Professor Jade Munslow Ong will host this year’s prestigious Percival Lecture on the South Africa’s relationship with modernism and its modernist writers. The lecture, entitled ‘South Africa’s Modernism, Modernism’s South Africa’ will take place at The Old Fire Station, University of Salford, on 18 April at 6pm, and is organised by Manchester Lit & Phil, the second oldest learned society in the world.
The lecture will tell the story of when and where modernism began, citing two origin stories, the painting of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Picasso in Paris 1907 and in South Africa during the 1870s when Oliver Schreiner wrote her first novel The Story of an African Farm. One is more widely known than the other because of modernism being primarily associated with early-twentieth century European and American writers, however, the latter has its own strong case as Schreiner was one of many who used innovative literary techniques to engage with conditions of modernity in South Africa. Jade will discuss a range of South African origin stories, offering an account of the modernist aesthetics and politics established and promoted by South African writers and the debt owed to them by English modernists.
The Percival Lecture is an annual talk, hosted in turn by the University of Salford, University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University. It was established in 1947 to celebrate the legacy of Thomas Percival, Manchester Lit & Phil’s first president who started hosting meetings in his house in 1780.
To reserve your free in-person ticket, please visit this link.