Conversations on Leadership with Angela Davis

Date: 30 August 2007
Time: 5:30 for 6:00 pm
Venue: Senate Room, 2nd floor Senate House, Wits University

Oxford academic Theodore Zeldin argues that conversation is crucial if societies are to realize their full potential. His work spans across the social spectrum - from intimate relationships to the world of work and politics. One of his arguments is that women have changed the way we work and conduct politics. The Platform for Public Deliberation in collaboration with WISER has asked veteran activist and distinguished scholar Angela Davis to reflect on a career that spans over three decades of social justice activism to her current advocacy for the abolition of the prison system as dehumanizing. Our interest though lies in the ways that current debates about leadership in South Africa incorporate the values and styles that women bring to politics. What are those distinctive values and styles, beyond just the matter of one's gender? Can we find non-essentialising and non-patronising ways of speaking about those distinctive contributions? Do people like Deputy President Pumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille and the Independent Democrats' Patricia De Lille make a difference to our political culture simply because they are women, or because they bring different experiences, values and styles of leadership? Gender activist and scholar Nomboniso Gasa will lead the discussion with the public after Davis's address, and bring the issues closer to current debates on gender and leadership.

This lecture is free and open to the public.
Seating is unreserved.

Hosted by the Platform for Public Deliberation in collaboration with WISER at the University of the Witwatersrand

For the full framing text on the lecture please visit: www.public-conversations.org.za