International School Staff 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Marius Vermaak 

Dean: International Office, and Professor of Philosophy at Rhodes University.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beverley Taylor

Course Organiser Beverley Taylor - International School Co-ordinator, is a Geography Masters graduate from Rhodes University and has researched issues in development planning, local government and housing, and small town development trends. She loves travelling and exploring, climbing mountains and hiking amongst other more creative interests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Margot Beard

Dr Margot Beard is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at Rhodes University. Her research interests lie mainly in Romantic studies and she lectures primarily on the prose and poetry of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. For some years she was drama and dance critic for Grahamstown’s biweekly newspaper, Grocott’s Mail.

 

Professor Julian Cobbing

Professor Julian Cobbing lectures in the Department of History and has evolved from being a student of African history (specialising in the Ndebele and the early nineteenth-century 'mfecane') into a student and teacher of human crisis, both in Africa and globally. He teaches a well-attended first-year course at Rhodes University on World Crisis where he finds it difficult to keep up with the ever expanding and mutating subject matter! Interests include the contemporary globe, the history of homo sapiens as a species, Africa in crisis, photography and history.

Tim Huismen

Tim Huisamen is a lecturer in Afrikaans and Netherlandic Studies and in Modern Fiction in the School of Languages. His research interests are in fiction, theatre and drama studies and in gender discourse. He served for many years on the organising committee of the National Arts Festival where he was responsible for Student Drama and the Winter School.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Chris de Wet

Professor Chris de Wet is a professor of Anthropology at Rhodes University. He has been involved in intensive in residence research in the rural settlement of Chatha in the Keiskammahoek area of the Eastern Cape since 1978, studying the long term impact of forced resettlement and development projects in the area. He specialises in the nature of resettlement arising out of imposed development projects, and also has research experience in other areas in the Eastern Cape, as well as in Swaziland and India. He has authored and co-edited several books, and is a winner of the Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Senior Research Medal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Kevin Kelly

Dr Kevin Kelly is a psychologist by training and formerly a faculty member in the Psychology Department at Rhodes. Kevin has been active in AIDS activism and research since 1990. He is Research DirectoratCADRE (Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation – www.cadre.org.za) and has extensive experience researching HIV/AIDS in South Africa and throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Dr Alan Kirkaldy

Dr Alan Kirkaldy lectures in the History Department and his main research interest lies in questions of environmental justice. He is also currently busy with a study of homophobia on the Rhodes campus. Previously, he worked on the interaction between African communities and missionaries. His major work in this field was Capturing the soul: the Vhavenda and the missionaries, 1870-1900 (Pretoria, Protea Book House, 2005). Chief teaching fields are African art and religion, frontier history and environmental history. He enjoys martial arts, sailing, and spending time in the veld and game reserves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Sally Matthews

Dr Sally Matthews lectures in the Political and International Studies Department and has research interests which the politics of development and NGO work in Africa, poverty and inequality, development theory, reconciliation in South Africa, African political economy. Her current research focuses on the relationship between poverty and privilege. Several of her recent articles explore some of the implications of the post-development debate, relating these particularly to NGO work in Africa. Other recent research examines white South African responses to privilege with a particular focus on the Home for All Campaign. More generally, her research interests are focused on the politics of development, African political economy and social theory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Paul Maylam

Professor Paul Maylam is Professor of History and head of Department. He has worked for several years in the field of South African urban history, with a special emphasis on urban apartheid and a particular local interest in Durban. He is the author of four books - the most recent being The Cult of Rhodes: Remembering an Imperialist in Africa (Cape Town, David Philip, 2005), co-editor of a fifth book, and has published numerous articles. He has won the Vice-Chancellor’s Book Award. Other interests include gardening, yoga, soccer, and South African jazz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Rob O'Donoghue

Professor Rob O’Donoghue worked in Ezemvelo-KZN Wildlife for 20 years coordinating environmental education activities in park, school and local community settings. During this period he was part of a Wildlife and Environment Society team that established Share-Net to print and disseminate low-cost materials on environment concerns. He has supported the publication of numerous open access ‘Hands-on field guides’ and practical environmental learning activities and is noted for giving close attention to indigenous practices and associated ways of knowing marginalised during colonial and modern times. Rob completed an acclaimed Master of Education study (University of Natal) on participatory curriculum development in the sciences, for which he was awarded the Télémecanique National Conservation Research Award in 1990. His PhD research, ‘Detached Harmonies,’ on the emergence of environmental education in eastern southern Africa, received international acclaim as the first African study drawing on the social figuration and historical process perspectives of the sociologist Norbert Elias. He is now an Associate Professor in the Environmental Education and Sustainability Unit at Rhodes University. Rob has published many papers in international journals and is currently giving attention to situated meaning making, practical reason and reflexive social change in post-colonial curriculum and community contexts. His early work on the intermeshed bio-physical, social, economic and political dimensions of environment is still a key orientating perspective in environment and sustainability education today, and his more recent ‘Active Learning Framework’ is a guidelines document for environmental learning Revised National Curriculum. He is currently working on situated social learning and is collaborating with the international Hand-Prints initiative to produce authentic stories and knowledge resources for learner-led enquiry and action towards a more just and sustainable environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Robin Palmer

Professor Robin Palmer is Head of the Department of Anthropology. A graduate of Durham and Sussex universities (UK), his PhD research concerned Italian migrants, and was based on fieldwork in rural Italy and London. His subsequent research projects have all taken place in the Ciskei and Transkei Bantustans, before and since they became re-incorporated in South Africa. These include an inquiry into black blood donors ex-donors and non-donors, urbanization in a small town, a comparison of two rural communities highlighting gender, households and the environment, and ongoing research on the relationship between a nature reserve and its neighbouring communities, who won a land claim on the reserve in 2001. He is also involved in an interdisciplinary project to study the effects of the introduction of information and communications technology (ICT) in his research site on the Wild Coast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aretha Phiri

Chaperone Aretha Phiri – Student Chaperone. Aretha is currently doing her Masters in English at Rhodes University. Her fields of interest include race and gender (literary representations) with a particular focus on African and African-American and American literature. This is her fourth year with the International School.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ashwin Pienaar

Chaperone Ashwin Pienaar – Student Chaperone. Ashwin is currently doing his Masters in International Studies at Rhodes. His fields of interest include Trade, South-South Relations and the Middle-East. This is his second year with the International School.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carla Tsampiras

Ms Carla Tsampiras is a Lecturer in the History Department and an AIDS activist who has a particular interest in understanding the socio-historical drivers of the epidemic and responses to it. She is also active in understanding the gender dynamics of HIV/AIDS. Her research interests include slavery (past and present); gender and violence; the relationship between health, disease and society; and global social justice issues. Carla is a founding member of the Women’s Academic Solidarity Association and the Rhodes branch of the Treatment Action Campaign. Carla tries to practice yoga regularly; grows herbs and tomatoes; recycles religiously; enjoys being by the sea, spelling 'womyn' with a 'y' and loves and hates computers and the Internet in equal measure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Michael Whisson

Professor Michael Whisson (PhD (Cantab)) completed his honours and PhD at Cambridge, with a thesis on the impact of schools in a Luo community. He studied the use of heroin in Hong Kong for a year before coming to University of Cape Town in 1965. He taught social anthropology and studied the impact of the Group Areas Act on various 'coloured' communities. He took the Chair in Anthropology at Rhodes in 1978 and has remained in Grahamstown since then, publishing two slim volumes on pre- schools and papers on a wide variety of applied topics from "The Sullivan Code at Ford" to "The Magwa Tea Estate in Transkei". He served as Dean of Arts in the 1980s, and is currently on several local committees including The Cathedral Council; The Theological College Council; The Municipal and District Councils as a Democratic Party rep., and The Albany Museum Board. He is a lay minister, parish magazine editor and cathedral warden; and a regular contributor to the local newspapers.
He swims, walks an energetic Border Collie, is married to Adrienne, who practiced and lectured in Social Work. They have a son and daughter, both of whom were educated at Rhodes and now work in the media.