Inaugural Lectures

Biography

Professor Albertus J (AJ) Smit has been with the Department of Biodiversity & Conservation Biology at the University of the Western Cape since 2014. Trained as an ecophysiologist, he began with laboratory studies of nitrogen acquisition in algae and broadened this into investigations of trophic dependencies in marine systems. That orientation expanded further when climate science demanded attention to the physical processes of dynamic coasts and the power of large open datasets. Today, his research centres on the ways extreme climatic events in the ocean shape the functioning of coastal ecosystems.

Topic

Between Two Oceans: Currents, Climate, And The Future Of South Africa’s Coasts

Abstract

South Africa is a natural laboratory between two oceans. On the one side, the Agulhas Current brings warm, subtropical waters down the east coast, carrying heat and moisture that shape the region’s humid climate. On the west, the Benguela Current drives cold, nutrient-rich upwelling that fuels one of the most productive marine ecosystems on Earth. Nowhere else does such stark geographical compression of oceanic contrasts occur across so narrow a continental margin. These boundary currents generate extraordinary biodiversity and exerts influence at planetary scales: as Agulhas leakage feeds the Atlantic circulation central to climate regulation, the Benguela’s fertility underpins industrial-scale fisheries that sustain livelihoods, food security, and coastal economies. But the world is changing. The Agulhas Current is intensifying heat transport, shifting regimes along the subtropical–temperate boundary. In the Benguela, the southern reaches are cooling even as offshore and northern sectors trend warmer, a divergence driven by reconfigured wind systems. These atmospheric shifts cascade through the marine domain, reshaping nutrient delivery, biological productivity, and the ecological underpinnings of our coasts. The consequences are real and form the subject of this lecture. I will examine evidence for change in the physical ocean and explore how the ecosystems that sustain biodiversity, the people whose food security depends on fisheries, and the industries whose fortunes rise and fall with the sea are being forced into new, uncertain

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Biography

Marieta is a Professor in the Department of Industrial Psychology at the University of the Western Cape and holds a PhD in Industrial Psychology. She is an NRF rated researcher with over 15 years of academic and professional experience, having published numerous peer-reviewed articles in leading international journals and supervised more than 40 Masters students and 6 PhD students to completion.

Topic

From Self to Service: A Leadership Journey To Enable Flourishing

Abstract

This inaugural lecture traces a transformative journey from traditional leadership models to a human-centred approach that prioritises employee wellbeing and organisational flourishing. Drawing from over a decade of research in South African contexts, Prof Du Plessis presents compelling evidence that effective leadership is not about leaders driving results, but about creating conditions where people can thrive. The lecture explores how positive leadership forms—including servant, authentic, and transformational leadership—work through psychological mechanisms such as psychological capital, empowerment, and self-leadership to create sustainable organisational outcomes. Particular attention is given to the unique challenges facing South African higher education institutions, including toxic leadership cultures, precarious employment, and the need for transformation. The lecture concludes with a practical framework for developing "positive self-leadership" that empowers individuals to become architects of their own flourishing while contributing to organisational success.

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Biography

Maria Florence is a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology and Deputy Dean of Learning and Teaching in the Faculty of Community and Health Sciences at UWC. She holds a PhD in Psychology and has held leadership roles including Head of the Psychology Department and Chair of the Biomedical Research Ethics Committee at UWC. Prof. Florence has worked at UWC since 1996 and previously at the HSRC.

Topic

Addiction and Quality of Life in South Africa: Contextual Challenges and Pathways to Recovery

Abstract

Addiction profoundly impacts quality of life, yet traditional approaches have predominantly emphasised clinical or pathology-based perspectives. This body of work on addiction and quality of life marks a pivotal shift, inviting integration of social, psychological, and environmental dimensions and recovery-oriented frameworks into addiction research. Addiction is deeply contextual in South Africa, and recovery must be understood as a holistic process encompassing QoL improvements across multiple domains. Recovery-oriented systems must focus on enhancing recovery capital through livelihood support, social inclusion, and culturally sensitive practice, not just symptom reduction. By merging rich theoretical models with empirical South African research, this presentation underscores the central role of QoL in both understanding and effectively addressing addiction within the country. It invites policymakers, clinicians and researchers to foster recovery systems that are equitable, integrative, and life-enhancing. 

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Biography

Anthony Diala is the pioneer director of the Centre for Legal Integration in Africa at the UWC. He specialises in the interaction of normative orders. He has executed field projects with grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council of New York, the Nordic Africa Institute, and the South African National Research Foundation (NRF). Diala co-edits the African Journal of Legal Studies. Among others, he is a member of the International Academy of Comparative Law and the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies.

Topic

“The Foundational Values Of Indigenous Laws As The Framework For African Common Laws”

Abstract

Indigenous laws were predominant in Africa before European colonialism. In many communities, these laws still govern marriages, burials, succession, land tenure and dispute resolution. However, they are threatened by universalist ideas of ‘proper behaviour,’ which manifest in norm-killing law reforms. Drawing from multi-country field research, I argue that the foundational values of indigenous laws reveal conflict of law dynamics involving traditional and modern lifestyles. Since these values depict collective beliefs about (in)appropriate conduct, they illumine the agrarian origins of indigenous laws, especially their patriarchal nature in contemporary modernity. Properly ascertained, these values could form the groundwork for the emergence of a common law in South Africa and beyond.

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Biography

John-Mark Iyi obtained his LLB (Hons) from the University of Benin in Nigeria in 1998 and the Barrister-at Law (Hons) from the Nigerian Law School in 2000. Between 2001 and 2002 he taught at the Nigerian Police College Maiduguri and in 2003, he obtained a Certificate in Peace Research from the International University of Oslo. In 2008, he obtained an LLM from the University of Ibadan where he was overall best graduating student. Prof Iyi received his PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2014 where he was a Webber Wentzel Scholar, and an Associate of the Wits Programme in Law Justice and Development in Africa.

Topic

“Beyond Crisis And Credibility In International Legal Reform: Africa At A Critical Juncture”

Abstract

Historically, the most fundamental changes in international law-making processes have been driven by crises. The League of Nations and the United Nations were established in the aftermath of World War I and II respectively. On both occasions, Africa was essentially a norm-taker in an international law that legitimises its subordination. While the end of the Cold War constrained Africa’s potential as a norm-entrepreneur, the current global crises is a critical juncture for Africa to contribute to shaping a new international legal order. What should be Africa’s role and how should Africa approach this endeavour? In this lecture, I argue that Africa is presented with a ‘Bandung Moment’-type of historic opportunity to drive the reform of international law. Africa’s approach to a new international legal order should be underpinned by three key pillars: first, assertive continental sovereignty; second, extra-legal international legal reform norm-entrepreneurship; and third, a decolonised continental international legal policy. These propositions are framed by theoretical paradigms of the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL).

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Biography

Fiona Anciano is a Professor in the Department of Political Studies and holds a UWC Chair in Citizenship and Democracy. She is Head of the Politics and Urban Governance Research Group, in UWC’s EMS Faculty and a visiting researcher at University West, Sweden. She previously held the positions of Deputy Dean of Learning and Teaching and Acting Deputy Dean of Research in EMS. She is a qualitative researcher, specializing in Participatory Action Research methods with an interest in urban governance, democratisation and civil society.

Topic

Beyond The Ballot: Rethinking Urban Governance In The Shadows Of Democracy

Abstract

Who governs when the state does not deliver? How does this mesh with democracy in principle and practice? South Africa is known for its strong civil society and celebrated democratic ethos. Yet, the governance systems introduced during the democratic transition have largely failed to deliver economic freedom. This lecture brings together two conceptual frameworks - urban governance and participatory democracy - to examine both the promises and the pitfalls of democracy in contemporary South African cities. It reflects on how urban governance actually functions, and who holds the power to shape the city, when citizens feel increasingly disconnected from the outcomes of formal democratic processes. The talk will draw on two decades of innovative participatory research with marginalized residents in South African cities, using visual material from methods such as Photovoice and storytelling. Collectively, these conceptual frameworks and qualitative data indicate that strengthening democratic governance to achieve more justice-oriented service delivery requires an in-depth understanding of the nature, practices, and potential of joint governance - which may be collaborative or conflictual - between government, residents and civil society. Neither state-centric approaches, with their reliance on technical policy solutions, nor formal democratic processes alone have produced just and sustainable service delivery. Instead, I reflect on the role of informal governance and how it contributes to what can be termed a participatory patchwork democracy — a form of everyday democratic practice that builds meaningfully on South Africa’s democratic ethos.

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Biography

Megan Shaw is a Professor in the Department of Medical Biosciences at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), and she also holds adjunct and extraordinary appointments at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (USA) and Stellenbosch University, respectively. She earned a PhD in Virology from the University of Glasgow (UK) and started her academic career in the USA before moving to UWC in 2019. She specializes in research on RNA viruses, particularly respiratory viruses, with a focus on early-stage discovery of antiviral drugs and understanding how viruses interact with their hosts at a molecular level.

Topic

Adventures In Virology: Exploring How Viruses Cause Disease, And Discovering New Antiviral Strategies

Abstract

Viruses can infect all living organisms, and we call them obligate parasites because they rely entirely on the cellular machinery of the host they infect. Once inside a host, they can reprogram the infected cell, turning it into a copy machine for producing millions of new viruses. The host attempts to defend itself by activating an immune response, setting the stage for the battle of virus versus host. Over the past 20 years, I have studied this battle and uncovered some of the molecular interactions between viruses and hosts that occur in infected cells. In my lecture, I will take you on this journey and discuss how this knowledge helps us understand how viruses cause disease and how it can be used to develop new strategies for discovering antiviral drugs.

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Biography

Tertius Kohn is an NRF-rated professor in the Department of Medical Bioscience at the University of the Western Cape. His research focuses on skeletal muscle structure, metabolism, and contractility in humans and wild animals to better understand muscle diseases and uncover mechanisms behind superior athletic performance. He earned his PhD at Stellenbosch University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cape Town, studying glucose transporters, mitochondrial biogenesis, and exercise regulation.

Topic

From Muscle Fibres to Performance: Exploring the Biology of Strength, Weakness, and Adaptation

Abstract

Skeletal muscle is vital for movement, posture, and metabolism. Its function depends on units of actin and myosin powered by ATP from energy systems using glucose, glycogen, lactate, and creatine phosphate. We study muscle structure, metabolism, and contractility in humans and wild animals. Through molecular biology, physiology, and biochemistry, we investigate how muscle adapts or declines with age, exercise, disease, and environmental stress. Key focus areas include glucose and lactate metabolism, muscle fatigue and recovery, and early markers of metabolic dysfunction. The flagship “Lactate Study” explores early predictors of insulin resistance in young South African men. Other themes include genetic and environmental drivers of muscle adaptation, chronic disease-related muscle weakness, and exercise as both therapy and stressor. Comparative studies in wild animals further reveal limits of muscle performance linking basic science to health and sport.

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Biography

F. Fiona Moolla is a Professor in the English Department and has been the Deputy Dean of Research and Postgraduate Study in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities since 2023. She is an NRF C2-Rated researcher, and the author of Reading Nuruddin Farah: The Individual, the Novel & the Idea of Home (James Currey, 2014), and the editor of Natures of Africa: Ecocriticism and Animal Studies in Contemporary Cultural Forms (WITS UP, 2016), among numerous other academic and non-academic publications.

Topic

Emotions In African Literature: An Invitation To Study

Abstract

I have been a reader and scholar of African literature for the greater part of my life. In recent years, it has struck me that emotions have not been foregrounded in the Anglophone writing that has come to represent African literature internationally from around the mid-twentieth century. Neither have emotions been identified as a serious and sustained focus in African literature scholarship. This inaugural lecture, through a reading of the work of a few icons of African literature, speculates about some of the complex gendered and racially inflected reasons why emotions have been elided. It uses the emotion of love, in particular, as it emerges in the work of Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo to interrogate the representation (and misrepresentation) of emotion in the novels of Nigerian writers Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka. The concept of the emotion is socially and culturally constructed and is crucial to understanding the constitution of the self and theories of knowledge. It is hoped that this inaugural lecture will inaugurate a broader critical and reflective study of emotions in African literature.

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Prof Quentin Williams Faculty of Arts and Humanities   25 August 2025

Biography

Quentin Williams is Director of the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR) and Full Professor of Linguistics in the Linguistics Department at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). In 2024, he delivered the Martin Luther King Jr Linguistics Lecture at Michigan University (USA). He is co-editor of the CMDR’s journal Multilingual Margins, founder and chairperson of the Society virrie Advancement van Kaaps (SAK) and an editorial board member of SAK’s flagship journal, Aweh: a journal for minoritized languages.

Topic

“Thinking Multilingualism for the future of Historically Marginalised Speakers”

Abstract

In this lecture, I reflect on the notion of multilingualism and its importance for the empowerment of historically marginalized speakers. I first discuss why it is desirable to rethink how we understand multilingualism (as a social and political phenomenon), highlighting the potential of a rethought multilingualism to be an important linguistic and semiotic resource for individuals and communities. I go on to speak to what rethinking multilingualism might imply for constructs such as linguistic repertoire, multilingual practice, agency, voice, linguistic justice and the remaking of speakership in realising the empowerment of historically marginalised speakers. Throughout the talk, I illustrate the arguments with recent work in status and prestige development, and intellectualisation of Kaaps (also known as Afrikaaps) and its speakers.

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Biography

Rina Swart is a professor in the Department of Dietetics and Nutrition at the University of the Western Cape and also serves as the Nutrition programme lead within the DSI/NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security.  She is a registered dietitian / nutritionist with a PhD in Public Health. After qualifying, she worked for eight years as a dietitian; first at Tygerberg Hospital and then at the National Department of Health before joining the University of the Western Cape in 1991. Her area of specialization is in Public Health Nutrition with a focus on the prevention of all forms of malnutrition through nutrition policies and programmes.

Topic

“ Enabling Food Environments To Address The Triple Burden Of Malnutrition”

Abstract

Food environments are defined by the availability, prices, vendors, product properties, marketing and regulation of food products (external domain) as well as their accessibility, affordability, convenience and desirability for individuals (personal domain). These factors shape food acquisition and consumption, a key determinant in health and nutrition outcomes. South Africa is burdened by persistent undernutrition in children, specifically stunting, micronutrient malnutrition in women and children, as well as an epidemic of overweight and obesity among women and men with rapidly growing prevalence of overweight in children and adolescents.

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Biography

Kobus Moolman is Professor of Creative Writing and English Literature in the Department of English Studies. He is one of South Africa’s foremost and prolific poets, and a deeply respected teacher of writing with more than twenty years’ experience. He has published eleven collections of poetry, two collections of plays and a collection of short stories. He has won multiple accolades including the Ingrid Jonker prize, the South African Literary award for poetry, the Sol Plaatje European Union poetry award and the Glenna Luschei Award for African poetry.

Topic

“The Inside Crystal of Things”: Reflections on the Pedagogy of Poetic Practice.

Abstract

After almost forty years writing poetry, of which some twenty have been spent teaching writing, this is an apt moment to stop and reflect. To reflect on the complicated position of my practice within the Academy; on the complicated relationship between my practice and the teaching (and mentoring) of creative practice; on the fraught position of a practice-based methodology within a literary studies department, and the Humanities in general. I live inside a poem as it is being written. But how does one teach this uncanny experience and strange understanding? I know after almost forty years that the “blank incapability of invention” (Mary Shelley) does not go away. Rather, that it is indispensable to any creative practice. But how can unknowing-ness be taught? And, importantly, how can this unknowing contribute not just to resisting the institutional pressures of instrumentalization and rationalization, but to a profound re-imagining of the wider academic project of learning and teaching?

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Biography

After qualifying as a teacher at UWC, Prof Rouaan Maarman, was a school teacher in Somerset East in the Eastern Cape for 9 years, before joining the academia in 2003 at the North West University. He holds degrees from 4 different universities and his PhD is in Comparative Education. He publishes widely in the areas of poverty, schooling and the state of basic education in South Africa. His current research makes use of the capability approach as a lens to deconstruct understandings of freedoms and constraints in the schooling sector.

Topic

“We Can Dream: Freedoms and Lifeworthiness of Basic Education in Democratic South Africa"

Abstract

The potential of the CAPS curriculum is under scrutiny in the understandings of South Africa’s youth unemployment and the affordances to become socially and economically well. Poverty statistics paint a bleak picture of how youth are enabled (or rather disabled) to navigate economic prospects in early adulthood. David Perkins offers a contribution to view a curriculum through the lens of its ‘lifeworthiness’, a concept still to be fully understood in the ever-changing VUCA world. With South Africa as a backdrop, I purport that the capabilities of learners and teachers to live educational lives worthy to pursue (via the CAPS) are hampered to enhance real freedoms during and after school and challenges the very general aims of the CAPS. Applying evaluative and effective reasoning (in the words of Amartya Sen) offer pathways to pursue ‘lifeworthiness’ of the school curriculum. A curriculum should enhance the freedoms in society in as much as it pursues test scores in formal examinations.

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