Department of Religion and Theology Jaap Durand Chair
The Jaap Durand Chair
Prof J.J.F. (Jaap) Durand (1934-2022) served as the first DVC at the University of the Western Cape (1980-1994). After his death, a proposal to honour his legacy was discussed among members of the senior management at the University of the Western Cape and at the University of Stellenbosch (his alma mater, where he also served as ombudsman).
An inter-university committee was established in 2022 to explore this proposal in consultation with the Durand family. The committee proposed the establishment of a rotating Jaap Durand Research Chair for a period of six years (2025-2030) around three core themes that capture his legacy, namely “A Just, Participatory and Sustainable Society”, “Building a Just Academy” and “The Spiritual Roots of Justice”. The proposal is structured in such a way that the chair would alternate between the two universities and on the three themes according to the following pattern: click here
The vision for the chair includes, in addition to (a) honouring Prof Durand’s legacy and (b) promoting research on the three core themes amid current and future challenges, (c) fostering collaboration between the University of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch University and (d) fostering collaboration across faculties within the University of the Western Cape.
A recommendation on the establishment of the Jaap Durand Chair by the Department of Religion served and was approved by the Senate Research Committee at its meeting in September 2024. A steering committee, with representatives from various faculties, was then established by the Senate to oversee the activities related to this Chair at UWC.
On this basis, Prof Hein Willemse was appointed in the Jaap Durand Chair on a Just, Participatory and Sustainable Society at UWC in 2025. Upon his request, the position was structured in such a way that it extends to the first semester of 2026.
Hein Willemse completed a BA Honours (cum laude), MA (cum laude) and D.Litt at the University of the Western Cape, and later obtained a Master’s degree in Business Leadership (MBL) from the University of South Africa.
He began his academic career in 1980, lecturing at several institutions, including his alma mater. In 2000, he was appointed Professor and Head of the Department of Afrikaans at the University of Pretoria, where he served until his retirement as Emeritus Professor in 2022. He has also held visiting professorships at universities across South Africa and internationally, including in Africa, Europe, and central and North America. He currently serves as the inaugural holder of the Jaap Durand Chair (2025–2026) at the University of the Western Cape.
From his student years, Willemse has been active as a reporter and journalist for student, community, and alternative publications. In 1985, he participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Between 1996 and 2000, he served as Executive Director of OLM Publications, and from 2001 to 2019 as editor-in-chief of Tydskrif vir letterkunde, the oldest literary journal on the African continent. He continues to write a regular column for Afrikaans newspapers.
He has served as a director on several company boards and as a trustee of various non-governmental organisations and interest groups. He is a former president of the International Society for the Oral Literatures of Africa (ISOLA).
Willemse’s research focuses primarily on (South) African literature, with a particular emphasis on Afrikaans oral traditions and Black Afrikaans Writing. He has published extensively, both nationally and internationally. His scholarly works include Aan die ander kant: Swart Afrikaanse skryfwerk in die Afrikaanse letterkunde (2007), as well as several edited volumes on Black Afrikaans writing. In 2021, he compiled and critically introduced the collected poetry of Patrick J. Petersen under the title Ons het […] ver versit.
In 2012, he co-edited Achmat Davids’s The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims, reissued in 2024 as The Arabic Afrikaans Writing Tradition. He has also edited several works on student life and political activism in the 1970s, including Hostel (2018) and Act and Advance! (2024), Enrico Pedro’s study of the 1976 uprisings at the University of the Western Cape.
His contributions have been recognised with numerous awards. In 2001, the Western Cape Department of Culture honoured his edited volume More than Brothers: James Matthews and Peter Clarke at 70 for its contribution to the region’s cultural heritage. In 2002, he received the Afrikaans Onbeperk Award from the National Klein Karoo Arts Festival. In 2020, he was awarded the prize for best long-form essay review, and his documentary Die versteekte geskiedenisse van Afrikaans — The Hidden Histories of Afrikaans (2018) was nominated for the Humanities Award of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Most recently, he received the Orde van die Windpomp at the Etienne van Heerden Veldsoirée and the ATKV Prestige Award in 2025.
Jaap Durand Chair 2025-26: Activities
The Jaap Durand Seminar I on Indigeneity, Slavery, and Nation
Date: 1 December 2025 (Slave Emancipation Day)
The Jaap Durand Chair a one-day seminar on 1st December on the questions of identity, justice, and nationhood. The event offered leading thinkers a multidisciplinary platform to reflect on South Africans understanding of themselves, three decades into democracy. It dealt with our sense of ourselves. Who are we, and what would we like to become? Over the past thirty years we have had recurring debates around indigeneity, affirmative action, and citizenship, and this seminar was a barometer of those debates.
Report: click here
The Jaap Durand Seminar II on Gangsterism and Social Dysfunction in the Western Cape
Date: 18 March 2026
The seminar was convened on Wednesday, 18 March 2026, by UWC’s Jaap Durand Chair and the Research Chair in Gender, Transformation and Worldmaking in the Faculty of Law, in partnership with the Cape Crime Crisis Coalition. It brought together stakeholders from civil society, faith-based organisations, government, policing structures, academia and affected communities.
Report: click here
The Jaap Durand Seminar III on South African Sport and the Nation
Date: 22 April 2026
Sport continues to play a significant role in the formation of national identity, yet the broader project of transformation in sport and society remains incomplete. This seminar will explore the gap between elite sport and underresourced community-level sport, especially in rural and urban marginalised areas. It will also explore the progress that has been made in building durable sporting ecosystems.
Report: click here
The Jaap Durand Annual Lecture
Date: 1 December 2025 (Slave Emancipation Day)
The Jaap Durand Chair invited Patric Tariq Mellet to deliver the Jaap Durand Annual Lecture, “Restorative Memory in the Crafting of Restorative Justice contextual to Indigeneity and Slavery”, in which he developed themes that were raised in his acclaimed works The Lie of 1652 and The Truth about Cape Slavery.
The Nobel in Africa Symposium
Date: 5 November 2025
The Jaap Durand Chair with members of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities co-hosted a segment of the Nobel in Africa Symposium. The Nobel Symposium in Literature, held under the auspices of the Nobel Foundation and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, took place across Stellenbosch University, University of the Western Cape, and the University of Cape Town. It brought together leading African writers and scholars to reflect on “the unique contribution African writing can make to reformulating the destructive narratives of the past and present.” The events were coordinated by the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS).
The Jaap Durand Chair Legacy Garden Project
Jaap Durand Chair proposes a Legacy Garden adjacent to the News Arts Building. The envisioned legacy garden would not merely be a physical development, but a counter-hegemonic and pedagogical project, one that affirms institutional traditions, commemorates its people and intellectual contributions, and simultaneously functions as a living teaching and research environment rooted in cultural, historical, and ecological knowledge systems. In addition, the Jaap Durand Chair proposed the placement of a plaque commemorating the 5oth anniversary of the student protests of 1976, alongside the commemorative glass brick, installed in the UWC library atrium under the direction of Prof. Jaap Durand.
The Fifth Black Afrikaans Writers’ Symposium
Date: October 2025
Prof. Willemse delivered the keynote address at the fifth Black Afrikaans Writers’ Symposium (SAS), which took place on 10 and 11 October at the University of the Western Cape.
Jaap Durand Professor: Publications (Sept 2025 – April 2026)
Research Publications
Prof J.J.F. (Jaap) Durand (1934-2022) served as the first DVC at the University of the Western Cape (1980-1994). After his death, a proposal to honour his legacy was discussed among members of the senior management at the University of the Western Cape and at the University of Stellenbosch (his alma mater, where he also served as ombudsman).
An inter-university committee was established in 2022 to explore this proposal in consultation with the Durand family. The committee proposed the establishment of a rotating Jaap Durand Research Chair for a period of six years (2025-2030) around three core themes that capture his legacy, namely “A Just, Participatory and Sustainable Society”, “Building a Just Academy” and “The Spiritual Roots of Justice”. The proposal is structured in such a way that the chair would alternate between the two universities and on the three themes according to the following pattern: click here
The vision for the chair includes, in addition to (a) honouring Prof Durand’s legacy and (b) promoting research on the three core themes amid current and future challenges, (c) fostering collaboration between the University of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch University and (d) fostering collaboration across faculties within the University of the Western Cape.
A recommendation on the establishment of the Jaap Durand Chair by the Department of Religion served and was approved by the Senate Research Committee at its meeting in September 2024. A steering committee, with representatives from various faculties, was then established by the Senate to oversee the activities related to this Chair at UWC.
On this basis, Prof Hein Willemse was appointed in the Jaap Durand Chair on a Just, Participatory and Sustainable Society at UWC in 2025. Upon his request, the position was structured in such a way that it extends to the first semester of 2026.
The Jaap Durand Chair on a Just, Participatory and Sustainable Society (2025-2026)
Hein Willemse completed a BA Honours (cum laude), MA (cum laude) and D.Litt at the University of the Western Cape, and later obtained a Master’s degree in Business Leadership (MBL) from the University of South Africa.
He began his academic career in 1980, lecturing at several institutions, including his alma mater. In 2000, he was appointed Professor and Head of the Department of Afrikaans at the University of Pretoria, where he served until his retirement as Emeritus Professor in 2022. He has also held visiting professorships at universities across South Africa and internationally, including in Africa, Europe, and central and North America. He currently serves as the inaugural holder of the Jaap Durand Chair (2025–2026) at the University of the Western Cape.
From his student years, Willemse has been active as a reporter and journalist for student, community, and alternative publications. In 1985, he participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Between 1996 and 2000, he served as Executive Director of OLM Publications, and from 2001 to 2019 as editor-in-chief of Tydskrif vir letterkunde, the oldest literary journal on the African continent. He continues to write a regular column for Afrikaans newspapers.
He has served as a director on several company boards and as a trustee of various non-governmental organisations and interest groups. He is a former president of the International Society for the Oral Literatures of Africa (ISOLA).
Willemse’s research focuses primarily on (South) African literature, with a particular emphasis on Afrikaans oral traditions and Black Afrikaans Writing. He has published extensively, both nationally and internationally. His scholarly works include Aan die ander kant: Swart Afrikaanse skryfwerk in die Afrikaanse letterkunde (2007), as well as several edited volumes on Black Afrikaans writing. In 2021, he compiled and critically introduced the collected poetry of Patrick J. Petersen under the title Ons het […] ver versit.
In 2012, he co-edited Achmat Davids’s The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims, reissued in 2024 as The Arabic Afrikaans Writing Tradition. He has also edited several works on student life and political activism in the 1970s, including Hostel (2018) and Act and Advance! (2024), Enrico Pedro’s study of the 1976 uprisings at the University of the Western Cape.
His contributions have been recognised with numerous awards. In 2001, the Western Cape Department of Culture honoured his edited volume More than Brothers: James Matthews and Peter Clarke at 70 for its contribution to the region’s cultural heritage. In 2002, he received the Afrikaans Onbeperk Award from the National Klein Karoo Arts Festival. In 2020, he was awarded the prize for best long-form essay review, and his documentary Die versteekte geskiedenisse van Afrikaans — The Hidden Histories of Afrikaans (2018) was nominated for the Humanities Award of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Most recently, he received the Orde van die Windpomp at the Etienne van Heerden Veldsoirée and the ATKV Prestige Award in 2025.
Jaap Durand Professor 2025-26’s vision
“I regard my appointment as the inaugural Jaap Durand Professor as a singular honour. I do not approach the guiding values of justice, participation, and sustainability as abstract ideals; rather, I understand them as interconnected principles that must be actively realised within institutions of learning and in their engagement with surrounding communities. Throughout my life I have combined my academic career with ongoing activism for social justice. This Professorship enables me to extend my scholarly work and my activism on marginality and inclusion, while fostering meaningful connections between academic colleagues, emerging researchers, civil society, and broader institutional partners.”
Jaap Durand Chair 2025-26: Activities
Date: 1 December 2025 (Slave Emancipation Day)
The Jaap Durand Chair a one-day seminar on 1st December on the questions of identity, justice, and nationhood. The event offered leading thinkers a multidisciplinary platform to reflect on South Africans understanding of themselves, three decades into democracy. It dealt with our sense of ourselves. Who are we, and what would we like to become? Over the past thirty years we have had recurring debates around indigeneity, affirmative action, and citizenship, and this seminar was a barometer of those debates.
Report: click here
The Jaap Durand Seminar II on Gangsterism and Social Dysfunction in the Western Cape
Date: 18 March 2026
The seminar was convened on Wednesday, 18 March 2026, by UWC’s Jaap Durand Chair and the Research Chair in Gender, Transformation and Worldmaking in the Faculty of Law, in partnership with the Cape Crime Crisis Coalition. It brought together stakeholders from civil society, faith-based organisations, government, policing structures, academia and affected communities.
Report: click here
The Jaap Durand Seminar III on South African Sport and the Nation
Date: 22 April 2026
Sport continues to play a significant role in the formation of national identity, yet the broader project of transformation in sport and society remains incomplete. This seminar will explore the gap between elite sport and underresourced community-level sport, especially in rural and urban marginalised areas. It will also explore the progress that has been made in building durable sporting ecosystems.
Report: click here
The Jaap Durand Annual Lecture
Date: 1 December 2025 (Slave Emancipation Day)
The Jaap Durand Chair invited Patric Tariq Mellet to deliver the Jaap Durand Annual Lecture, “Restorative Memory in the Crafting of Restorative Justice contextual to Indigeneity and Slavery”, in which he developed themes that were raised in his acclaimed works The Lie of 1652 and The Truth about Cape Slavery.
The Nobel in Africa Symposium
Date: 5 November 2025
The Jaap Durand Chair with members of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities co-hosted a segment of the Nobel in Africa Symposium. The Nobel Symposium in Literature, held under the auspices of the Nobel Foundation and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, took place across Stellenbosch University, University of the Western Cape, and the University of Cape Town. It brought together leading African writers and scholars to reflect on “the unique contribution African writing can make to reformulating the destructive narratives of the past and present.” The events were coordinated by the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS).
The Jaap Durand Chair Legacy Garden Project
Jaap Durand Chair proposes a Legacy Garden adjacent to the News Arts Building. The envisioned legacy garden would not merely be a physical development, but a counter-hegemonic and pedagogical project, one that affirms institutional traditions, commemorates its people and intellectual contributions, and simultaneously functions as a living teaching and research environment rooted in cultural, historical, and ecological knowledge systems. In addition, the Jaap Durand Chair proposed the placement of a plaque commemorating the 5oth anniversary of the student protests of 1976, alongside the commemorative glass brick, installed in the UWC library atrium under the direction of Prof. Jaap Durand.
The Fifth Black Afrikaans Writers’ Symposium
Date: October 2025
Prof. Willemse delivered the keynote address at the fifth Black Afrikaans Writers’ Symposium (SAS), which took place on 10 and 11 October at the University of the Western Cape.
Jaap Durand Professor: Publications (Sept 2025 – April 2026)
Research Publications
- Willemse, Hein. 2027a. “Swart Afrikaanse letterkunde – ’n tradisie in wording”. In: Swart Afrikaanse Letterkunde (Kwê 4), edited by Marni Bonthuys, Luan Staphorst, Hein Willemse. Pretoria: Van Schaik (under consideration).
- Willemse, Hein. 2027b. “Komvandaan and Postmemory: Reconstructing the Father in Diana Ferrus’s Die vrede kom later”. In: Twenty Years of ‘Ons Komvandaan’ edited by Bibi Burger and Athambile Masola. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press (under consideration).
- Brümmer, Willemien. 2025. “Afrikaans en die ‘kompleksiteit van grys’”. Netwerk24.com. 15 December. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2025a. “Franklin Abraham Sonn (1939–2025)”. Litnet.co.za, 20 November. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2025b. “Vyfde Sas-simposium: Swart Afrikaanse letterkunde – ’n tradisie in wording”. Litnet.co.za, 16 October. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2025c. “Terugblik op 50”. Youtube.com, 12 November (video). Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2026a. “Met ’n diepe verlange – herinneringe aan ’n vervloë lewe”. Litnet.co.za, 27 February. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2026b. “Afrikaans: 1976, mites, kennis en toekoms”. Litnet.co.za, 27 March. Click Here
- Wyngaard, Heindrich with Hein Willemse, Lennit Max, 2026. “Misdaad in Suid-Afrika”, Wyngaard Weekliks, LitNet-kanaal op YouTube. 20 March. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2025d. “Vyf stede in Sa op dié moordlys”. Netwerk24.com. 11 September. Click here
- Willemse, Hein. 2025e. “Só kan Zille die verkiesing wen”. Netwerk24.com. 25 September. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2025f. “Gillian se droom tragies beëindig”. Netwerk24.com. 9 October. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2025g. “Fort Hare brand weens misdaad”. Netwerk24.com. 23 October. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2025h. “Dit is nie ware demokrasie nie”. Netwerk24.com. 06 November. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2025i. “Sonn het geleef met integriteit”. Netwerk24.com. 20 November. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2025j. “Dié onderwyser was ’n mensch”. Netwerk24.com. 4 December. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2025k. “Die gesigte van Versoeningsdag”. Netwerk24.com. 18 December. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2026c. “Gayton op ’n glibberige baan”. Netwerk24.com. 15 January. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2026d. “Vra jouself net dié een vraag”. Netwerk24.com. 28 January. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2026e. “Diana Ferrus: ’n krgtoer-digter”. Netwerk24.com. 12 February. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2026f. “Moenie Boesak se rol onderskat”. Netwerk24.com. 25 February. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2026g. “Het Cyril regtig nie geweet nie”. Netwerk24.com. 12 March 2026. Click Here
- Willemse, Hein. 2026h. “Breek uit die silo’s; troef bendes so”. Netwerk24.com. 26 March. Click Here
