FEATURE

A wide array of HSS scholars who are advancing the humanities, the arts and critical thinking have been honoured at the annual Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) 2017 Awards: Book, Creative and Digital Contributions held by the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS).

Nine (9) winners were celebrated at an awards ceremony held on 29 March 2017, after a panel of 33 judges whittled down a broad field of over 60 entries to select winners in each category. The eligible submissions included 21 non-fiction book entries, 14 books of fiction, 14 creative collections and three (3) digital contributions.

These contributors are helping to shape the cultural landscape and cast a shining light on South African narratives. “Your contribution to the HSS scholarship community is encouraging.

More so at a time when we are faced with a challenging environment within the higher education landscape and the publishing world, as funding for the humanities and social science is also declining.”

The HSS Awards aim to support and promote new South African voices, says Professor Sarah Mosoetsa, CEO of the NIHSS. “These

awards truly celebrated, recognised and honoured outstanding and innovative scholars in the Human Social Sciences,” she said.

This is the second year the NIHSS has run these prestigious awards to bring significant works into the public arena and highlight society’s need for arts and social sciences, academic debate and intellectual stimulation.

“The awards have energised the organisation to continue its critical work of supporting outstanding scholars, authors, playwrights, poets, artists, curators and publishers whose collective contributions benefited humanity.”

“However, there was still a great need to prioritise creative works that promoted African languages and digital humanities,” Mosoetsa said. This is a challenge the NIHSS is bravely embracing and promises to prioriotise in the comings months and years. This focus is especially important as it will support South Africans to tell their own stories to inspire, inform, educate and perhaps provoke others into thinking more about the world around them and, encourage them to tell new stories. “Much work needs to be done to identify, support and promote new South African scholars in the

humanities and social sciences,” Prof Mosoetsa said.

The NIHSS was established in 2013 by the Department of Higher Education and Training. Its mandate is to support the humanities and social science in universities by supporting and funding HSS by providing doctoral scholarships and research grants for various forms of knowledge production within the HSS. It currently funds over 450 PhD students nationwide as well as over 100 academics who are conducting innovative research in the humanities and social sciences at over 20 universities.

Mosoetsa said a major role of the organisation was to inculcate a love and appreciation of the humanities and the general arts in South Africa, where historically the academy, government and funders’ emphasis often focused more on the STEM subjects - science, technology, engineering and mathematics. “If we are going to have well-rounded individuals and societies we need to have social sciences take their rightful place in the world,” she says.

The humanities help to create value for our history and a capacity for critical thinking, and that was currently vital in South

Africa, she added. “A nation that doesn’t know its history is a lost one.” Engaging with the HSS includes evidence that informs debate and the ability to argue intelligently, triggering a higher level of critical thinking. “We generally lack that rigour of making arguments and quality debates in South Africa,” she said. The HSS are necessary and have a bigger a role to play in South Africa.

Allowing South Africans to tell their own stories was hugely important for readers, students, artists, politicians or community leaders to readily identify one of their own who tell a story they identify with, and make them realise they could become storytellers, creators of history, and knowledge producers themselves.

The stories told by the HSS 2017 Award winners were not just about art, creativity and history, they were a commentary about our world and a significant contribution to the growth of our young society.

Reading and appreciating such works during these times, marked by political and economic upheavals should be fully embraced by all. This is important as South Africa requires active citizens with a broader appreciation of social issues and thinking to shape the future of the nation.

AND THE WINNERS ARE...The 2017 Humanities and Social Sciences: Book, Creative and Digital Awards were judged by a panel of more than 30 reviewers including

Joyce Myeza, Thembinkosi Goniwe, Professor Shireen Hassim and Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola. These are the well-deserving winners

Best Non-Fiction Monograph

Declassified - Moving beyond the dead-end

of race in South Africa

Author: Gerhard Maré

Publisher: Jacana Media

This book is undoubtedly one of the best to

come out of SA in the post-1994 period. It

contributes to our body of knowledge in

detailed and profound ways, challenging

existing ways of thinking about race as well as

existing policies about race. It provokes us to

rethink about the ideals of non-racism, in a

context where race thinking continues almost

unabated in a democratic South Africa. It is a

tour de force of critical scholarship,

encouraging us to be bold enough to consider

alternatives to the taken-for granted

assumptions about the existence of races and

the complexities around race based

discrimination and (significantly) capitalist

exploitation. It advances our understanding by

linking together a range of practices, policies and

pieces of legislation and then places them in the context of the everyday life of race,

racism and race thinking. Mare evokes an immediacy to the text by relating his own

personal journey in race consciousness. He asks very awkward questions about the

enduring reality of race and he proposes a way out of our current impasse, with full

recognition of just how limited the scope is for such an alternative in the face of the

overwhelming reality of the casual acceptance of the very existence of races. But he

does all of this while not portraying a lazy "colour-blindedness".

Best Non-Fiction Monograph

Regarding Muslims: From slavery to

post-apartheid

Author: Gabeba Baderoon

Publisher: Wits University Press

This is a timely, innovative and unique book

since it looks at the intersecting histories of

slavery, Islam and the literary / visual tradition

of the picturesque. The author has picked

topics as varied as cookbooks and poetry to

show the many different ways in which the

presence of "Malays" / Muslims/ "Coloureds"

has reflected the ambiguities of visibility vs

invisibility. It is an excellent contribution to

the postcolonial literature on race, culture,

religion and identity. Although clearly

influenced by the "linguistic turn" and by

postcolonial theory, this book is not overly

"theoretical" and its language invites

readership and engagement. The book is both

about South Africa and also about the history

of evasion and silence about the presence of

Muslims in the country's founding. The arguments are lucid, and coherent

throughout. The source material has been properly interrogated. Writing and

editing style are of good quality. Despite the very long span of time that is dealt with

in the book, well over 350 years, the author succeeds in wielding everything together

in a convincing manner, thus bringing her points across to the reader. It is very

well-edited and the quality of writing is excellent.

Best Non-Fiction Edited Volume

Changing Space, Changing City:

Johannesburg after Apartheid

Edited by Philip Harrison, Graeme Gotz,

Alison Todes and Chris Wray

Publisher: Wits University Press

This book is an excellent intervention in

debates about "cities of the South". It

challenges many of the common assumptions

about the city of Johannesburg while at the

same time offering the readers more than just

platitudes. In their introductory essay, the

editors are thorough in showing how their aim

is to balance the "materialist" and "subjectivist"

literature on Johannesburg by offering a

nuanced articulation of both. The

understanding that space shapes identities and

vice versa is one the best contributions to new

knowledge that this books makes. The

arguments are supported by quantitative

research and databases and this is also a unique

feature of the book - that is, it doesn't shy away

from combining statistics, graphs, mapping, photographs, tables in making its

arguments. The analysis elucidates the larger trends, while identifying shifts that are

not easily detected at the macro level. With empirical data supported by new data sets

including the 2011 Census, the city’s Development Planning and Urban Management

Department’s information system, and Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s substantial

archive, the book is an essential reference for planning practitioners, urban

geographers, sociologists, and social anthropologists, among others.

Best Fiction Single Authored

Volume: Poetry

A Half Century Thing

Author: Lesego Rampolokeng

Publisher: Black Ghost Books

The poems in the anthology are divided into

seven movements, which immediately evoke

a sense of the epic, perhaps on a Wagnarian

scale, or Mazisi Kunene Athem of the

Decades or Emepror Shaka the Great. And

when one starts reading it, the poems

indeed rise up to the intensity and scale of

an epic. Ulysses. The foregrounding of

anatomical imagery makes one avoid

swallowing for a while, until the poet

releases the tension, only to pummel the

reader once again. It is when one comes to

reading “Writing the Ungovernable” that

one find security in having suspected that

the French avant-garde style and that of

African political and literary heretics

(Chinweizu, Marechera et al) had some

influence in the forging of the poetic sculptures that the poet has carved, which

defiantly utter sacrilege to, as in “speaking truth to power”.

Creative Collections:

Best Public Performance Best Dance,

BodyTech

Co-founded by: Jessica Denyschen and

Adrienne Sichel

Innovative use of media - the body - new ways

of articulating dance, movement and

technology. In the fields of art making, where

participants crossed over thresholds,

integrating ideas in innovative ways. It appears

that the results were interesting for the varied

audiences. Body Tech has demonstrated unique

ways of integrating various fields that is

attractive to young or progressive audiences.

There is an element of promise for greater

things. The work opens up new conversations

within the HSS Field as it embraces elements

of technology and established dance movement

that engages one in contemporary forms of

communication. Set in street spaces in

Braamfontien Johannesburg, where control

over ones’ context is negligible, it is a work that

is at once experimental as it is tentative while it crosses boundaries while anticipating

possible technological problems which one seldom has control over.

Winner: Best Visual Art

Penny Siopis Time and Again

Edited by: Edited by Gerrit Olivier

A most welcome publication which provides

instructive theoretical articulations on Penny

Siopis' work spanning more than three decades.

articulated, engaged and contextualized are

Siopis' thematic ideas, scholarship, artistic

innovations or discoveries all demonstrating

her contribution to visual art practices within

the field of humanities and social sciences.

both the editor and contributors enrich the

publication equally illuminating and

complicating Siopis' oeuvre, in this way

rendering the submission a unique

contribution, creative and intellectual

accomplishment deserving the award. Both the

diverse visual artworks of Penny Siopis and

essays featured in the publication demonstrate

substantive and dynamic content. both the

quality of Siopis's work and contributors'

essays confirms mastery, noting their instructive

articulation, insightful construction and coherent presentation. Both the subject

content and creative form are well treated, demonstrating an authority over medium,

materials and language. This submission is indicative of creative intellectual work,

with the potential to solicit response and instigate debate.

Best Digital Humanities

Contributions

South African History

Online

Omar Badsha

South African History

Online (SAHO) is a

non-partisan people's

history project. It was

founded my Omar Badsha

and registered as a

non-profit Section 21

organisation in June

2000.The organisation was

founded to address the

biased way in which South

Africa’s history and

heritage, as well as the that

of Africa is represented in

the countries educational,

cultural and heritage

institutions. SAHO set out to write and promote a new history through the building

of a comprehensive online popular history website which is an open source platform

and to establish a multi-faceted and integrated educational programme that serves

to promote research, strengthen the teaching and learning of history and the telling

of the stories of ordinary people.

Best Musical Composition

Winner: Explorations: South African

flute music,

Stoltz, Liesl with François du Toit, José

Dias, Jacqueline Kerrod, Pieter van Zyl

This particular production is very timely,

specific and possibly one or a few of its kind. It

presents modern flute art music by South

African contemporary composers and played by

leading South African chamber musicians. Most

outputs of this nature often showcase the more

"prestigious" instruments", for lack of a better

expression; like the violin or piano or even the

symphony orchestra. Here, the various abilities

of the flute are explored and displayed with

remarkable success. In addition, this extensive

presentation presents flute music in ways that

allows for further reflection and scholarly

pursuit on the flute as a solo instrument.

Best Fiction Single Authored: Novel

What Will People Say

Author: Rehana Rossouw

Publisher: Jacana Media

The plight of drugs and gangs in the

depressed areas of our nation is well known.

This book throws light on the ordinary lives

trapped in such a world. How does a mother

hope to raise her daughters so that they

escape the hardship of township life? And the

sons, becoming members of a gang or selling

drugs or becoming addicts to drugs? Society

cannot defeat what it does not understand.

The author presents us with an opportunity to

not only understand but, perhaps, grow to

empathise with our kinsfolk so afflicted. The

content is well presented; the characters,

unforgettable, and the language pitch perfect!

This author knows the world she depicts;

using one family as the centrepiece of the

story while the whole, entire, community is

also involved is nothing but masterly.

HSS Awards celebrate humanities scholars for their rich contribution to society

Prof Gabeba Baderoon – Book: Non-Fiction Monograph winner for Regarding Muslims: From Slavery to Post-Apartheid (left),with Book: Non-Fiction chairjudge, Prof Shireen Hassim (right).