Faculty of Humanities at Nelson Mandela University

10/09/2026

Join the NRF SARChI Chair in Identities and Social Cohesion in Africa (ISCIA) Visiting Professor, Prof Brian Castellani, for his public lecture titled "Entangled: How might we reshape our entanglement with the environment?"

The lecture explores the complex connections between environmental challenges, social systems, inequality, economic development and our collective futures.

Drawing on complexity sciences, humanities and visual arts, Prof Castellani will ask: if environmental justice and wellbeing depend on how we are entangled with the world, how might we become entangled differently?

📅 Wednesday, 16 September
⏰ 17:30–19:30
📍 Music Hall, Music Building, Bird Street Campus

09/09/2026

Muzi Gigaba returns from Singapore residency inspired to shape the next generation of artists.

Following a two-week residency at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore, one of the leading specialist arts institutions in Southeast Asia and internationally, Muziwandile Gigaba returned to Gqeberha with a successful exhibition, completed artworks and a ninth international residency added to his growing catalogue of international experiences.

Gigaba was the only African selected to participate in the highly competitive programme, which brought together 24 student-artists from diverse cultural backgrounds. Participants produced artworks informed by their lived experiences, including their brief period in Singapore, while embracing cultural diversity, exchanging ideas and establishing professional connections.

For Gigaba, a PhD candidate and Arts Entrepreneurship lecturer in the Visual Arts Department at Nelson Mandela University, the experience reinforced the importance of an artistic practice grounded in South African lived experience, culture and history.

“The residency reinforced that international opportunities are not merely platforms for visibility. They are spaces in which artists represent themselves, their institutions, communities and, at times, their national or continental contexts,” said Gigaba.

Read more here:
https://news.mandela.ac.za/News/Muzi-Gigaba-returns-from-Singapore-residency-inspi

08/09/2026

08/09/2026

The Faculty of Humanities Department of History and Political Studies invites you to attend an engaging talk exploring Orlando Stadium. The talk moves beyond the stadium as a place of entertainment and focuses on its significance as a cultural and political space that served as a platform to petition, pressure, and confront the apartheid regime.

📅 8 September 2026
⏰ 11:00–13:00
📍 Council Chambers, South Campus

07/09/2026

The NRF SARChI in Identities and Social Cohesion in Africa (ISCIA) invite you to attend the upcoming Games and Play Seminar "In Defense of Poetry: Writing as Play" presented by Alexander Pennington

📆 11 September 2026
🕐 14h30 - 15h30
📍Zoom (scan QR code)

If it is true that a larger vocabulary helps a person notice more of the world, is it also true that our powers of perception expand when we learn to play with language in different ways? In other words, if learning the names of hues helps a person become aware of more colours, do the ways that poets play with language enhance our powers of perception? The presentation explores how this might be the case, and the broader implications for a society’s culture.

03/09/2026

The NRF SARChI in Identities and Social Cohesion in Africa (ISCIA) invite you to attend the upcoming Games and Play Seminar "Play in making - Shifting Awareness" presented by Prof Vulindlela Nyoni

📆 04 September 2026
🕐 14h30 - 15h30
📍Zoom (scan QR code)

In his presentation Nyoni explores play not as escape, but as a way of paying attention. Through the live unfolding of an artwork—interrupted by shifts in perception—it invites participants to notice how they respond to uncertainty in real time. What happens before we have time to interpret? When does growth occur: in the moment, or only in reflection? Drawing on practices of making, observing, and questioning, the presentation moves between control and disruption, seriousness, and play.

31/08/2026

Humanising Innovation. Innovating Humanity.

Join the Faculty of Humanities at Nelson Mandela University on Wednesday, 2 September, for Humanities Research Day, as part of Institutional Research Week.

Under this year’s theme, “Forging Intelligent Futures: Research & Innovation Shaping AI • AI Advancing Research & Innovation,” we celebrate the research, ideas and innovation shaping our understanding of an increasingly intelligent world — while keeping humanity at the heart of innovation.

26/08/2026

The NRF SARChI in Identities and Social Cohesion in Africa (ISCIA) invite you to attend the upcoming Games and Play Seminar "The serious man and the mushroom: A Mycelial Ethics of Care" presented by Anzel Loubser

📆 28 August 2026
🕐 14h30 - 15h30
📍Zoom (scan QR code)

Abstract: Dominant ethical traditions play a game whose rules they have forgotten are rules. What Deleuze calls the dogmatic image of thought casts the moral subject as bounded, sovereign, and serious. This presentation frames my doctoral research, A Mycelial Ethics of Care, as thought-play: ethical thinking that wanders laterally and rhizomatically off the program. Here, I consider how a mycelial heuristic of care – grounded in the rhizomatic philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, the phenomenology of psilocybin experience, and selected southern African indigenous epistemologies – might provide a playful alternative way of thinking about ethical relations between human and non-human life.

24/08/2026

The Faculty of Humanities came together for a day dedicated to community building, cultural appreciation and creativity.

From karaoke and Madiba shirt designs to cultural games, Humanities staff expressed their creativity while celebrating the cultural diversity within our faculty. At the heart of the event was a reflection on “What does Ubuntu mean to you?”, capturing the many ways Ubuntu is understood and lived within our community.

The day concluded with a special kite-flying activity, bringing staff and students together to fly the Ubuntu Kite. As a recognised motif of our institution, the kite became a fitting symbol of hope, resilience, freedom and unity.

More than an activity, the day was about creating shared experiences, breaking down silos and strengthening our sense of belonging — embodying the spirit of Ubuntu: “I am because we are.”

21/08/2026

Mandela University's Professor Uchenna Okeja inducted into Nigerian Academy of Letters

Reasons to be Proud- Professor Uchenna Okeja, Director of the Centre for Philosophy in Africa at Mandela University, has been inducted into the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL), Nigeria’s apex body for the Arts and Literature.

As the country’s pre-eminent national institution for the humanities, the NAL promotes excellence in the arts and literature and operates as an independent, non-political entity dedicated to advancing humanities scholarship and fostering public engagement across the country.

The induction, which took place in Nigeria on 13 August, recognises Prof Okeja’s contribution to philosophy and the humanities and places him among scholars distinguished for their contributions to intellectual life, especially the ideals of the humanities.

Prof Okeja described the induction as a memorable occasion, particularly because of the Academy’s rich history and the diversity of disciplines represented among its Fellows, including foundational fellows, including Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka and global icon of literature, Chinua Achebe.

Read more here: https://news.mandela.ac.za/News/Mandela-University-s-Professor-Uchenna-Okeja-induc