Welcome to AVReQ

The Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ) is established to fulfil the goals of the South African Research Chair in Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. It aims to bring conceptual clarity to the concept of violence and its consequences in the lives of victim and survivor groups on the one hand, and perpetrators and their descendants on the other. As an interdisciplinary project, we will take an intersectional approach and engage with the physical and structural aspects of violence, as well as the more insidious and symbolic forms of its expression that manifest in dynamic ways.

Governing Board

Prof. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
Prof. Pumla Gobodo-MadikizelaDirector | SARChI Chair in Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma
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Dr. Anthea Lesch
Dr. Anthea Lesch(Chair of the Governing Board) Senior Lecturer, Stellenbosch University in Psychology Department
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Prof. Juliana Claassens
Prof. Juliana Claassens(Deputy Chair) Old and New Testament Faculty Member, Stellenbosch University
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Prof. Anthony Leysens
Prof. Anthony LeysensGoverning Board Member | Dean, Arts and Social Sciences
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Highlights

Rabia Omar recently captivated audiences with her paper based on the story of the slave ship São José Paquete d’Africa wrecked just off the shores of Cape Town in December 1794.

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela recently spoke at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute on “Reckoning with Echoes from the Past.” Listen to the full recording here:

Tamar Garb speaking at the opening of the international colloquium “Aesthetics of Memory: Soviet Gulag and Apartheid.” Her paper titled Thinking with/through Art: Analogy, Juxtaposition and the Power of ‘sympathy’ in the Encounter between the Gulag and Apartheid was followed by a Round Table discussion

Upcoming Events