Relearning “English” in a changing world
- Wits University
Wits Professor Chris Thurman delivered The English Academy Percy Baneshik Memorial Lecture 2026.
The English Academy of Southern Africa, in partnership with the Wits School of Education, hosted the 2026 English Academy Percy Baneshik Memorial Lecture at the University of the Witwatersrand on 31 March 2026.
Professor Christopher Thurman, in the Department of English Studies in the School of Literature, Language and Media at Wits, delivered the lecture, titled Back to the Future: ‘English’ relearning its ABCs.
Why teach and study English?
In a lecture that was both reflective and deliberately probing, Thurman revisited a question that often goes unexamined in the discipline: “When we say that we teach English, we study English – why do we do it?”
This question framed the lecture’s broader concern with English as an academic field that must continually account for itself, particularly within a multilingual South African context.
Moving between school and university settings, Thurman drew attention to how “English” operates across these spaces, not as a singular or stable entity, but as a set of practices shaped by history, policy, and lived linguistic realities. His emphasis on “Englishes” underscored this plurality, while also pointing to the tensions between English as a language of access and its role in processes of marginalisation.
Engaging with earlier debates in South African literary and educational discourse, the lecture traced longstanding disagreements about the place of English alongside African languages, especially in relation to learning and cultural production. Rather than attempting to resolve these debates, Thurman positioned them as ongoing and constitutive of the field, requiring continued critical attention.
A key moment in the lecture was the turn to artificial intelligence. Here, Thurman resisted both celebratory and alarmist positions, instead framing AI as a moment of disciplinary pressure, one that compels reflection on the purpose and value of English studies. As he noted, “By crisis, I don’t mean gloom or doom. I mean a spur towards reflection as a necessary reckoning, forcing us to ask once again what we do as English teachers and scholars.”
In this sense, AI becomes less an external threat and more a catalyst for reconsidering what English studies offers. Thurman returned to the idea of criticism, not simply as evaluative practice, but as a mode of critical engagement tied to interpretation, judgment, and intellectual independence.
Drawing on Percy Baneshik’s work as a critic and broadcaster in the South African media world of his time, he suggested that criticism remains most meaningful when it is closely connected to creative practice and public discourse.
The lecture concluded with a turn to Shakespeare in South Africa, particularly through examples of translation and performance, such as K.E. Masinga’s isiZulu adaptations of Julius Caesar. These examples highlighted alternative ways of engaging with canonical texts, ways that are multilingual, locally situated, and creatively generative. Rather than recovering the past for its own sake, Professor Thurman used these instances to gesture towards possible futures for English studies.
Overall, the lecture did not offer a single resolution, but rather a set of questions and directions. It reaffirmed the importance of critical thinking and creativity, while also challenging the discipline to rethink its assumptions in light of changing technological and linguistic conditions.
English Academy Gold Medal
The event included the presentation of the English Academy Gold Medal Award to Professor Mbongeni Malaba (University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg Campus), in recognition of his outstanding service to English over a lifetime. The award drew attention to a sustained body of work that has shaped English studies in South Africa, particularly through his contributions to teaching, scholarship, and ongoing intellectual engagement within the field.