Welcome

HUMA – the Institute for Humanities in Africa – is a new initiative at the University of Cape Town (UCT), intended to create a dynamic interdisciplinary community for scholars and students in the humanities at large.

Fostering top-end academic research, HUMA seeks to drive critical public debate, promoting UCT’s vision of itself as a civic university contributing to the making of democratic citizenship.

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Tombouctou Manuscripts Project

The Tombouctou Manuscripts Project at the University of Cape Town is dedicated to researching various aspects of writing and reading the handwritten works of Timbuktu and beyond. Training young researchers is an integral part of its work.

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A Timbuktu book collector between the Mediterranean and Sahel

Shamil Jeppie will be the keynote speaker at THE SOUTHERN SHORES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN AND BEYOND: 1800 – TO THE PRESENT Conference,

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  • HERWITZ-3
    Workshop: Visual Discourse Analysis with Prof Daniel Herwitz

    We’re happy to announce the second instalment of our new Social Theory series. Following from the first instalment on ‘Theoretical approaches to discourse analysis’, Daniel Herwitz will give two

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  • shamil
    Shamil Jeppie takes on Huma Directorship

    My predecessor, Deborah Posel, brought an outstanding record of intellectual and organizational leadership in the humanities to UCT. I can only laud with superlatives her achievements at Huma and the

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  • audience at Pride and Protest1
    Where is your pride?

    It is not everyday that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from all over get together to talk about why they appear in the same space every year. And such is the power of the most celebrated

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Our Research Themes


On Being Human

This theme aims to contribute to resurgent scholarly interest in questions of what we humans share, even if in recognition of profound differences – as the basis for grappling with the contours of ‘a good life’.
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Circuits of Consumption

If the first research theme grapples broadly and variously with our relationships with others, this research theme focuses on our relationship to ‘stuff’ – again, theoretically, empirically and ethically.
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