Ms. Natalia Molebatsi is Library Marketing Coordinator at the University of South Africa. Based in Pretoria, she coordinates marketing across the library’s 12 branches in South Africa and in Akaki, Ethiopia. Ms. Molebatsi is also an acclaimed poet and professional speaker and cultural worker. Her books are We Are: A Poetry Anthology, Sardo Dance, and Elephant Woman Song. Her poetry and music CDs include Natalia Molebatsi & the Soul Making and Come as You Are: Poems for Four Strings. Her academic writings are included in journals, such as Scrutiny2, Rhodes Journalism Review, and Muziki. Ms. Molebatsi has performed poetry and hosted creative writing workshops in over 20 countries. Join her at the following events:

Title: Our World Through Our Words: The People and Their Stories Through My Ancestor’s Voice

Time: Monday, 12 November 2018 / 3-5pm

Venue: Tianhe Campus (Shipai), Second Social Sciences Building 610

Chair: Professor Zhuang Liwei, Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies & Center for African Studies

This presentation is a recollection of Ms. Molebatsi’s grandmother’s stories, passed on through memory. These stories offer a vision of the world that Black South Africans occupied then, which disrupted the world built by apartheid. During apartheid South Africa, people were forced to see the world through black and white, and the powerful and the powerless. It is this reality of the past that Ms. Molebatsi insists her ancestor’s oral accounts about how her people met and interacted with people who had different stories than theirs are important. In this lecture, she recalls and further re-imagines these different stories about people who came from afar to make their own living in South Africa, cross paths with the locals, and leave their own marks. The group she focuses on is “the China man” who are also known as “the Fafi man” or “Mo-China.” She acknowledges these stories and memories as conveyors of prohibited knowledges that crossed and informed worlds, shook hands and flowed on the tongue of her ancestor and the ancestors of others through conversations and interactions.

Title: Libraries as Cultural Hubs in the China-Africa Complex

Time: Wednesday, 14 November  2018 / 3-5pm

Venue:Tianhe Campus (Shipai), Second Social Sciences Building 610

Chair: Dr. Tu Huynh, Associate Professor

As China and African countries are developing closer linkages, how are Chinese and African people developing better understandings of one another that goes beyond what is reported in the media? In the meeting, Ms. Molebatsi speaks about university and local libraries as cultural hubs and shares some thoughts on how they can be spaces that distribute cultural knowledge. She presents examples of how marketing and events management can be critical tools for libraries to facilitate mutual learning. Ms. Molebatsi further shares her thoughts on the kinds of materials about Africa that Chinese libraries should make available to researchers and students who want to learn about Africa and South Africa, in particular. This is also a casual gathering for professors, staff, and postgraduate students to meet and exchange ideas with Ms. Molebatsi.