Great Texts/Big Questions lecture series will be launched by the ICA this week with a line-up that features acclaimed writers, artists, and academics – beginning with award-winning author Zukiswa Wanner on Wednesday 12 May, and concluding with renowned novelist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o on Thursday 17 June.
This year’s series will be a lunch-time series, with each lecture running on a Wednesday from 1pm – 2.15 pm. The only exception is the final lecture by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, which will take place on a Thursday, 17 June at 6pm. The entire series will take place online. ICA wll be posting the Zoom link to access the lectures shortly! (Visit website)
Great Texts/Big Questions 2021 Theme
The 2021 Great Texts/Big Questions Lecture Series – Loss upon loss – responds to the complexity of grief and grieving in South Africa and across the continent in the time of Covid-19, with a particular focus on the role and response of artists.
The most critical months of the pandemic have been defined by a near disintegration of cultural and familial rituals for mourning, gathering and coming to terms with death – individually, but especially collectively. A period in which, in so many communities, the deaths of loved ones have followed in such quick succession that there is no ordinary time or proper space to mark their passing. There have been other losses too – jobs, careers, financial security – equally without closure or the promise of resolution. And in the wake of both, a new vocabulary has quickly become part of our everyday speech: Zoom memorials, virtual funerals followed with alarming speed, deep cleaning, lockdowns, social distancing, masks.
The vision for the series draws from the concept of ‘ambiguous loss’ – a term that academic and therapist Pauline Boss coined in the 1970s to name and describe a rupturing of human relationships without closure or clear understanding. Ambiguous loss has since been applied widely across the world in approaching forms of grief that cannot be resolved. In the context of the pandemic, the term provides a possible starting point of collective recognition and reckoning, and opens pathways to healing.
Schedule
1. Wed 12 May @ 1pm: Zukiswa Wanner, Creativity in the face of crisis (photo above)
2. Wed 19 May @ 1pm: Yewande Omotoso, Death: unfathomable, inevitable
3. Wed 26 May @ 1pm: Athambile Masola, Grieving: surviving imiphanga through a black aesthetic
4. Wed 2 June @ 1pm: Lebo Mashile, Crisis catalysing creativity as rituals and as resistance
5. Wed 9 June @ 1pm: Percy Mabandu, A Call to artistry: Catharsis, and creative grammars against grief
6. Thursday 17 June @ 6pm: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Title to be announced
L to R: Yewande Omotoso, Athambile Masola (credit: Nonzuzo Gxekwa), Percy Mabandu
WHEN: Each week, beginning Wednesday 12 May at 1pm. (Zoom link to follow)
INFO: Visit | E ica@uct.ac.za | T +27 21 650 7156
