Grant Andrews
Work Email: grant.andrews@wits.ac.zaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grant-andrews-8a439824/
Summary
I am a hardworking and driven lecturer and researcher currently permanently employed at the University of the Witwatersrand School of Education. My research and teaching specialisations are in gender and sexuality studies, decolonial theory in education, and queer African literature and film. I am the recipient of the prestigious Mandela Rhodes Scholarship as well as the Thuthuka Research Grant (2020-2022) for a multi-year project on Queer Visualities in South Africa. I am committed to excellence in teaching, with student evaluations consistently in the top quartile of lecturers at my current university. I have a strong research profile with multiple publications per year in WoS/ ISI-indexed journals. I serve as the section editor (Southern African Literature in English) for the journal Tydskrif vir Letterkunde (Journal for Literature), which is indexed by WoS/ ISI and MLA. I have a monograph currently in press with UKZN Press titled Stories of Fathers, Stories of the Nation, which has been adapted from my PhD on South African literature that represents fatherhoods.
Education
Ph.D., English Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2016
Concentrations: Gender Studies, Masculinities, South African Literature & History
Dissertation: Representations of Fatherhood and Paternal Narrative Power in South African English Literature
Dissertation Advisor: Prof. Hermann WittenbergM.A. (Cum Laude), English Studies, Stellenbosch University, 2010
Concentrations: Gender, Culture and Trauma in Literature
Thesis: Representation and Identity in the wake of 9/11
Thesis Advisor: Prof. Shaun ViljoenB.A. Honours in English Studies (Cum Laude), Stellenbosch University, 2008
Concentrations: Teaching Theory, Cultural Studies, Modern Theory, Oceanic Passages and Creative Writing. Research report on Fatherhood in K. Sello Duiker’s The Quiet Violence of Dreams (2001)
B.A. Humanities, Stellenbosch University, 2007
Courses: Psychology, English Studies, Philosophy, Sociology, French and Art History
Work Experience
Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand, 2018-Present
Full-time lecturer and
researcher at the Wits School of Education
Course coordinator, Postgraduate Certificate in
Education (PGCE) Program, 2020
Course coordinator, English I (EDUC1276A/
EDUC1228), 2018 – 2019
Undergraduate courses taught (2018-2020): Media Studies,
Critical Literacy (based on the work of Freire and Janks), Marginalised Stories
and Identities (Film and short stories course focusing on teaching topics of race,
gender and sexuality in texts), Academic Literacies.
Postgraduate courses taught (2018-2020): Research
Design & Methods (B.Ed. Honours Level), Visual Literacy and the Role of
Media in Education (B.Ed. Honours level)
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Stellenbosch University, 2016-2017
Host: Dr Mathilda Slabbert, under the title “Textual
and Visual Performativity of Queer Identities and Sexualities in South African
Literary and Cultural Productions”.
March 2016 – December 2017
Lecturer and Tutor, University of the Western Cape, 2012-2016
Part-time (sessional)
lecturer and tutor, English Department
Lectured English for
Educational Development (EED) 117 and 127 (Science), sharing
responsibilities with co-lecturer and course coordinator Kenneth Goodman, 2014
- 2016
Lectured courses in EED 101
(Law), dealing with academic writing and reading skills to large lecture groups,
2014-2015
Course coordinator for EED 151
(Nursing), creating course content and overseeing student and tutor admin, 2012
Tutored English I courses
to students with varying skill levels, with many students who spoke English as
a second or third language, 2011 – 2016
Postgraduate Supervision
Master’s Degree Research Supervision
Student: Phumla Sekhonyane, M.Ed. project: “An
Examination of Rhetorical Strategies used by South African Politicians.” Completed,
Graduation December 2020. Student achieved 75% for her research report.
Student: Ariela Berkman, M.Ed. pre-proposal stage: “A
Marxist and Critical Literacy Approach to the South African Education System.”
Ongoing, Expected completion 2021.
Student: Lwando Majikijela, MA pre-proposal stage: “Representations
of black queer identities in South African film and visual cultures:
Transgressive vulnerability as a mechanism for imagining and claiming space,
visibility and freedom.” Ongoing, Expected completion 2021.
B.Ed. Honours Research Supervision
Student: Nazeerah Mia, project: “Using film and
literature to promote critical literacy in South African schools.” Ongoing,
expected completion 2020.
Student: Thabiso Mogane, project: “Dethroning the
Okonkwo Spirit: Pedagogical Opportunities to Challenge Patriarchal
Masculinities in English FET Prescribed Literature.” Passed with distinction
(90%), 2019.
Student: Ariela Berkman, project: “Challenging Macbeth
in South African Education: A Feminist Analysis of Pedagogical Approaches and
the Pervasiveness of the Text in School and University Curricula.” Passed
with distinction (78%), 2019.
Committees & Service
Conferences & Seminars
Higher Education Learning and
Teaching Association of South Africa, presented a paper titled “Beyond the
essay: Pedagogical and decolonial affordances of group assessment in South
African universities”, Rhodes University, 2019
International Society for the
Study of Gender and Love Conference, presented a paper titled “YouTube
Queer Communities as Heterotopias: Reimagining Space, Identity and ‘Realness’
in Queer South African Vlogs”, September 2019
London International Conference
on Education, presented a paper titled “Teaching gender and sexuality
courses in initial teacher education: moments of mutual disruption through the
lens of critical pedagogy”, December 2018
South African Psychoanalytic
Conference, presented a paper titled “The Broken Mirror: Subject and Image
Tensions Surrounding John Trengove’s Film Inxeba”, October 2018.
Panel at the African Literature
Association Conference at Yale University, New Haven, presenting a paper
titled “Race and the Boundaries of Desire in South African Queer Film: Oliver
Hermanus’ Skoonheid”, 2017
University of Stellenbosch
seminar series, presented a paper titled “The Queer Son and the Declining
Patriarch: Water as a Symbol of Change and Disruption in Mark Behr's Kings of
the Water”, 2016
University of the Western Cape
English Department Conference, Place & Imagination, presented a paper titled:
“Shifting Paternal Narratives in South African Fiction”, 2015