.

Radcliffe is planning a virtual fellowship at this time, with the possibility of a residential component, pending decisions on Harvard-wide policies by University leaders, informed by epidemiological models of the spread of COVID-19 in the United States. More information on

More info on Prof. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela's award and multidisciplinary project titled, "Aesthetics of Memory, Narratives of Repair" can be accessed here: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/people/pumla-gobodo-madikizela and https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/05/radcliffe-institute-announces-2020-2021-fellows.

Imagine The Future Through Un/Archived Past

Nancy Rushohora - a senior postdoctoral fellow in Studies in Historical Trauma and Transformation has received a grant to collaborate in a global cross-disciplinary project that seeks to contribute to preventing conflict and building sustainable peace, reducing barriers to capacity sharing and advocating culture to be recognized as a human need. This is a network plus 4 years funding which has been awarded £ 2 million by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). The project will be conducted through a network of expertise from Tanzania, South Africa, Ghana, United Kingdom and Lebanon.

Prof. Elena Isayev from the University of Exeter who will lead the project said "we want to expose the power of which comes with being part of deciding what pasts remain into the future. Not to create one single right story but to understand the value in recognizing and respecting multiple narratives even ones that may contradict each other".

Nancy writes: we intend to valorise multiple voices of individuals, families, groups, government and private archives. In the 19th century, the Benedictine missionaries established their archives in Tanzania to document the history of the people and custodians of the land that was offered to them. These archives have remained closed and the people of Tanzania have not had access to them. This project will create a bridge for these missionary archives to be opened to the public. Together with the archives are the landscape, monuments and people who experienced trauma that was concealed and unacknowledged. With this project and among other things, Nancy intends to produce a documentary film about sites of memory and landscape of trauma (http://trauma-memory-arts.org.za/home-version-2/sites-of-memory/) as a listening tool for stories that have never been heard before and to contribute remedying the trauma induced by colonialism.

Along with Nancy Rushohora (Stellenbosch University) and Elena Isayev (University of Exeter), other co-investigators are Kodzo Gavua (University of Ghana), Valence Silayo (Tumaini University Dar es Salam College), Peter Campbell (British School at Rome), Elena Fiddian Qasmiyeh (University College London), Yousif Qasmiyeh (Oxford University), Ceri Ashley (British Museum), Howayda Al-Harithy (American University of Beirut) and Mick Finch (Central Saint Martins-UAL).

Mihlali Tshikila Awarded his Master’s in Psychology with Distinction

A hearty congratulations to Mihlali Tshikila, who was awarded his Master's degree in Psychology with a distinction. Read more about his research here.

Post-doctoral Fellow wins the Mellon Foundation’s Early-Career Scholars’ Award

Emery Kalema will join a group of young scholars who have been selected from our continent, Latin America and the Middle East for a Summer Program at the Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in June 2018 and June 2019. Princeton’s IAS is one of the nine so-called "Ivy League"; institutes for advanced study in the US, Europe and Israel. The Summer Programme will be led by Didier Fassin, Professor of Social Science at Princeton in collaboration with Sarah Nuttall, Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, and Mara Viveros, Professor at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

Research Chair for Historical Trauma and Transformation, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, receives an Honorary Doctorate from the Friederich-Schiller University, and the Distinguished Old Rhodian Award from Rhodes University.

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela after being conferred with the Honorary Doctorate in Theology with Wolfgang Huber who was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Law (second from left). She is the first woman to be awarded an Honorary Doctorate at the Friedrich-Schiller University. Professor Manuel Vogel, Dean of the Faculty of Theology is the first on the right. Read the report on the award here.