Original Research

Theology and the (post-)apartheid university: Mapping discourses, interrogating transformation

Rian Venter
Transformation in Higher Education | Vol 1, No 1 | a5 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/the.v1i1.5 | © 2016 Rian Venter | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 03 June 2016 | Published: 30 September 2016

About the author(s)

Rian Venter, Faculty of Theology, University of the Free State, South Africa

Abstract

This article examines the specific position of Theology at South African universities, following the recent developments on campuses that catapulted the urgency for greater commitment to radical transformation in higher education to public attention. A large corpus of material is generated on theological education as such, but the major question is rarely thematised as the transformation of Theology at public universities in (post-)apartheid South Africa. This article
addresses the nature of the challenge by following a distinct approach. Ten major discourses in the wider reflection on theological education are identified and interpreted as avenues to achieve three aims: to convey the unique challenge for Theology, to give historical texture to issues conventionally addressed a-politically in Theology and to forward an interpretation of ‘transformation’ for Theology that emphasises its multi-layered nature


Keywords

Contextual; Epistemic justice; Epistemological transformation; Fragmentation of disciplines; Publics of Theology; Theological education

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