Rhodes University hosted the Southern African International Folklore Conference on Heritage, Identity and Social Cohesion lastweek, ending Friday 12 September.
Rhodes University hosted the Southern African International Folklore Conference on Heritage, Identity and Social Cohesion lastweek, ending Friday 12 September.
Professor Russell Kaschula of African Language Studies, which is hosting the conference together with the National Research South African Chairs Initiative, said part of the brief of the Chair is to intellectualise our languages by documenting and creating literary histories of the languages.
“The main objective of the conference is to bring together scholars of African Oral Literature in order to see how our literatures and languages can underpin and assist with the documentation, preservation and dissemination of our linguistic and cultural heritage,” Kaschula said.
The theme of this year’s conference is entitled: “I think what I am”: Heritage, Identity and Social Cohesion.
It has attracted renowned scholars from a variety of disciplines by highlighting the dynamic nature of culture and the links between folklore and all realms of heritage, identity and knowledge, including Science and Technology.
“It is really an appeal to re-focus ourselves on the message of black consciousness that the late Bantu Stephen Biko left us: we need to know who we are before we know where we are going, and we need to be proud Africans, proud of our languages and our heritage,” Prof Kaschula said.
