Dr Lauren van der Rede is currently a lecturer in the Department of English at Stellenbosch University (SU).  Her research focuses on the intersection of genocide, literature, cultural studies and psychoanalysis. Focusing particularly on genocide as an expression of violence and what is at stake in the concept genocide, her work seeks to think what might be at stake in a reckoning with genocide, beyond phenomenon, that abides by Africa.

A short summary of Lauren`s research: 

My research is concerned with the violence we call genocide, and how we are able to think it in ways that attend to its expression beyond only physical violence. This means thinking through the violence that targets cultural markers and violence produced through and by language, for example. My work tries to do this from and through Africa, as more than just a mere geographic location, but itself as a marker of genocide.

Research for Impact is one of the core strategic themes in SU`s Vision 2020. How does your research relate to that?

My research is interdisciplinary in nature. It is situated at but also questions the intersection of the field of genocide studies, the disciplines of literary and cultural studies, and psychoanalysis. In so doing, and in taking my cue from the literary as itself a mode of reading, my work seeks to offer an elaboration on the current theorization of genocide, that is postcolonial in its gesture.

In the ever-changing environment of academia, what are some of the obstacles early career researchers are faced with?   

There are many challenges one might expect to face as an early career researcher, ranging from difficulty in securing funding to struggling to finding a healthy balance between the joys and demands of both one’s personal and professional commitments, and finding the courage to insist that both are equally important. But, as the years marked by the COVID-19 pandemic have shown, there are also many challenges one might not anticipate, such as being unable to conduct immersive research or field work, or having to reconsider what one considers to be constitutive of the field or the immersive. The single most consistent challenge of being an early career researcher, in my experience, is the demand to be dynamic in ones thinking, method, writing and traversing the textures of being within, and without, academia.

What would you regard as the most important aspects to consider to effectively support early career researchers?          

Community. It offers one a sense of support and can at times offer opportunity for organic collaboration and importantly unsettle the silos and diffuses the isolation that often accompanies individual research projects.

What excites you about your work?

My research is concerned with how the literary, as a mode of reading, makes available the plurality of that violence named genocide, its charges and expressions. Because of this, my work refuses, as it must, the confines of disciplinary boundaries. This enables me to think a space such as a memorial or museum as literary object and text; to read it, as I do a novel or a film as making available something of the violence it represents that is more than its mere description.

When you're not in the lab, library or in the field conducting research, what do you do to unwind?

Spend time with friends and family.

What advice, if any, would you look to impart to future early career academics?

There are so many things we care for and are careful with in the context of being early career researchers: loved ones, colleagues, students, teaching, the research we engage in and the work we do and make. It is important also to care for and be careful with oneself. As the adage goes: “you can’t pour from an empty cup”.

Connect with Lauren and her work!

Website: http://www0.sun.ac.za/english/staff/dr-lauren-vdrede/