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DUT Hosts Successful Postgraduate Conference

DUT Hosts Successful Postgraduate Conference

Encouraging cross-faculty networking and reflecting on the nature of academic work and research was the aim of Durban University of Technology’s (DUT) annual Postgraduate Conference which took place at Coastlands on the Ridge Hotel.

Organised by the Faculty of Arts and Design, the goal of the two day conference was to present a range of postgraduate research conducted across all faculties at DUT and other African universities, and to reflect on the nature of academic work and research. The conference also provided the opportunity to discover the wide range of research that is being conducted at various institutions.

Opening the conference was Dr René Alicia Smith, Executive Dean: Faculty of Arts and Design at DUT. Dr Smith is also a member of the South African Humanities Deans Association.
Dr Smith said growing research and supervision capacity has been central to DUT’s strategic plan as that of the

Faculty of Arts and Design. “We also know that creativity and critical thinking are fundamental to our future and to strengthening democracies. Computers have not yet been able to do this for us. We exist in a world and at a time where we need to see our work and our research as a form of activism not only as contributing to scholarship and deepening knowledge. We should use our work to advocate for a world where we build bridges instead of walls; where we try to understand our differences, celebrate diversity and our agency,” she said.

Keynote speaker, Professor Michael Chapman from the DUT Faculty of Arts and Design also gave his thoughts and ideas on ‘urban cool’ as a research area. “Beyond forms of colonial or metropolitan imitation, beyond an Africanism that reduces a complex and differentiated continent to a single cliché, what is our originality? Originality, of course, being the crux of research. My paper is simply a prompt to your thought, to your imagination. Not easy, but research has always been more adventurous than safe,” he said.

The conference continued with various speakers talking on papers relating to e-learning, social media, teenage pregnancy and intercultural marriages, to name but a few.
Dr Smith added that all researchers needed to engage, examine, interrogate and ask questions. “We need to innovate, push disciplinary boundaries, go beyond the borders and silos. Mostly, we must situate yourselves at the centre,” she said.

– Waheeda Peters

Pictured: DUT’s Prof Michael Chapman, Dr Maleshooane Rapaene-Mathonsi and Dr René Alicia Smith at the conference.

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