New Head of School of Arts at Monash South Africa

15 November 2004

Dr Iain Edwards has been appointed Head of the School of Arts at the Monash South Africa (MSA) campus. He will be taking over from Associate Professor Kevin Foster, who has been in South Africa on a two-year secondment from the Monash Clayton campus.

Foster will be returning to Melbourne next month where he will be Associate Professor and Head of the Communication Section in the School of Literary, Visual and Performance Studies at the Monash Clayton campus. Foster received his doctorate from Monash and has taught there since 1995.

“I’ve really enjoyed working at MSA, particularly being part of a new and developing campus and having the opportunity to establish and grow the offerings in the School of Arts where both student numbers and subjects have doubled,” says Foster. “The latest subjects on offer are English, French and Criminal Justice and Criminology. We have also significantly expanded our offerings in International Studies and consolidated the courses in Communication and Media Studies, Geography and Environmental Science and Psychology.”

According to Foster: “One of the most rewarding aspects of my time here has been to watch students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who never dreamed of going to university, develop and grow and graduate with a degree which will profoundly change their own lives and those of their families.”

Dr Iain Edwards has been a senior lecturer in International Studies at the MSA campus since the beginning of 2004. He obtained his PhD from the University of Natal where he was a tenured faculty member in the departments of history, economic history and African government. He was the Professor in Humanities and Director of the University’s Campbell Collections.

Edwards has been a Visiting Fellow at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University and, in 1999/2000, was a Rockefeller Fellow at Columbia University in New York. More recently he has been a ministerial advisor to the South African government at both provincial and national levels.

Edwards’ primary research interests are modern South African history and politics and research methodologies. Together with Natoo Babenia, he is the co-author of Memoirs of a Saboteur (Mayibuye Press, Cape Town, 1995) and co-editor and contributor to The People’s City: The History of African Life in Durban, (Heinemann & Natal University Press, New Haven & Pietermaritzburg, 1997).

As part of his activities in the field of public heritage, Edwards spearheaded the development, in 1992, of South Africa’s first post-apartheid public museum: the Kwa Muhle Museum in Durban. He was also a member of the African National Congress’ National Commission on Arts and Culture which was responsible for drawing up the policy guidelines adopted by the post-1994 national government.

Edwards is an Honorary Research Associate in the School of Historical Studies at Monash University and is currently engaged on three major research and publishing projects. He is the historical consultant on warfare and nationalism to Freedom Park - the South African government’s premier new National Heritage site. He is co-authoring a leading anti-apartheid politician’s memoirs and editing a collection of his private political papers and, together with Professor Kevin Foster, is co-editing and contributing to a book on history, politics and memory.