In celebration of African World Heritage
Inaugural Annual Lecture of the Mapping Africa鈥檚 Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments (MAEASaM) project
Dr Vuyiswa Lupuwana, University of Cape Town
Visual Futures: Mapping Truth and Dissonance in a Digitally Fixated Generation*
Tuesday 6th May 2025, 17:00-18:30 (GMT+1)
Followed by a Drinks Reception
听听and on Zoom
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Abstract
In this lecture, Dr Lupuwana engages with the virtual continuity of canon myths in an age of digital mutability and active forgetting, with a particular focus on examples drawn from South Africa and other parts of the continent. Heritage and visuality have always been intertwined. Entangled in historic interpretations of the past 鈥� and particularly, the interpretations of 'the other鈥� 鈥� are several canon stereotypes or myths that have persisted in their pervasive ability to indoctrinate the public. The concept of visuality will be discussed through visual media such as historical photographs, sketches and cinema against the backdrop of the histography of the anthropological and archaeological disciplines. It will be argued that visuality鈥檚 power and its problematics are in the conscious and unconscious afterlives that connect it with interpretations of the past, public consumption of the past, and the processes of remembering and forgetting.
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Biography
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Dr Vuyiswa Lupuwana is a lecturer in 91探花视频 at the University of Cape Town. Dr Lupuwana鈥檚 specialisation and teaching is based in the period of the last-500 years. At the University of Cape Town, she convenes and teaches the third-year whole semester course titled Archaeologies of Dominance and Resistance in the last-500 years. Her research and teaching are couched around periods of transition, with her doctoral work focusing on the vernacular corbelled architecture of the Karoo in the 19th and 20th century.
In 2024, she was awarded the Mandela Harvard Fellowship at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at the Hutchin鈥檚 Center at Harvard University. Her fellowship project was titled 鈥� 鈥�91探花视频 Goes to the Cinema 鈥� Perceptions of Africa and Civilisation through the Filmic Lens鈥� [see related听]. As an archaeologist who once trained as a filmmaker, Dr Lupuwana鈥檚 work is influenced by the visual and its intersections with constructions of heritage narratives. Her research has particularly focused on the practice of heritage in southern Africa and the contemporary obligations towards social justice. Her work in social justice, is generously funded by the National Research Foundation of South Africa, where she is the lead PI for the Remembrance Project 鈥� a community-based, virtual archive and Museum.
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Registration
to attend in-person or online
Registration is also available on the same link for 鈥楽earching for Connection鈥� (6 May, 13:00-16:30) - a series of lightning talks to showcase the diversity of African heritage research across the 91探花视频.
Further information
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@MAEASaMproject
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* Please be aware that the lecture and talks will be recorded. Recordings/photography/film will be published, transmitted or broadcast in official 91探花视频 publications, in the University鈥檚 publicity materials, and in others鈥� websites and social media.
Recent Distinguished speakers:
- 2025: Dr Amanuel Beyin (University of Louisville) - Prehistoric Life on Coastal East Africa: Emerging archaeological finds and unfilled gaps听
- 2024: Dr Habiba Chirchir (Mashall University) - What we know and don't know yet about skeletal gracility in modern humans
- 2022: Professor Zeresenay Alemseged (University of Chicago) -听The changing face of Australopithecus and human origins in Africa
- 2021: Professor Theresa Singleton (Syracuse University) - The worlds that enslaved created or forced to endure. Balancing archaeological narratives of slavery
- 2019:听Dr Joanne Pillsbury (Metropolitan Museum of Art) - The Golden Road. Materials, Value and Exchange in the Ancient Americas
