Grant Scheme Winners 2012

innocentia_mhlambi 3 (2)Dr Innocentia J. Mhlambi is a senior lecturer in the Department of African Languages at the University of the Witwatersrand. She teaches African-language literatures, black film studies, popular culture, oral literature and visual culture.She is the author of African-language Literatures: Perspectives on isiZulu Fiction and Popular Black Television Series, a timely critical intervention into the aesthetic hiatus in the field.She has received an AGSA grant to write a book on black opera, which will be an exploration of Black Opera in South Africa, concentrating mainly on the black composed operas and others that have black operatic subjects.
Justin Fox (2)Justin Fox is an editor, novelist and travel writer based in Cape Town. He was a Rhodes Scholar and received a doctorate in English from Oxford University after which he became a research fellow at the University of Cape Town, where he now teaches part time. His articles and photographs have appeared internationally in a number of publications and on a wide range of topics, while his short stories and poems have appeared in various anthologies.Justin’s ANFASA grant will be used for the research of a book provisionally entitled African Literary Journeys in which the author will travel to places where important books have been written. Justin will explore the landscapes and spaces that have influenced writers and their characters.
gusha x ngantweni 1 (2)Gusha Xolani Ngantweni is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Police Practice at the University of South Africa (UNISA).He holds a MSc in Policing and Social Conflict from the University of Leicester in the UK, a BA in Police Science from UNISA and a National Diploma in Police Administration from the old Technikon SA.He has received a grant to write the undergraduate textbook, Crime Prevention and Policing in Africa. The book will be the most authoritative text on the subject ever written in Africa with 30 chapters and four sections.
Jo-Ansie (2)Jo-Ansie van Wyk lectures International Politics at the University of South Africa (Unisa), Pretoria, South Africa. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Pretoria. She is a Fulbright Alumna and a Member of the South African Academy for Science and Art. Her PhD traces South Africa’s nuclear diplomacy since 1990 (when the disarmament process was already underway) until 2010. She received a grant to convert this PhD thesis into a book which attempts to analyse challenges to and examples of the country’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
Phila Msimang (2)Phila Mfundo Msimang is a young writer and researcher from just outside of Pietermaritzburg. He is an Honorary Associate of The Natal Society Foundation where he is presently employed as an assistant publishing editor. He has received a grant to write a book on the nature of philosophy and how it helps us understand the world in relation to words and expressions in general.
Estelle Neethling (2)Estelle Neethling served as national tracing coordinator of the South African Red Cross Society in the international Red Cross’s Restoring of Family Links programme from 2000 to 2010. She worked closely with many traumatised displaced people, visited refugee camps in neighbouring African countries and attended international conferences during those ten years. She has received a grant to write a non-fiction book on a Congolese refugee woman who fled her country of birth in 1996 in the time of Mobutu Sese Seko, just before the five year conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
John Matisonn (2)John Matisonn is a South African political journalist who has been published widely at home and in papers abroad, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and The Observer. He was closely involved with many of the changes in the South African media before and after the first democratic election, including as a councillor on the Independent Broadcasting Authority and President of the Southern African Society of Journalists. His AGSA project is a book about the role of the media and the controversies surrounding the media, both under apartheid and democracy, in the period from 1960 to the present.
Ray Leathern (2)Ray Leathern schooled at Pretoria Boys High, he attended the University of Cape Town where he completed a B.A. in English and History. He’s been test driving cars for more than five years now and was awarded the (S.A. Guild of Motoring Journalists) SAGMJ’s Magazine Writer of the Year Prize in 2011, along with a ‘Highly Recommended’ Prize for his Online work in 2012. He is also a SAGMJ committee member and a 2013 Car of the Year jury member. He received an AGSA grant to complete his non-fiction book, ‘Drive Style: Motoring Culture in South Africa’. This book will emphasise the quirky over the generic; explore unique perspectives and present a fully realised back story to the normally one dimensional topic of motoring.
Randall Bird (2)Randall Bird is a scholar and an architect. He completed his post-graduate studies at Washington University in St Louis and at Harvard University, where he received a PhD in the history of African art and architecture. He is based at the School of Architecture and Planning (University of the Witwatersrand) where he teaches the history of architecture, including developments in Africa and the Indian Ocean arena. He received a grant to complete his forthcoming book, entitled The Majesty of Architecture in Madagascar: Transforming a Kingdom in the Central Highlands, 1820- 1900, which traces the extraordinary transformations in architecture and planning of the Merina people who inhabit Madagascar’s central highlands, in the context of a growing presence of European architects, including missionary-artisans and amateurs explorers.
Dr-Andra-le-Roux-Kemp-2Andra le Roux-Kemp obtained the BA, LLB and LLD degrees from Stellenbosch University and a postgraduate certificate in Medicine and Law from UNISA. She is currently affiliated with the Faculty of Law, Stellenbosch University where she is responsible for LLM modules in Forensic Law and Medical Law. She received a grant to complete her book entitled; ‘Foundational Principles of Forensic Law in South Africa’ which provides an interdisciplinary and comprehensive overview and discussion of the general and advanced principles of Forensic Law in the South African context. This publication will make a valuable contribution at a time when South African courts (and courts the world over) are increasingly being confronted with high-level scientific evidence and testimony. As there is currently no similar publication available on the South African market, this timely publication is set to become an indispensable companion for the judiciary, legal practitioners, law- and science students, as well as law enforcement officials.