The African Critical Inquiry Programme (ACIP) invites proposals from scholars and practitioners in South Africa to organise the ACIP Workshop taking place in 2028, and applications from African students enrolled in South African PhD programmes for the 2027 Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards. ACIP seeks to advance inquiry and debate about the roles and practice of public culture, public cultural institutions and public scholarship in shaping identities and society in Africa. It is committed to collaboration between scholars and the makers of culture and history, to inquiry into the politics of knowledge production, the relationships between the colonial/apartheid and the postcolonial/post-apartheid, and to critical pluralism as against nationalist discourse. The closing date for both calls is Monday 3 May 2027.
Deadline
Monday 3 May 2027 (both calls)
Organiser
African Critical Inquiry Programme (ACIP), a partnership between the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, and the Laney Graduate School, Emory University (Atlanta, USA)
Call 1: Workshop proposals
Scholars and/or practitioners in South Africa are invited to propose and organise the ACIP Workshop that will take place in 2028. Workshops are interdisciplinary and cross-institutional and address the roles and practice of public culture, public cultural institutions and public scholarship in Africa.
Call 2: Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards 2027
Open to African postgraduate students (regardless of citizenship) in the humanities and humanistic social sciences who are currently registered in a PhD programme at a South African university and working on topics related to ACIP’s focus. Awards support dissertation research using a range of methods (archives and collections, fieldwork, interviews, surveys, quantitative data). Maximum award ZAR 50 000.
Application forms
Workshop application: https://www.chrflagship.uwc.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/ACIP_CFP_Workshops2027_FillableForm_1.docx
Research grant application: https://www.chrflagship.uwc.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/ACIP_CFP_ResearchGrants2027_FillableForm.docx
Official pages
https://www.chrflagship.uwc.ac.za/acip-2027-call-for-workshop-proposals-and-for-ivan-karp-doctoral-research-award-applications/
https://gs.emory.edu/guides/students/acip.html