Distinguished Lecturer Professor Mayhew Visits Rhodes

June 5, 2005

By Richard Flockemann

This year, Rhodes was honoured to have Professor Paula Mayhew, of Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, USA, as a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer. For her sabbatical research, Professor Mayhew has been exploring the South African response to the AIDS epidemic from "literary, cultural, and gender studies points of view".

Professor Mayhew is Professor of English Language and Comparative Literature at Fairleigh Dickinson. Professor Mayhew has held many highly esteemed positions, ranging from being a Fulbright Scholar in Japan, to chairing the Fulbright International Educational Administrative Selection Committee for Japan and South Korea, to having been a Fellow of the Department of English and Literature at Princeton University, as well as being a Wilson Woodrow Fellow. She was also honoured with the Addison Prize for excellence in English Literature by Barnard College in 1966. She has many publications and has written on issues pertaining to Women's Studies, Education, and Comparative Literature. More recently, she has involved herself in Fairleigh Dickinson's Global Education virtual campus, which engages with students through the medium of online learning. Professor Mayhew was at Rhodes from 10 April to 22 May this year.

Professor Mayhew was largely based in the Psychology Department during her time at Rhodes, and gave seminars on Online Learning to the Psychology and Politics Departments, and also a seminar on the role of Penelope in Ulysses, which was given to the English Department.

For her own research, Professor Mayhew has been exploring the literature of AIDS written in South Africa, and has made extensive use of the National English Literary Museum (NELM), an associated research institute of Rhodes University. She is interested in the South African response to the AIDS epidemic from "literary, cultural, and gender studies points of view".

Interestingly, Professor Mayhew has found that most AIDS literature written in South Africa is in the genre of children's or young adults' books. This is unlike the AIDS literature written recently in the United States, of which notable examples include (adult) novels by Michael Cunningham and Alice Hoffman, and the play Angels in America by Tony Kushner. Her primary focus with regard to her analysis of the South African response to AIDS will be on a book called Whitney's First Kiss, which concentrates on communicating to young people the fact that AIDS is not transmitted through kissing.

Professor Mayhew has enjoyed her time at Rhodes, but says that she was "already in love with South Africa," having attended a conference in Somerset West a few years ago. This time, Professor Mayhew has enjoyed getting to know the Eastern Cape, and has relished her excursions to the surrounding areas of Port Alfred, Hogsback, Kenton and Bathurst (from where she acquired a T-Shirt that amusingly states "There's No Thirst Like Bathurst"), all of which she has greatly appreciated.

She thanks Rhodes University, and the Psychology Department in particular, for the hospitality she received while in South Africa.