Prof Leeuw Lerothodi (CGS) and Dr Steve Crawford (SALT)

On March 26^th, 2013, Dr Steve Crawford, the data manager at the Southern African Large Telescope, presented a College of Graduate Studies (CGS) seminar entitled “A Night in the Life of SALT”

As described by Dr Crawford, the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere and among the largest in the world.  It has a hexagonal primary mirror array 11 metres across, comprising 91 individual 1.2m hexagonal mirrors.

SALT can detect the light from faint or distant objects in the Universe, a billion times too faint to be seen with the unaided eye – as faint as a candle flame would appear at the distance of the moon. The telescope and instruments are designed to operate from the near ultraviolet to the near infrared (320 to 1700 nm), and offer some unique or rare capabilities on a telescope of this size.

SALT collects light from astronomical objects and accurately focuses it to one of four selectable focii. From there the light proceeds into an optical instrument while the telescope tracks the relative movement of the object across the sky to maximise exposure time

Throughout the night, the SALT Astronomer and operator will do observations for a wide range of different projects ranging from Near Earth Asteroids to galaxies at the end of the Universe. Dr Crawford showed some early SALT results from a project done with Prof Lerothodi L. Leeuw, of the College of Graduate Studies, on very distant galaxies that are gravitationally lensed by closer galaxies that can be observed with SALT to determine their spectra, distances and geometry of their lenses. Do look out for other exciting results coming from SALT in the future; and, when in the Karoo near Sutherland, stop at the SALT Visitor Centre to learn more about SALT and its results.

Prof. Anthony Court (School of Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Studies) (C2 NRF rated), is proceeding with his research, which includes the third year of a five year project in Poland entitled “Re-placing labour: Exploitation of forced labour in Nazi occupied East Upper Silesia, 1944-1945”

In partnership with colleagues from the University of Pretoria and and an Austrian filmmaker and historian, Professor Anthony Court, School of Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Studies (2012 C2 NRF rated), is proceeding with his research, which includes the third year of a five-year project in Poland entitled Re-placing labour: Exploitation of forced labour in Nazi occupied East Upper Silesia, 1944-1945. The project findings will be published in a monograph in Holland.

Court continues to research the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. He is currently focusing on the history of the late pre-colonial and early colonial Nyiginya kingdom. He is also a lead researcher in a Southern African audiovisual historical archive digitising project in partnership with the Dutch NGO, International Institute of Social History (2011-2016).

Court also plans to extend the scope of his research in the African Great Lakes region to include the post-1994 mass violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His particular interest is the role of foreign armies and militia in the mass killings, rape and torture of civilians. He is also undertaking a study of the archives of the German missionary society in colonial Rwanda.  These are major strides in research, no doubt adding value to the university as it celebrates 140 years of excellence in research and innovation. “My research focuses on comparative genocide studies, which is a comparatively new and growing field in African scholarship,” he says.

What does it mean to be an African living in Africa? Prof. Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni wants to answer that and many other questions.

Professor Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni is Head of the Archie Mafeje Research Institute (AMRI) and a 2012 C3 rated researcher.  He holds a DPhil in Historical Studies from the University of Zimbabwe and has published extensively on African history and politics and his publication record includes over 40 peer reviewed journal articles, over 25 book chapters and more than five books. His major publications include Do ‘Zimbabweans’ exist? Trajectories of nationalism, national identity formation and crisis in a postcolonial State, Nationalism and national projects in Southern Africa: New critical reflections and many others.

Ndlovu-Gatsheni has taught history at the University of Zimbabwe, Midlands State University and International Studies at Monash University. He’s a Lecturer in African Studies at The Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies at the Open University in the UK, Senior Researcher at the South Africa Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) and Development Studies at UNISA.

His current and future research is informed by decolonial critical theory. “My research challenges the thinking which is described by leading decolonial thinkers from Latin America as coloniality; that is, continuation of colonial relations, colonial thinking and colonial practice long after the end of direct colonial administrations,” he says. Ndlovu-Gatsheni describes his research as revolutionary, daring and extremely relevant to the mission of Unisa. “Decoloniality forms the ideal basis for transforming Unisa from being a university in Africa to being an African university. My research work is predicated on advancement of the core mission of Unisa, focusing specifically on complex question of power, being, and knowledge,” he says.

His future plans are crystallising around the articulation of AMRI which he has been asked to set up and lead. “AMRI is at my heart and mind. I am working hard to brand it into a pan-African centre of excellence. I am striving towards making AMRI the home for decolonial thought and social policy-oriented research,” Ndlovu-Gatsheni says.

Finalising AMRI’s vision and plan for the next five years and an AMRI Book Series on genealogies, trajectories and horizons of African thought are on his agenda. “Just like Professor Archie Mafeje, I am more than convinced that there is need for deeper knowledge of Africa capable of enabling an understanding of Africa from inside,” he says.

Prof. Lerothodi Lapula Leeuw (College of Graduate Studies) (C2 NRF rated), conducts multi-wavelength astrophysical research on the evolution of elliptical galaxies and their progenitors, in both gravitationally lensed and un-lensed systems. Multi-wavelength research excites him because it combines information from different wavebands or telescopes, as individual telescopes are often specialised to only detect light at specific wavebands

A passionate astronomer, Professor Lerothodi Lapula Leeuw, College of Graduate Studies (C2 NRF rated), believes that the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) has enormous implications for the South Africa and continent, largely because this country will be hosting the majority of the instrument.

Through his research, Leeuw conducts multi-wavelength astrophysical research on the evolution of elliptical galaxies and their progenitors, in both gravitationally lensed and un-lensed systems. The lensed systems are excellent probes of dark matter that is partially responsible for gravitational lensing. One of the aims of the research is to assemble a large sample of gravitational lenses that can be used to probe the distribution and nature of dark matter in the universe. Multi-wavelength research excites Leeuw because it combines information from different wavebands or telescopes, as individual telescopes are often specialised to only detect light at specific wavebands – for example, the SKA at radio, and the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) at optical.

This outcome of this research will certainly affect South Africa and the continent as a whole. As Unisa celebrates 140 years of shaping futures and excellence in research and innovation, these strides are incredibly valuable and exciting to the university. Through this research, the aims are to re-establish Unisa as a leading centre of excellence in science and research by producing research outcomes and training people to be good researchers. “There’s also a big push in South Africa to conduct multi-wavelength research and I think we at Unisa would like to lead and be a participant in that movement. Unisa, the country and continent are already players in this global phenomenon, and indeed that’s what we want to establish – that we can play and participate in addressing the universe’s big questions.  It is a great time to be at Unisa and I hope to make an impact,” says Leeuw.

Thoko Didiza (Programme Director), Prof. Vizikhungo Mzamane (Project Leader and General Editor: ESAACH), and Prof. Nomthetho Simelane (Former Lecturer in Political Science: University of Swaziland) paid tribute to a great Pan-Africanist at the 2013 Archie Mafeje Annual Memorial Lecture.

The Annual Archie Mafeje Memorial Lecture Series celebrates the memory of an inspiring figure who worked tirelessly to highlight the importance of being an African through self-knowledge, self-control and self-emancipation.

Paying tribute at the 2013 event hosted by Unisa’s Archie Mafeje Research Institute (AMRI), in collaboration with the Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA), were Professor Nomthetho Simelane, former Lecturer in Political Science, Department of Political Administrative Studies, University of Swaziland, who delivered the memorial lecture, and Professor Vizikhungo Mzamane, Project Leader and General Editor: Encyclopaedia of South African Arts, Culture and Heritage (ESAACH) and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Fort Hare.

What emerged was an endearing picture of the great Pan-Africanist as a fascinating man, “this tall man who loved himself so much, but loved Africans even more”.

“His own worst enemy”, “a difficult individual” who could be “exasperating and insulting”, Mafeje was also an erudite scholar who was intellectually rigorous and who placed Africa at the epicentre of his research.

Speaking on Mafeje’s legacy of an African perspective based on the understanding of local context, Simelane said that the social science community had to realise that the majority of the continent’s population lived in a very different world to that of researchers. “Social science research must not only be available but accessible to that population.” She asserted that it was needful for researchers to ask what the obstacles were to the wider distribution of their research findings. One way, she said, for people to be made beneficiaries of this social science research, was for AMRI and other research institutes to contribute innovative solutions to its dissemination.