Jim's classes at UCT

It is hard to believe that my classes are already coming to an end (and that we've been here for 4 months)! I have been enrolled in two courses this semester: Academic Literacies and Critical Discourses, and Globalization, Universities, and Academic Work. Both have exposed me to new areas of thought and definitely stretched me in new ways. Being the oddball American in class has been quite fun; I often find myself just sitting back and listening to the perspectives and experiences of my South African classmates, which are usually quite different from my own. In the first course we've discussed literacies and discourses (such as New Literacy Studies and critical discourse analysis, particularly Fairclough's framework), as well as ethnography. The second was split into two parts: part one covered the effects of globalization on higher education while part two examined a dense theory by Basil Bernstein, a Brit, on the differential distribution and acquisition of knowledge in the classroom. Yikes.

Every morning I walk down our road about 10 minutes (with a gorgeous early morning view of Table Mountain looming ahead of me) to the nearest university residence. There, I jump on a campus shuttle (the blue bus in the picture above), and and disembark 5 minutes later on Upper Campus, right on the slopes of the mountain.

These are the famous "Jammie steps", as they are known around campus. At the top is Jameson Hall, from which the steps derive their name. Throughout the day one finds scores of students scattered about the steps talking, eating, laughing, studying, smoking, or just gazing out onto the Cape flats and the Hottentot Holland Mountains in the distance. Sometimes I join them (but not in all of the above mentioned activities...).