UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND
                                                                2nd International Interdisciplinary Conference
                                                Theme: Language, disciplinarity and knowledge production in Africa

                                                         Hosted by the Department of English, UNIZULU

                                                                              Richards Bay, South Africa
                                                                                20 – 21 November 2024

                                                                            Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
                                                                                       Sinfree Makoni
                                                               (Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, USA)
                                                                                                 &
                                                                                       William J Mpofu
                                                        (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa)

In this conference, we aim to explore the intricate relationships between language, academic disciplines and the whole range of processes by which knowledge is created, shared and transformed in contemporary contexts. We are particularly interested in how these phenomena have evolved globally over time and how they continue to play out within unique African contexts. Our focus will be in the domain of formal education in general and the higher education sector where there seems to have been both a convergence and divergence of ideas, propositions and intense debates in the past decade. Indeed, across the world and perhaps more so within African countries, questions about the role of language in education have continued to arise in socio-cultural, intellectual, policy and political conversations.

These questions are not unrelated to the fact that the very conceptualization of knowledge in contemporary formal education – i.e. what is presented, accepted, disseminated and reified as knowledge has predominantly been encoded in dominant European languages. Following close and sustained encounters between Africa and Europe, Africans have almost always had to engage with ‘knowledge’ via European linguistic codes and signifiers shaped and influenced by specific historical, biographical, economic and socio-cultural experiences. Crucially, scholars are also concerned that the knowledges encoded within specific linguistic schemas invariably reflect the worldviews and interests of those societies which happen to be the ‘home’ of these dominant languages.
In this connection, renewed calls for decolonising the westernised university in Africa become significant. Many scholars have argued that African universities ought to become spaces and sites for recovering and promoting African epistemologies, knowledge paradigms, systems of thought and cultures that have suffered marginalisation under European colonialism/coloniality especially through the instrumentation of language over the past three to four centuries. How might a reconceptualisation of language in education facilitate such an objective? What value might be found in the ancient, presumably autonomous African university systems such as those famously linked to Kemet, Fez and Timbuktu? How might such a history benefit contemporary universities in Africa struggling to overcome the dominance of Euro-modernist traditions? In what ways can indigenous African languages and cultures be re-centred in knowledge production and dissemination today and in the future?

This leads us to the phenomenon of modern disciplinarity characterised by the development and use of distinct – and often esoteric – terminologies, grammars and language conventions. On the face of it, academic and professional disciplines are associated with ‘objective’ efforts to improve understanding of specific fields of study, building on themselves and applying past knowledge to new situations and phenomena. However, disciplines have often been found as instrumental – either wittingly or unwittingly – in gate-keeping both epistemic and socio-economic access. For this reason, disciplinary infrastructure and boundaries have been implicated in reinforcing and sustaining what the Peruvian scholar, Aníbal Quijano (1992) described as the colonial matrix of power instituted in the enduring Euro-modernist era. Furthermore, American philosopher, Lewis Gordon (2006) has questioned the validity of received disciplines, demonstrating their problematic histories and roles in the contemporary global knowledge infrastructure. In this regard, much criticism has been levelled at a wide range of disciplines with sociology, anthropology, history, development studies, and economics, possible receiving greater attention among those classified as humanities and social sciences. These critiques have contributed to growing propositions for multi-, trans-, inter- and non- disciplinary approaches to knowledge today.

At a less macro level, new arguments are arising that challenge long held and mostly structuralist theories of language and its assumed foundational role in definitions of humanness and knowledge production processes. One of such arguments is offered by Sinfree Makoni and Alistair Pennycook (2005) who argue that “language is not a natural phenomenon; it is communication which is a natural first order variable”. They suggest that language is but one way of thinking about communication and is “perhaps not the most productive way of doing so”. How might this view explain some of the thorny challenges we face in Africa today, especially where second languages are at the centre of knowledge production and human interaction? What benefits can be envisaged from a teaching and learning re-orientation that places communication, rather than language mastery for its own sake, at the core of education?
To explore these and other questions, we invite abstracts of no more than 250 words from academics, policymakers, language practitioners, etc. on the following and related sub-themes:

•  disciplinary identities and knowledge frameworks
•  language policies on knowledge production in educational institutions
•  the interplay between indigenous languages and global knowledge systems
•  decolonisation of knowledge production
•  the importance of cultural narratives
•  the challenges and opportunities presented by multilingualism
•  opportunities presented by language digitisation and digital humanities
•  indigenous knowledge production
•  language, knowledge and the environment
•  research methodologies and theories
•  problematising multi-, trans-, inter- and non- disciplinary approaches
•  disciplinary histories informing the present
•  sustainable knowledge production into the future
•  as well as other topics and themes which might interest potential presenters

Abstracts should be submitted via the following link: https://sites.google.com/view/english-conference/registration
The initial deadline for the submission of abstracts is Friday 11th October 2024. Notification of acceptance will be done on an ongoing basis.

Registration fees: R5000 (physical presentations); R2000 (virtual presentations); R1500 (student presenters). Enquiries should be addressed to PhakathiB@unizulu.ac.za; AkpomeA@unizulu.ac.za