Representing SA

MARY Hames, director of the Gender Equity Unit at the University of the Western Cape, has been invited to be a speaker at the 2015 annual Nelson Mandela Lecture at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) on October 5, 2015.

Hames is one of many esteemed academics who have been invited to speak at this prestigious event.

Previous speakers include academic, author and former director of African Studies at the University of Columbia and University of Cape Town Mahmood Mamdani, as well as Kwame Anthony Appiah, well-known philosopher, cultural theorist and novelist, to name just two.

Hames holds an MPhil in South African political studies and is currently pursuing her doctorate in women’s and gender studies at the University of Cape Town.

In her presentation, “Women and Feminism in Post-Apartheid Narratives: Silences and Possibilities”, Hames will make connections between women as both actual and metaphorical prisoners during and post-apartheid; the paradoxes of silences versus hypervisibility of women, and she will also discuss the possibilities for revitalising feminist intellectual activism and the challenges that may face this feat.

Hames will not be travelling alone to Penn State; she will be joined by six UWC students for a performance of the award-winning play Reclaiming the P... Word. The UWC performers will be joining forces with two students from Iota Iota Iota (TRIOTA), the feminist student organisation at Penn State, to rehearse and perform the play to educate the broader Penn State community about combating sexual violence on college campuses.

The play centres on the issues of violence against women in a South African context, and focuses on “reclaiming our bodies and stories and telling them the way we want to tell them,” said Ms Hames.

“It is always an honour having your work recognised,” Hames says, adding that the interaction will allow students at Penn State to learn more about UWC, South Africa, and issues of gender, race and equality in the greater Cape Town area and South Africa at large. Aidan van den Heever

University of the Western Cape