Who’s Who
Dr Reinhardt Fourie
Department of Afrikaans and Theory of Literature
University of South Africa (UNISA)
E-mail: fourir@unisa.ac.za
Tel: +27 12 429 6603
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Reinhardt Fourie studied at the University of Pretoria, Ghent University (Belgium), the University of Leuven (Belgium), and Stellenbosch University. He was previously affiliated to the Department of Afrikaans and the Unit for Academic Literacy at the University of Pretoria. He was lecturer in the Department of English Studies at the University of South Africa (Unisa) between 2014 and 2022. He currently holds the position of senior lecturer in the Department of Afrikaans and Theory of Literature (Unisa). His research interests include comparative literature (English/Afrikaans) and postcolonialism.
Vice-Chairperson
Dr Minesh Dass
Department of English
University of Johannesburg
E-mail: m.dass@uj.ac.za
Minesh Dass is a senior lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Johannesburg. He has also taught English literary studies at Rhodes University and theory of literature at the University of South Africa. He has published work on notions of home and belonging in South African postapartheid writing, and on university institutional culture. His current research focuses on methods of literary analysis and their applicability to South African cultural study.
Secretary
Dr Neil van Heerden
Department of Afrikaans and Theory of Literature
University of South Africa (UNISA)
E-mail: vheern@unisa.ac.za
Tel: +27 12 429 6424
Neil van Heerden studied at the University of Pretoria, completing a PhD in 2018 on the relationship between crime fiction and the literary canon in Afrikaans, with specific reference to the novels of Deon Meyer. He is currently affiliated with the Department of Afrikaans and Theory of Literature at the University of South Africa (Unisa), where he teaches Afrikaans literature. His academic interests include narratology, postcolonial theory, ecocriticism, popular fiction and crime fiction.
Treasurer
Gemma Field
Department of English
University of the Free State
E-mail: fieldgrn@ufs.ac.za
Gemma Field is a lecturer in English Literature at the University of the Free State. She won the inaugural Stan Ridge Memorial Prize for Best Conference Paper at the University of the Western Cape in 2020 and graduated with a Master of Arts from the University of Cape Town in 2022. Her research examines the intersections of science fiction, queer theory, Modernism and the environmental humanities.
Additional Members
Dr Siseko H. Kumalo
Department of Philosophy
University of Fort Hare
E-mail: skumalo@ufh.ac.za
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Siseko H. Kumalo is a political theorist whose work examines social ontology focusing on Blackness/Indigeneity in South Africa. His PhD analysed belonging and national identity using the scholarship of two historical Black intellectuals, i.e., William Wellington Gqoba and S.E.K. Mqhayi. He is a Lecturer at the University of Fort Hare’s Department of Philosophy and served as the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Decolonising Disciplines. He received the Harvard South Africa Fellowship in 2022, which was spent developing the Black Archive Visual Podcast and other innovative research projects at Harvard. His research has garnered international attention, featuring in platforms such as the United Nations Pre-Summit for the Future (meeting) in New York (2024).
Dr Silindiwe Sibanda
Department of English
University of Pretoria
E-mail: silindiwe@gmail.com
ORCID
Silindiwe Sibanda has been a researcher and lecturer in literature for more than two decades. She has a PhD in young adult and children’s literature from the University of the Witwatersrand, and over the last six years she has turned her attention to teaching, subsequently acquiring a PGCE from the University of Sunderland. She has worked as a lecturer in the English departments of Unisa and the University of Pretoria. She has taught at the Venture Education Centre in Beijing, working with second language English learners to prepare them for English medium education and university entry. In addition, she taught English and Individuals and Societies at both high school and primary school level at the Western Academy of Beijing, where she also worked as a learning support teacher. Her recent research has been on how to encourage learners to read, as well as incorporating and accommodating visually impaired learners in mainstream schools.
Editor: Journal of Literary Studies
Prof. Alan Northover
Department of Afrikaans and Theory of Literature
University of South Africa (UNISA)
E-mail: northra@unisa.ac.za
Tel: +27 12 429 6794
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Richard Alan Northover is professor in general literary theory and critical theory in the Department of Afrikaans and Theory of Literature at the University of South Africa. His PhD (2010), obtained at the University of Pretoria, concerns J.M. Coetzee and animal ethics. In addition to articles on Coetzee, he has published on Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy and southern African rock art, both prehistoric and contemporary, placing his work in the fields of animal studies and ecocriticism. From 2016-19, he chaired the Literature Association of South Africa (formerly SAVAL/SASGLS).