You are cordially invited to the 2019 Olof Palme Lecture, where Professor Sabelo J Ndlovu-Gatsheni of the University of South Africa will speak on The Cognitive Empire: Struggles for Cognitive Justice and Global Peace.
Date and time: Friday 17 May, 5:30 pm
Venue: The Leonard Wolfson Auditorium, Wolfson College, Linton Road.
About the Lecture
This memorial lecture is inspired by the current student movements, especially the Rhodes Must Fall Movement (RMF) in South Africa and the University of Oxford, which have put the question of cognitive injustices into the global public arena. The movements were themselves made possible by the definitive entry into ‘westernised’ universities by formerly excluded social groups who immediately became provoked by offensive iconographies, alienating institutional cultures as well as Eurocentric epistemology and curriculum. This memorial lecture posits that always lurking within liberation struggles has been the cognitive/epistemic question cascading from a reality of imperialism and colonialism that committed not only genocides but epistemicides, linguicides, culturecides, and alienations under the guise of spreading civilization. Therefore, the subject of cognitive justice is offered as an essential pre-requisite not only for political, economic and cultural freedoms but for global peace.
About the Speaker
Sabelo J Ndlovu-Gatsheni is Professor and founding Head of the Archie Mafeje Research Institute for Applied Social Policy and currently Acting Executive Director of the Change Management Unit in the Vice-Chancellor’s Office at the University of South Africa.
