Anell Stacey Daries graduated with a PhD in history at Stellenbosch University and is a NIHSS/SU Prestigious Postdoctoral Fellow at AVReQ. Her broad research explores the origins, trajectories and social implications of sciences to do with the human body. Her doctoral research is titled “The History of Physical Education at Stellenbosch University, 1937-2019” and examines the history of scientific and academic practices in physical education at the institution. Apart from her ongoing research interest, Dr Daries is the postgraduate programmes convenor at AVReQ and has experience as a lecturer, academic facilitator and mentor. As her teaching philosophy foregrounds a student-centred ethos, she seeks to facilitate innovative ways of student engagement which foregrounds the student in the knowledge-building process.
Current Research Project
Dr Daries is currently engaging in research which examines the socio-political implications and legacies of institutional culture and academic disciplines within the context of higher education in South Africa. In focusing on the development of specific fields of study, her research seeks to trace intellectual transitions within the context of the South African university as a space of knowledge production. Her latest research project is titled, Tracing Disciplinary Histories and Reckoning with Institutional Pasts. Through a process of institutional reckoning, this project seeks to examine the rise and development of university disciplines that have facilitated intellectual justifications for segregationist and apartheid laws. This project is particularly interested in the history of academic disciplines that were conceptualised and birthed at Stellenbosch University. More broadly this research intends to understand the ways in which institutional culture shapes and moulds departmental and disciplinary trends within the university contexts. By tracing change over time, the project is interested in interrogating disciplinary legacies within higher education. Through employing historical methodologies and modalities as a means through which to make sense of the university as a multifaceted institution this research will engage intellectual discourses surrounding the socio-political implications of knowledge production within higher education.
Recent Publications
Journal Articles
Daries, A. S., & Swart, S. (2023). The body politic and the political body in nationalist science: Physical education at Stellenbosch University in the 1930s. Yesterday & Today Journal for History Education in South Africa and Abroad. 30 (1), 104-135. https://doi.org/10.17159/2223-0386/2023/n30a6
Book Reviews
Daries, A. S. (2022). Review of the book Critical physical education in Irish schools, edited by F. J. Cleophas. South African Historical Journal, 74(2), 400-402.
Daries, A. S. (2022). Review of the book Physical education in Irish schools, 1900–2000: a history, by C. Curran. History of Education, 0(0), 1-2.
Daries, A. S. (2022). Review of the book Critical reflections on physical culture at the edges of the empire. South African Historical Journal, 74(2), 400-402.