Sindiwe Magona 2023 Conference
(a hybrid, international conference)
April 12-14, 2023
Conference website:
https://www.cas.gsu.edu/conferences/sindiwe-magona-2023/
The Sindiwe Magona 2023 Planning Committee and Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia (USA) are pleased to announce the Sindiwe Magona 2023 conference, a celebration of Dr. Sindiwe Magona’s eightieth year, that is occurring on April 12-14, 2023. We invite you to submit academic papers or panel ideas for this conference. We anticipate that most participants will be attending virtually, but there will also be an in-person component at GSU, for those who are able to travel to Atlanta.
Dr. Magona is being celebrated for her thirty-plus years as a South African writer, storyteller, and activist. Her writings, which were among the first to articulate the experiences of African women under apartheid and in the post-independence era, touch on the topics of race, gender, and language. Her best-known works include the 1998 novel Mother to Mother (about the tumultuous years of the transition to democracy), the 2009 novel Beauty’s Gift (about the HIV and Aids crisis in the country), and her autobiographies To My Children’s Children (1990) and Forced to Grown (1992). She has also written over 130 children’s books, making her one of the most prolific producers of children’s literature in the country, if not the continent.
The topic of the conference is not only a celebration of Dr. Magona’s career, but also a call for papers reflecting on contemporary issues facing South Africa and beyond. By making the conference available both online and in-person, we hope to attract a diverse, world-wide range of perspectives from respected academic institutions. Potential topics for papers include the following:
- Women’s issues in South Africa and beyond
- Issues in children’s education
- Activism through literature
- Reflections on race relations in South Africa
We provide specific suggestions for proposal in our call for papers (https://cas.gsu.edu/conferences/sindiwe-magona-2023/#call-for-papers), which is found on our website (link listed below). Presenters can also present papers on other African writers whose work can be brought into the conversation with Dr. Magona’s works.
If you have questions about the conference, please contact Renée Schatteman (Chair of Sindiwe Magona 2023 Planning Committee and Associate Professor at GSU) at sindiwemagona2023@gmail.com.