TEAM
Deirdre C. Byrne
Deirdre C. Byrne is a Professor of English Studies and the former Head of the Institute for Gender Studies at Unisa. She is the co-editor of the academic journal, scrutiny2: issues in english studies in southern africa and a former editor of Gender Questions. She has published several academic articles on women’s poetry, the writing of Ursula K. le Guin and gender discourses in Africa. She was the co-investigator of a four-year NRF-funded research project, run by ZAPP, on “Reconceptualising Poetry Education for South African Classrooms through infusing Indigenous Poetry Texts and Practices.” She is also a co-founder and member of the steering group of the International Society for the Study of Gender and Love.
Denise Newfield
Denise Newfield is a retired professor of English and Education at Wits University, Johannesburg. She taught there for over 40 years and is still professionally active, doing research and supervising theses. Her interests are: multimodality, new materialism, pedagogy, transformative education, poetry in education, South African poetry. She founded and has been Director of ZAPP since 2013. She was Principal Investigator of the NRF project, ‘Reconceptualising poetry for South African classrooms through infusing indigenous texts and practices’, and of ‘Multiliteracies in South Africa’. She is a member of SAME (South African Multimodality in Education), and of the international projects, ‘Transmodalities and transnational encounters: Global Story Bridges’, and ‘Doing academia differently’. She has been working in the field of South African poetry in education since 2002, and remains passionate about it.
Eunice Phiri
Eunice Phiri is the Head of the Department of English at Wallmansthal Secondary School. She gained her Master’s in English Education from the University of the Witwatersrand and is currently registered for a PhD in English Studies through Unisa.
Gerhard Genis
Gerhard Genis teaches literacies and English methodology at the University of Pretoria. His fields of interest include conflict poetry and literacy education. His monograph, Poetic Bodies and corpses of war: South African Great War poetry, was published by Unisa Press in 2018. He is the consulting editor for the 2019 publication, Multiliteracies in education: South African perspectives (Van Schaik).
Zena Velloo John
Zena Velloo John has authored two mystical poetry anthologies, “Beyond Spice” (Poets Printery, 2016) and “Sanctum” (2022). When not traversing intercontinental events, she transcends realms to touch eternity. Her coordinates are www.zenavelloo.co.za and www.sacredfeminine.co.za.
Toni Gennrich
Toni Gennrich is a former member of the Wits School of Education, where she was in the Languages division.
Raphael d’Abdon
Raphael d’Abdon is Honorary Research Fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), and South Africa’s representative of the AHN (Africa Haiku Network).
Jolene Raison
Poet, children’s author and Junior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Unisa. I spend a little time every day fishing for stars and weaving their light into words. I hold a BA Language degree, an Honours degree in General Linguistics, and am completing my Masters in Linguistics, with a focus on Cognitive Linguistics. I am passionate about working with children and young people, helping them explore the kaleidoscope of possibilities the world holds, develop their potential, and see themselves for the eternal, magnificent beings they are.
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers
Katleho Kano Shoro
Katleho Kano Shoro is a South African artist-scholar. Her work comprises creative writing, editing, research, workshop facilitation, project management and guest-lecturing. This author of the poetry collection, Serurubele, has performed and participated in literary festivals across South Africa and internationally. Since 2017, Shoro has been a member of ZAPP fulfilling multiple roles including: resident poet, workshop facilitator, conference presenter and researcher.
Malika Ndlovu
Malika Ndlovu’s words and productions have appeared on pages and stages all over South Africa and across the globe. Her contribution to South African arts, culture and poetry specifically, spans over 25 years. Having published five poetry collections and two plays, produced numerous poetry events, this trans-disciplinary artist holds “healing through creativity” as her mantra and thrives on collaboration.
Arushani Govender
Arushani Govender graduated with a Masters degree cum laude on 10 December 2019 at the University of Witwatersrand. Arushani is a member of the ZAPP Poetry IKS Project team and has completed her dissertation towards research in the field of Poetry and Indigenous Knowledge.
Adam Levin
Adam Levin is a postdoctoral research fellow at Wits University. His research is focused on issues of memory, race and social justice in Holocaust literature, post-apartheid literature and African American literature. He has a particular interest in exploring the notion of the university as a socially engaged space.
Urshula Saindon
Urshula Saindon is a passionate literacy enthusiast and one of the members of Read to Learn South Africa. She uses creative devices to help learners enjoy poetry, such as competitions for the best sonnets.
Antoinette Pretorius
Antoinette Pretorius is a senior lecturer at the Department of English Studies, UNISA. She likes to explore different genres and has published on a variety of topics including older age and democracy in South African literature, conflations of food and sex in contemporary fiction, masculinity studies and crime fiction. She is passionate about poetry in all its forms and enjoys nothing more than sharing this love with others.
Eileen Donaldson
Eileen Donaldson is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Studies at UNISA. Her research interests lie in feminist science fiction, fantasy and children’s literature. Her only ambition is to own a cabin in the woods.
Dewald Steyn
Dewald Steyn is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Studies at UNISA. He has worked on several different genres and theoretical approaches in his MA and PhD studies, but his main interest and greatest love has always been poetry. He has been published in New Contrast and would like to write more poetry in future — if only there were more hours in every day! His particular interests are in poetic form and the notion of poetic difficulty.