Professor of Media Studies at the University of Cape Town, South Africa Professor Herman Wasserman has been named the recipient of the 2020 University of Cape Town (UCT) Book Award for his second monograph: Media, Geopolitics and Power: A view from the Global South. His third monograph, The Ethics of Engagement: Media, conflict and democracy in Africa, was recently published.
Wasserman’s research of over a decade focused mainly on the globalisation of media and the impact of changing geopolitical relations from the vantage point of Africa and, more broadly, the Global South.
The UCT Book Award of R30,000 is usually awarded alongside Meritorious Book Prizes of up to R15,000 in value. These are awarded for books in specialised fields that merit recognition for their contribution and/or are awarded to celebrate promising first-time books by authors who deserve special recognition and support. Like the UCT Book Award, the prizes are awarded to UCT staff members; books written in the past five years are eligible.
This year, one Meritorious Book Prize was awarded to lecturer and PhD candidate Kharnita Mohamed whose areas of interest include Disability, Gender, Race, Violence, Decoloniality, Epistemology, Citizenship, and Visual Culture. The award is for her book, Called to Song. It is Mohamed’s debut novel and follows Qabila – a struggling black, Muslim, middle-class academic in post-apartheid South Africa trying to find balance and meaning in life.
The Anthropologist’s book captures Mzansi’s violent histories of racism, sexism, and heterosexism influence intimacy, gender relations, and racist experiences.
Longlisted for the 2019 Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize,Called to Song was again shortlisted for the 2020 National Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences Awards in the fiction category.
