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60th TB Davie Memorial Lecture: Hope through the storm
28 August 2026 | Video Production Team: Nico Badenhuizen, Ruairi Abrahams and Nomfundo Xolo. Photo: Nasief ManieProfessor Mogobe Ramose delivers the 60th TB Davie Memorial Lecture, interrogating UCT’s Spes Bona through the contested histories of the Cape, colonial conquest, land dispossession and epistemic injustice.
On 26 August, philosopher Professor Mogobe Ramose delivered the 60th TB Davie Memorial Lecture, reflecting on UCT’s motto, Spes Bona (“Good Hope”) – through the contested history of the Cape.
Drawing on the naming of the Cape first as the “Cape of Storms” and later as the “Cape of Good Hope,” Ramose examined how these histories continue to shape the meaning of hope, land, knowledge and belonging in South Africa.
His lecture invited audiences to look beyond the symbolism of the University’s motto and confront the histories of colonial conquest, dispossession and epistemic enslavement embedded in the landscape on which UCT stands.
In invoking Professor TB Davie, Ramose posed a powerful philosophical challenge: what would it mean to truly calm the storm?
#Vision2030 #TBDavieMemorialLecture #UCT60 #SpesBona #MogobeRamose #UCT
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