Media Engagements & Events (2024–2026)

Keynote Presentations

Prof Aïda Terblanché-Greeff

• African Environmental Ethics: Rethinking Climate Adaptation Beyond Western Paradigms
  Society of Applied Philosophy Seminar – Nairobi, Kenya (2025)

• >>Ubuntu World/View in Response to Just Energy Transition: A Utopian Imaginary?
  Just Transition Conference – Maputo, Mozambique (2024)

 

Conference Presentations

Prof Aïda Terblanché-Greeff

• Disaster Risk Reduction and Education for Sustainable Development: The EAGER Project as a Model for Community Engagement and Lifelong Learning
  International Conference on Sustainability and Education for Sustainable Development – Maputo (2025)

• From Predictable Rhythms to Climate Chaos: Rethinking African Temporal Categories
  Southern African Society for Environmental Philosophy Conference – Potchefstroom (2025)

• How Third Nature's Manifestations Problematise John S. Mbiti's Potential Time
  Anthropocene as Third Nature Conference – Medellín, Colombia (2025)

• Aspects of Ubuntu Degrowth as a Potential Future
  Philosophy Society of South Africa Conference – Parys (2025)

• It's Time to Talk About African Time
  World Congress of Philosophy – Rome (2024)

• Developing the Metzian Ubuntu Inventory Through Empirically Engaged African Philosophy
  Philosophy Society of South Africa Conference – Stellenbosch (2024)

---

Dr Matthias Pauwels

• The Age of Disruptive Governmentality and the Possibility of Letting a Good Crisis Go to Waste
  South African Society for Critical Theory Conference – Nelson Mandela University (2025)

• Barbarians of the Minoritarian Imagination: Yousfi on the Politics of Rap
  ISCIA Seminar: Horizon 2055 – Nelson Mandela University (2025)
  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/391481887_Presentation_ISCIA_Seminar_Barbarians_of_the_Minoritarian_Imagination

• Overidentification, Decolonisation and Genderqueer Artivism in Contemporary South Africa
  College Art Association Conference – New York (2025)

• Minoritarian Politics Beyond Recognition Politics
  Philosophy Society of South Africa Conference – NWU (2025)

• White Allyship and Decolonial/Queer Artivism in Contemporary South Africa
  Global Artivism Conference – Tshwane University of Technology (2024)

• On ‘Remaining Barbarian’ (Yousfi) as an Antiracist/Colonialist Strategy
  Annual conference of the Philosophical Society of South Africa - Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study. (2024)

 

Nathisvaran Govender

• The State as a Mumfordian Technical Machine: An Aid to the Critique of the Modern State
  South African Postgraduate Philosophy Society Symposium – UKZN (2024)

• Erich Fromm and Spontaneity Within the South African Built Environment: Toward a Critical Theory of Architecture
  South African Society for Critical Theory Conference – UKZN (2024)

• Critical Pedagogy and Digital Media: The Role of AI and Web 3.0 and its Impact on Education as Liberatory Praxis 
  Philosophy Society of Southern Africa Conference – NWU (2025)

• Orwellian Newspeak in the Age of Mass Media: A Case Study of Trumpism Doublethink and its Consequence for Modern Democracy 
  South African Postgraduate Philosophy Society Symposium (2025)

• Critical Pedagogy and Digital Media: The Role of AI and Web 3.0 and its Impact on Education as Liberatory Praxis 
  School of Philosophy: PhilLabs (2025)

• Critical Pedagogy and Digital Media: The Role of AI and Web 3.0 and its Impact on Education as Liberatory Praxis
  NWU Faculty of Humanities Teaching and Learning Colloquium (2025)

• Walter Benjamin and those Kitsch Casinos: Toward a Critical Theory of Architecture 
  South African Society for Critical Theory Conference – Nelson Mandela University (2025)

• AI Agents in Dialogue: A Freirean Critique of the use of Digital Technologies in Education
  8th CAIR/AI4Society Symposium: The Future of AI Companions (2026)

• Education as the Liberation of Reason
  Philosophy Society of Southern Africa Conference – University of Cape Town (2026)

 

DISCUSSION PANELS AND POSTERS

Prof Aïda Terblanché-Greeff

• The Ambiguity of Sustainability
  NISANSA International Conference – Cape Town (2024)

• Cultural Values of Time Orientation and Social Self-construal: Influences on Climate Change Adaptation
  Poster presentation – NISANSA Conference (2024)

Dr Matthias Pauwels

• Artistic Approaches to the Environmental Crisis: Re-imagining Human-Nonhuman Relations
  Southern African Society of Environmental Philosophy Conference – Kruger National Park (2024)
  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375671746_Panel_Artistic_Approaches_to_the_Environmental_Crisis_Re-imagining_Human-Nonhuman_Relations_through_Drawing_Film_Relational_Art_and_Sculpture

 

WORKSHOPS AND SEMINARS

Prof Aïda Terblanché-Greeff

• Exploring Subjectivity Through Qualiquantology: An Introduction to Q-Methodology
  Justus-Liebig University – Germany (2024)

• An African Perspective on Sustainability: Sub-Saharan Particularities
  NWU / Justus-Liebig University Workshop – Germany (2024)

Nathisvaran Govender

• Orwellian Newspeak in the Age of Digital Mass Media: A Case Study of Trumpism Doublethink and its Consequence for Modern Democracy
  Centre For Digital Humanities Seminar (2026)

 

GUEST LECTURES AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Prof Aïda Terblanché-Greeff

• Planetary Futures: Decolonising Climate Change Research and Advancing Sustainable Futures
  University of Botswana – 2026

• How Climate Change Problematises John Mbiti's Potential Time
  Guest Lecture – Siaya, Kenya (2025)

• Ubuntu, Ukama, and the Principle of Sufficiency
  Academic Discussion – Justus-Liebig University (2024)

• Climate Change and Epistemic Injustice: A Postcolonial Context
  JLU Virtual Programme (2024)

Amantle Mothelesi

• Featured on News@NWU- https://news.nwu.ac.za/empowerment-foundations-unite-educational-upliftment (2024)

• Featured on News@NWU- https://news.nwu.ac.za/gaabo-motho-foundation-and-nwu-unite-community-growth (2024)

• Technology in the Southern African Development Community
  NWU Digital Humanities Week (2024)

• Featured on News@NWU- https://news.nwu.ac.za/power-technology-and-african-question (2025)

• Featured on News@NWU-https://news.nwu.ac.za/faculty-humanities-celebrates-top-academic-performers (2025)

• Power Relations and Technological Transformations in Africa: A Foucauldian Analysis
  UKZN–UNIZULU Philosophy Seminar Series (2025)

 

ACADEMIC FELLOWSHIPS AND VISITING SCHOLAR APPOINTMENTS

Prof Aïda Terblanché-Greeff

• Research Fellowship
  International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture – Justus-Liebig University, Germany (2024)

• Visiting Scholar
  Department of Sociology – Justus-Liebig University, Germany (2024)

 

SCHOLARLY SERVICE ACTIVITIES

Prof Aïda Terblanché-Greeff

• Postgraduate Programme Leader – School of Philosophy, NWU (2024)

• Scientific Committee Member – Research Focus Area: Social Transformation (2025)

• Abstract Reviewer – International Society for Ecological Economics / International Degrowth Conference (2025)

• Peer reviewer for journals including:
  South African Journal of Philosophy, People and Nature, Phronimon, Journal of Disaster Risk Studies.

 

LATEST ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS (2024–2026)

EDITED BOOKS

Terblanché-Greeff, A.C., Alm, E., & Ahrens, J. (eds.)

• Climate Change and the Postcolonial
  Springer VS (2025)
  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-49328-8

Verhoef, AH

• Happiness, Unhappiness, and Chance in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur
  Bloomsbury (2025)
  Happiness, Unhappiness, and Chance in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur: : Studies in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur Anné Hendrik Verhoef Bloomsbury Academic - Bloomsbury

 

BOOK CHAPTERS

Terblanché-Greeff, A.C.

• Integrating Deep Ecology, Degrowth, and Ubuntu: Foundations for an Ecosophy
  In African Philosophy and Deep Ecology (Routledge, 2026)
  https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003480914-15

Ahrens, J., Terblanché-Greeff, A.C., & Alm, E.

• Introduction: The Postcolonial Legacy of Climate Change
  In Climate Change and the Postcolonial (Springer, 2025)
  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-49328-8_1

Terblanché-Greeff, A.C.

• Climate Change Knowledge and Epistemic Injustice in a Postcolonial Context
  In Climate Change and the Postcolonial (Springer, 2025)
  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-49328-8_5

Coetser, Y.M.

• Undoing the Dualisms: Towards an Ecofeminist, Postcolonial Environmental Justice
  In Climate Change and the Postcolonial (Springer, 2025)
  https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-658-49328-8_3

Pauwels, M

• White Laughter, Black Pain? On the Comic and Parodic Enactment of Racial-Colonial Stereotypes
  In The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research (Springer, 2024)
  https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-52288-8_16

• Reading Contemporary Decolonial Iconoclasm in Belgium with Žižek, Yousfi and Fanon
  Philosophy of Violence: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Springer, 2024)
  https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-55881-8_9

 

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Bokaba, E., & Coetser, Y.M.

• Re-imagining uMakhulu as integral epistemic agents in addressing climate change
  AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples (2025)
  https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801251362689

Loubser, A., & Buitendag, N.

• Affective labour and quasi-objects in the creation of political subjectivity through Hnefatafl
  International Journal of Play (2025)
  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21594937.2025.2464325

Mothelesi, G.A., & Mhele, K.

• Fertility Variations among Ethnic Groups in South Africa
  African Journal of Gender, Society and Development (2024)
  https://doi.org/10.31920/2634-3622/2024/v13n2a3

Coetzee, J.

• Philosophical Suicide during the Climate Crisis
  Acta Academica (2024)
  https://doi.org/10.38140/aa.v56i1.7680

• An Absurdist Approach to Radical Climate Activism
  South African Journal of Philosophy (2025)
  https://doi.org/10.1080/02580136.2025.2510102

Pauwels, M

• Artistic Approaches to the Environmental Crisis: Re-imagining Human-Nonhuman Relations
  De Arte (2025)
  https://doi.org/10.1080/00043389.2025.2561432

Govender, N

• The Authoritarian Character Revisited: Genesis and Key Concepts
  Symposion: Theoretical and Applied Inquiries in Philosophy and Social Sciences (2024)
  https://symposion.acadiasi.ro/on-a-conception-of-essence-7-8-2/

• The Authoritarian Character Redux: The Later Fromm and the Culmination of the Frankfurt School’s Studies on Authority
  Symposion: Theoretical and Applied Inquiries in Philosophy and Social Sciences (2025)
  https://symposion.acadiasi.ro/the-authoritarian-character-redux-the-later-fromm-and-the-culmination-of-the-frankfurt-schools-studies-on-authority-151-177/

• A Benjaminian Analysis of the Built Environment: Toward a Critical Theory of Architecture
  Acta Academica: Critical views on society, culture and politics (2025)
  https://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/aa/article/view/10213

 

MEDIA APPEARANCES

Prof Yolandi Coetser

• SAFM – Jet Set Breakfast Conversation:
  Direwolves and the Ethics of Genetically Modified Animals (2025)
  https://omny.fm/shows/the-jet-set-breakfast-1/jsb-conversation-direwolves-and-the-ethics-behind-genetically-modified-animals?in_playlist=podcast

• Inside Out Centre for the Arts:
  The Creative Minds of Animals: A Philosophical Exploration’ with Brain in a Vat (2024)
  https://www.insideoutcentreforthearts.com/event-details/the-creative-minds-of-animals-a-philosophical-exploration

 

PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP AND MEDIA WRITING

Nathisvaran Govender

• The Uncritical Murder of Progress: A Case of Epistemic Closure in the South African Higher Education Sector
  SideQuests Magazine (2026)
  https://www.sidequestsmagazine.co.za/the-uncritical-murder-of-progress-a-case-of-epistemic-closure-in-the-south-african-higher-education-sector/