1. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela was born on 15 February 1955 and is the Research Chair in Studies in Historical Trauma and Transformation at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
30 Facts About Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela graduated from Fort Hare University with a bachelor's degree and an Honours degree in psychology.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela obtained her master's degree in Clinical Psychology at Rhodes University.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela received her PhD in psychology from the University of Cape Town.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela attended Inanda Seminary, a boarding school for girls near Durban, which was founded and run by the American Board of Missions, and at the time the only private school for black girls in South Africa.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela encountered many Americans who eagerly spoke about the beautiful landscape of a city about which she knew very little.
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At this school, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela directed her activist energy to drama.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela directed and acted in her first play, A Man for All Seasons, adapted from a book by Robert Bolt based on the story of Sir Thomas More.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela worked with an all-female student cast, who collaborated and assembled "costumes" for the play, and with the help of the school principal raised funds to travel to perform the play at other schools, including a school in the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela's parents wanted her to become a medical doctor an incident in the Zoology laboratory led to her abandoning the idea of a medical degree.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela received her BA degree from Fort Hare University in 1977, and completed her Honours in Psychology in 1979.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela later went on to train as clinical psychologists at Rhodes University, where she received a master's degree in Clinical Psychology in 1984.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela worked for a few years at the Psychiatric Clinic in Mtata before taking up a lectureship position in psychology at the university now known as Walter Sisulu Metropolitan University.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela worked with Martin Luitingh, who was a South African advocate involved in human rights work.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela was invited to join Martin Luitingh's team as a defence expert witness in a "Necklace murder" trial.
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In 1991, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela started a PhD at the University of Cape Town on "Necklace murders" committed in the context of crowd violence.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela served on the Human Rights Violations Committee until May 1998.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela completed her doctoral dissertation in November 1999 and graduated at the University of Cape Town in June 2000.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela remained in Cambridge for two more years, with affiliations at Harvard's Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School, and the Center for Ethics at Harvard Divinity School respectively.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela has meditated on the concepts central to the phenomenon of forgiveness and developed a body of work revolving around the process of reconciliation.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela describes her current research as the phenomenological study of empathy and what being moved to offer forgiveness entails.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela was appointed Associate professor of Psychology at the University of Cape Town in 2003.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela became a full professor at the same university in 2010.
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In 2017, Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela was appointed to the post of Research Chair in Studies in Historical Trauma and Transformation at Stellenbosch University in the Western Cape.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela describes her work as focusing mainly on two strands of research.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela currently sits on the International Advisory Board of The Senator George J Mitchell Institute For Global Peace, Security And Justice at Queen's University Belfast.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela holds the Claude Ake Visiting Chair, which is co-financed by the Nordic Africa Institute and the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela Godobo-Madikizela has authored and edited a number of books, including award-winning A Human Being Died That Night.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela's critically acclaimed book A Human Being Died that Night received several awards, including the Alan Paton Award, and the Christopher Award in the United States.