This week theatre, gallery and movie listings take second place to an unusually full and exciting menu of talks, debates and discussions. They fill every weekday evening, starting with two events tonight.
TODAY: GEOFF BUDLENDER ON SOCIAL JUSTICE
From the SJC (Social Justice Coalition) comes an invitation to the Irene Grootboom Memorial lecture today; advocate Geoff Budlender's subject is "how to maintain and advance the legacy of Irene Grootboom, a renowned housing activist who died homeless."
Monday 11 18h00
Community House 41 Salt River Road
SHELLEY BARRY - GREAT TEXTS/BIG QUESTIONS
The Gipca talk this week looks very compelling. Filmmaker and disability rights activist Shelley Barry will speak about her experience of making films from a wheelchair and will illustrate her talk with extracts from some of the short films that she has made in different genres. Among others there will be extracts from "Whole-A Trinity of Being" about the taxi wars and "Str/oll - a wheelchair user navigates the streets of Manhattan."
Thursday 14 17h00
Hiddingh Hall Hiddingh Campus
For more information call 021 480 7156 or e-mail fin-gipca@uct.ac.za
LECTURE ON WRITING LIFE STORIES
The Cape Town Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy is hosting a lecture called Writing my life: Life writing, Psychoanalysis, and the Insider Voice by Leslie Swartz, professor of psychology at Stellenbosch. "Since the time of Freud, we have been trained to believe that people may not be the best authorities to understand their own behaviour. We dismiss personal accounts as 'subjective', unscientific, determined by forces beyond conscious control, and open to bias. .. Despite this, there is increasing interest in letting people speak for themselves, in giving people 'voice'. Personal accounts fascinate: the memoir industry is booming and 'reality' shows dominate television This talk will explore the different ways in which people claim to be representing the truth about themselves and about other people, and will explore the borderlands between social science, psychotherapy, gossip and entertainment."
Thursday 14 20h00
Centre for the Book 62 Queen Victoria Street
R40 No bookings
LAUNCH PROGRAMME OF THE INSTITUTE FOR HUMANITIES IN AFRICA
This new insititute at UCT launches with a fortnight of debates, discussions, lectures and presentations. The institute has been created to "champion interdisciplinary research" and to "run initiatives that will bridge the divide between the UCT academy and wider publics in Cape Town." Interestingly it is "nestled philosophically and organisationally between the faculties of Humanities and Law." Listed below is a selection of this week's events:
TODAY: GEOFF BUDLENDER ON SOCIAL JUSTICE
From the SJC (Social Justice Coalition) comes an invitation to the Irene Grootboom Memorial lecture today; advocate Geoff Budlender's subject is "how to maintain and advance the legacy of Irene Grootboom, a renowned housing activist who died homeless."
Monday 11 18h00
Community House 41 Salt River Road
SHELLEY BARRY - GREAT TEXTS/BIG QUESTIONS
The Gipca talk this week looks very compelling. Filmmaker and disability rights activist Shelley Barry will speak about her experience of making films from a wheelchair and will illustrate her talk with extracts from some of the short films that she has made in different genres. Among others there will be extracts from "Whole-A Trinity of Being" about the taxi wars and "Str/oll - a wheelchair user navigates the streets of Manhattan."
Thursday 14 17h00
Hiddingh Hall Hiddingh Campus
For more information call 021 480 7156 or e-mail fin-gipca@uct.ac.za
LECTURE ON WRITING LIFE STORIES
The Cape Town Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy is hosting a lecture called Writing my life: Life writing, Psychoanalysis, and the Insider Voice by Leslie Swartz, professor of psychology at Stellenbosch. "Since the time of Freud, we have been trained to believe that people may not be the best authorities to understand their own behaviour. We dismiss personal accounts as 'subjective', unscientific, determined by forces beyond conscious control, and open to bias. .. Despite this, there is increasing interest in letting people speak for themselves, in giving people 'voice'. Personal accounts fascinate: the memoir industry is booming and 'reality' shows dominate television This talk will explore the different ways in which people claim to be representing the truth about themselves and about other people, and will explore the borderlands between social science, psychotherapy, gossip and entertainment."
Thursday 14 20h00
Centre for the Book 62 Queen Victoria Street
R40 No bookings
LAUNCH PROGRAMME OF THE INSTITUTE FOR HUMANITIES IN AFRICA
This new insititute at UCT launches with a fortnight of debates, discussions, lectures and presentations. The institute has been created to "champion interdisciplinary research" and to "run initiatives that will bridge the divide between the UCT academy and wider publics in Cape Town." Interestingly it is "nestled philosophically and organisationally between the faculties of Humanities and Law." Listed below is a selection of this week's events:
Monday: Human, Humane, Humanist
Chaired by Njabulo Ndebele, this includes Steven Lukes from NYU "On Being Human", Deborah Posel on "Human Complicities" and Neville Alexander on "A New Humanism for the 21st Century"
CAS Gallery Oppenheimer Building Upper Campus
Monday 11 18h00 to 19h30
Chaired by Njabulo Ndebele, this includes Steven Lukes from NYU "On Being Human", Deborah Posel on "Human Complicities" and Neville Alexander on "A New Humanism for the 21st Century"
CAS Gallery Oppenheimer Building Upper Campus
Monday 11 18h00 to 19h30
Tuesday lunchtime: Is there something different about violence in Africa?
With Jonny Steinberg among others.
Tuesday 12 13h00 to 14h30
HUMA seminar room 4th floor Oppenheimer Building Upper Campus
Tuesday afternoon: Talking from left fields: making news in USA, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa
With editors and journalists from all these countries including SA's Mondli Makhanya and Nic Dawes.
Tuesday 12 17h30 for 18h00
Kramer LT3 Middle Campus
Thursday: Durkheim and the idea of Law
With Steven Lukes from NYU and academics from Law and Criminology at UCT.
Thurday 14 18h00 to 19h30
Moot Court Kramer Middle Campus
Friday: The view from the brain: Neuropsychology and the question of being human
With Mark Solms, with Steven Lukes of NYU and John Parkington of Archaeology.
Friday 15 13h00 to 14h30
HUMA seminar room 4th floor Oppenheimer Building Upper Campus
PHOTOGRAPHY: A NEW BEGINNING
Araminta de Clermont came to public attention last year with an exhibition of amazing photographs of girls in their matric dance dresses, posing at home in various townships around Cape Town. A new exhibition called A New Beginning features a series of photographs of "recently initiated young Xhosa and Sotho men" from the same geographical area. "A watershed for many young men, the initiation process gives an opportunity to start anew. The exhibition examines the conflicts and syntheses between tradition and contemporary urban living..."
Till 30 October
Joao Ferreira Gallery
THE RAGGED TROUSERED PHILANTHOPISTS
The Fugard's resident Isango Portobello company this week previews a musical play based on the novel of this title by Robert Tressell written a hundred years ago. From the description of the book on Amazon:
'The present system means joyless drudgery, semi-starvation, rags and premature death; and they vote for it and uphold it. Let them have what they vote for! Let them drudge and let them starve!' There is no other novel quite like The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. George Orwell called it 'a wonderful book'; its readers have become a living part of its remarkable history. Tressell's novel is about survival on the underside of the Edwardian Twilight, about exploitative employment when the only safety nets are charity, workhouse, and grave. Following the fortunes of a group of painters and decorators and their families, and the attempts to rouse their political will by the Socialist visionary Frank Owen, the book is both a highly entertaining story and a passionate appeal for a fairer way of life. It asks questions that are still being asked today: why do your wages bear no relation to the value of your work? Why do fat cats get richer when you don't? Tressell's answers are 'The Great Money Trick' and the 'philanthropy' of an unenlightened workforce, who give away their rights and aspirations to a decent life so freely. Intellectually enlightening, deeply moving and gloriously funny (complete with exploding clergyman), The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a book that changes lives.'
Fugard Theatre 021 461 4554
Tuesday to Saturday 19h30 Saturday matinee 15h00
Previews Friday 15 - Wednesday 20
A LESSON ABOUT ALOES
The free Wednesday morning talk at Kirstenbosch is by Jaap Viljoen and is about new garden aloes.
Kirstenbosch Sanlam Hall (Gate 2)
Wednesday 13 10h30 - 11h30
Enquiries:Cathy Abott 021 465 -6440
MOVIES UNDER THE STARS
I love this idea, though I might be less enthusiastic on the night - Cape Town so rarely gets balmy enough and we're a few months away from mid-summer. But it is a fun idea. Jonkershuis at Groot Constantia is showing "classic movies underneath the stars" and this Saturday it's a real temptation with Some Like it Hot.
" Bring your own picnic blankets/cushions and order popcorn, a delicious picnic basket,snacks, beer or Groot Constantia wine from Jonkershuis (no outside foods and drinks permitted)"
Saturday 16 20h00
Entrance R15 Numbers are limited Book with Hailey on 021 794 6255
