Luan Staphorst

Luan Staphorst
DPhil Candidate
Lincoln College
luan.staphorst@lincoln.ox.ac.uk

Thesis Title: Between Archive and Afterlife: Translationality, Desire, and |xam Orature in South African Letters

Supervisor: Professor Elleke Boehmer

Doctoral Research: This thesis engages with questions of the desire for and emergence of language in and through literature over time, how this particular desire relates to forging ethical and epistemic relations with the (Animal and non-Animal) Other, and how analysing a Southern literary system could offer an alternative understanding of such a poetics of translationality. The Bleek and Lloyd archive of |xam orature and the various forms of textualisation the archive has experienced over the past century in the South African literary system is the central vehicle through which these questions are explored, but texts from outside this system, notably from the British, Continental European, and Western Classical tradition, are brought into comparative conversation as well. 

Funding: Clarendon Fund, Open-Oxford-Cambridge Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership, Lincoln College Kingsgate Fund, and the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust.

Research Interests: Southern literature; World literature; Comparative Literature; African literature; South African literature; Orature; Postcolonialism; Decolonialism; Afrikaans; |xam; Khoesan; South African English; Translationality; Mimesis; Textualisation; Poetics; Poetry; Pastoral; Desire; Voice; Archive; Cosmology; Relationality; Animal Studies; Metaethics; Linguistics and Literature; Historical Linguistics; Etymology; Philosophy of Language; Philosophy and Language; Philosophy of Literature; Philosophy and Literature. 

Authors and Theorists of Interest: ||kabbo; Diä!kwain; |hanǂkasso; !kweiten-ta-||ken; Antjie Krog; Stephen Watson; Arthur Markowitz; Eugene Marais; Gideon von Wielligh; Elias Canetti; Thomas Pringle; Olive Schreiner; J.M. Coetzee; Breyten Breytenbach; Laurens van der Post; Athol Fugard; Marlene van Niekerk; Andre Brink; Zoe Wicomb; Chris Barnard; Karel Schoeman; Etienne van Heerden; Damon Galgut; Jolyn Phillips; Sylvia Vollenhoven; Æsop; Theocritus; Willem die Madoc maecte; Geoffrey Chaucer; John Milton; Alexander Pope; Matthew Arnold; Rudyard Kipling; William Cowper; Seamus Heaney; Derek Walcott; Walter Benjamin; Jacques Derrida; Gayatri Spivak; Homi Bhabha; Julia Kristeva; Rita Felski; Giles Deleuze; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Erich Auerbach; Michael Taussig; René Girard; Nidesh Lawtoo; Wail Hassan; Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o; Kwasi Wiredu; Achille Mbembe.

Languages engaged with in the thesis: English, Afrikaans, |xam, Dutch, German, Khoekhoegowab.

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles:

  1. Staphorst, L. (Forthcoming). Conceptualising "verd(r)inging" [supersessory-suppresionary-thingification] as a form of BADaptation: oral tradition, epistemic violence, and the interaction between G.R. von Wielligh's Bushman Stories (1919-1921) and Wendy Maartens's San-Child Reads the Wind (2024). Stilet: Tydskrif van die Afrikaanse Letterkundevereniging 37(1/2). [South African Department of Higher Education and Training [DHET] accredited]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  2. Staphorst, L. (Forthcoming). On Stryd-perke [Limited Spatio-Temporal Struggles) vis-a-vis Racialised Nationalism and South African Language Political Memory: An Archaeological Genealogy of Kaapse Afrikaans. Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics. [Scopus indexed; Q2 Cultural Studies; Q2 History; Q3 Linguistics].
  3. Staphorst, L. (Online). "now the yard is crawling with bushman stories:" a comparison between thematically related |xam folkloric texts from the Bleek and Lloyd (1911) and Von Wielligh (1919-1921) collections in relation to accusations of plagiarism. Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies 34(2). [DHET accredited].
  4. Staphorst, L. (Online). 'First Peoples': Laurens van der Post's usage of the term antedating the OED entry. Notes & Queries: for readers and writers, collectors and librarians 72(3/4/5). [Scopus indexed; Q2 Literature and Literary Theory, Q3 Linguistics]. 
  5. Staphorst, L. (Online). On the seeable limits of decolonial and indigenous scholarship: conceptualising ondeursigbaarheid as critical analytic through reference to the |xam, the Bleek and Lloyd archive, and Bushman studies. Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies 39(4/5/6). [Web of Science [WoS] and Scopus indexed; Q1 Cultural Studies, Q2 Arts and Humanities, Q2 Communication].
  6. Staphorst, L. (2025). Reading between fire and ash: reflections on colonial-era African archives in the time of the archival (b/t)urn. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies - Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity 20(1): 60-77. [Scopus indexed; Q1 Literature and Literary Theory, Q2 History].
  7. Staphorst, L. (2024). "Innie Malmesbugy waa os bly": Linguistic citizenship, Arabic-Afrikaans, and the Burr R in Ashwin Arendse's Swatland (2021). Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 42(S1): S67-S84. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q1 Linguistics]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  8. Staphorst, L. (2024). English and/in Africa: reflections on the language question, Afropolitanism, and linguistic orientation six decades after the 'African Writers Conference'. Acta Academica: Critical views on society, culture and politics 56(1): 43-61 [Scopus and Directory of Open Access Journals [DOAJ] indexed; Q2 Arts and Humanities].
  9. Staphorst, L. (2024). ‘The language of the eye is not the language of the ear’: English, translationality, and (dis)similarities between Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross. Research in African Literatures 54(2): 58-74. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q1 Literature and Literary Theory].
  10. Staphorst, L. (2024). Orange River Afrikaans, an archaeological genealogy. Part I: 1595-1916. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 68: 1-23. [Scopus and DOAJ indexed; Q2 Linguistics]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  11. Staphorst, L. (2024). Orange River Afrikaans, an archaeological genealogy. Part II: 1917-1979. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 68: 25-44. [Scopus and DOAJ indexed; Q2 Linguistics]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  12. Staphorst, L. (2024). Orange River Afrikaans, an archaeological genealogy. Part III: 1980-1998. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 68: 45-63. [Scopus and DOAJ indexed; Q2 Linguistics]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  13. Staphorst, L. (2024). Orange River Afrikaans, an archaeological genealogy. Part IV: 1999-2021. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 68: 65-86. [Scopus and DOAJ indexed; Q2 Linguistics]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  14. Staphorst, L. (2023) “Something about this left us uneasy”: the relationship between “unlaagering” and the colonialesque in recent Afrikaans linguistic and literary discourses. LitNet Akademies 20(3): 271-302. [DHET accredited]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  15. Staphorst, L. (2023). “fokkol graad vi jou nie” (fuck all degree for you): Black Afrikaans poets, critical university studies, and transcripting the Afrikaans university. Journal of African Cultural Studies 35(1): 22-36. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q1 Literature and Literary Theory, Q1 Cultural Studies].
  16. Keet, A., Staphorst, L, Penkler, M. and Phuza, N. (2023). 'Emergencies' and techno-rationality: the tasks of decentred critical university studies. Southern African Review of Education 28(1): 120-134. [DHET accredited].  [Co-lead-author – wrote and formulated 85% of the chapter]. Reprinted in: Keet, A. and Tate, S.A. (Forthcoming). Racism's Knowledge: Reflections on Higher Education Transformation. Stellenbosch: SUN Press.
  17. Fataar, A., Motala, S., Keet, A., Lalu, P., Nuttall, S., Menon, K., and Staphorst, L. (2023). The university in techno-rational times: Critical universities studies, South Africa. Educational Philosophy and Theory 55(7): 835-843. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q1 Education, Q1 History and Philosophy of Science]. [Contributing author – wrote and formulated 20% of the article].
  18. Staphorst, L. (2023). On the trail of presumed plagiarism: holographic archaeology, GR von Wielligh, and the Bleek and Lloyd archive. Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe 63(3): 475-480. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q2 Arts and Humanities]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  19. Staphorst, L. (2023). “the veiled depth”: GR von Wielligh’s complex Afrikaans recordings of late 19th century |xam culture. South African Journal of Cultural History | Suid-Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Kultuurgeskiedenis 37(1): 1-22. [DHET accredited]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  20. Staphorst, L. (2022). “van die oorspronklike lippe” (from the original lips): the 19th Century Cape Colony, holographic archaeology, and the historicity of Gideon von Wielligh’s |xam-Afrikaans collection. Journal of Southern African Studies 48(6): 993-1011. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q2 Arts and Humanities].
  21. Staphorst, L. (2021). Premonitions, interpretations, and explanations: reception of a 19th Century |xam kum. Tydskrif vir Letterkunde: 'n tydskrif vir afrika-letterkunde | a journal for african literature 58(2): 103-117. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q1 Literature and Literary Theory, Q2 Cultural Studies]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  22. Staphorst, L. (2021). |hu|huŋaŋ |ne e: ǂkakǝn au hi |enni |emm (Europeans are those who talk with the tip of their tongue): Colonialesque knowledge, attuned thinking and the bloody body of scholarship known as Bushman studies. Southern African Humanities 34: 59-82. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q1 Cultural Studies, Q1 History, Q2 Anthropology].
  23. Staphorst, L. (2020). “… the broken Dutch they understood and spoke …”: The ǀxam-Bushmen, the Bleek and Lloyd archive, and the history of the Afrikaans language. Tydskrif vir Nederlands en Afrikaans 27(2): 3-30. [DHET accredited]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  24. Staphorst, L. (2019). Owning the body, embodying the owner: complexity and discourses of rights, citizenship and heritage of Southern African Bushmen. Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies 33(4-5): 104-119. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q1 Cultural Studies, Q2 Arts and Humanities, Q2 Communication]. Article reprinted in: Tomaselli, K. and Grant, J. (eds). (2023). Rethinking Khoe and San Indigeneity, Language and Culture in Southern Africa. London: Routledge.

Peer Reviewed Book Chapters:

  1. Keet, A. and Staphorst, L. (Forthcoming). On Racism's Knowledge: Is a Critical Decolonial Project Possible? In: Racism's Knowledge: Reflections on Higher Education Transformation. A. Keet and S.A. Tate. Stellenbosch: SUN Press. [Invited co-author - wrote and formulated 25% of the chapter].
  2. Staphorst, L. (Forthcoming). I write what I must: autoethnography, colonial scripts, and wegskrywing in the South African university. In: Making Visible the Invisible: Institutional Cultures in South African Higher Education. Eds. C. van der Westhuizen, N. Mkhize, B. Magoqwana, Q. Maqabuka and G. Holtzman. Stellenbosch: SUN Press.
  3. Staphorst, L. and Keet, A. (2024). Contested criticality: an intellectual historiography of critical university studies. In: Advancing Critical University Studies. Eds. D. Belluigi and A. Keet. Stellenbosch: SUN Press: 2-21. [Lead-author – wrote and formulated 90% of the chapter].
  4. Keet, A., Chauke, T., Staphorst, L., Hamukuaya, H., and Honeycomb, N. (2024). Critique and disputations: human rights, Africanisation, decolonisation, and the project of (de)centred critical university studies. In: Emancipatory Human Rights and the University: Promoting Social Justice in Higher Education. Eds. F. Tibbitts and A. Keet. London: Routledge: 31-51.  [Invited contributing author – wrote and formulated 15% of the chapter]. Reprinted in: Keet, A. and Tate, S.A. (Forthcoming). Racism's Knowledge: Reflections on Higher Education Transformation. Stellenbosch: SUN Press.
  5. Keet, A., Penkler, M. A., Staphorst, L, and Rafaely, D. (2024). Plastic refusals: the Africanisation challenge of South African higher education. In: Working with Theories of Refusal and Decolonization in Higher Education. Eds. P. Mikulan and M. Zembylas. London: Routledge: 124-142. [Invited contributing author – wrote and formulated 20% of the chapter]. Reprinted in: Keet, A. and Tate, S.A. (Forthcoming). Racism's Knowledge: Reflections on Higher Education Transformation. Stellenbosch: SUN Press.
  6. Staphorst, L. (2023). “No more space”: the university in the short stories of Marlene van Niekerk. In: Marlene van Niekerk: Die tempteerbare oog. ’n Huldiging. Ed. M. Crous. Cape Town: Naledi: 246-285. [Invited; Published in Afrikaans]. 
  7. Staphorst, L. (2021). To tongue the body | to body the tongue: problematizing translation of African oral traditions. In: Palgrave Handbook of African Oral Traditions and Folklore. Eds A. Akinyemi and T. Falola. New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 551-573. [Invited].

Book Reviews and Review Essays:

  1. Staphorst, L. (2025). Review essay: Forgotten Footprints: In search of South Africa's first people, by José Manuel De Prada-Samper. LitNet, 6 November. 
  2. Staphorst, L. (2024). Book review: Breyvier: Over taal, burgerschap en Breytenbach, by Yves T'Sjoen. Tydskrif vir Nederlands en Afrikaans 31(2): 137-140. [Published in Afrikaans; DHET Accredited]. 
  3. Staphorst, L. (2024). Book review: Hunger for the Light: The Challenges of an African Life, by Rosemary Alice Gray. English Academy Review: A Journal of English Studies 42(2): 130-134. [Scopus indexed; Q1 Literature and Literary Theory].
  4. Staphorst, L. (2023). Book review: Can Themba: The Making and Breaking of the Intellectual Tsotsi, a Biography, by Siphiwo Mahala. Tydskrif vir Letterkunde: 'n tydskrif vir afrika-letterkunde | a journal for african literature 60(1): 59-61. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q1 Literature and Literary Theory, Q2 Cultural Studies].
  5. Staphorst, L. (2023). Review essay: Karoo Cosmos: |xam-ka !au and the |xam. Visual Anthropology 36(1): 80-86. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q2 Anthropology, Q2 Cultural Studies].
  6. Staphorst, L. (2021). Book review: The Tough Alchemy of Ben Okri, by Rosemary Alice Gray. English Academy Review: A Journal of English Studies 38(1): 93-96. [Scopus indexed; Q1 Literature and Literary Theory].
  7. Staphorst, L. (2020). Book review: Decolonisation in Universities: The Politics of Knowledge by Jonathan D. Jansen (ed.). Educational Research for Social Change 9(1): 92-94. [Scopus indexed; Q3 Education, Q3 History and Philosophy of Science].

Other Publications - Essays, Rebuttals, and Reports:

  1. Staphorst, L. (Forthcoming). On Boreas and his Bushman brother: Oxford, Afrikaans, and the Meerfoutdigtheid [More-Faulted-Thickness] of the South. LitNet. [Invited Essay Published in Afrikaans as: Oor Boreas en sy Boesman-broer: Oxford, Afrikaans, en die Meerfoutdigtheid van die Suide].
  2. Staphorst, L. (2025). The 5th Black Afrikaans Writers' Symposium: The continued relevance of an intellectual tradition. LitNet, 6 November. [Invited Essay Published in Afrikaans as: Die 5de Swart Afrikaanse Skrywersimposium: Die voortgesette tersaaklikheid van 'n intellektuele tradisie].
  3. Staphorst, L. (2025). Seen elsewhere: Both cappuccino and flat white dinkers are cultured. LitNet, 12 August. [Rebuttal Essay Published in Afrikaans as: Elders gesien: Beide cappuccino- en flat white-drinkers is gekultiveerd].
  4. Boehmer, E. and Staphorst, L. (2025). Africa's 'sleeping' language, |xam, has been written in stone at Oxford university. The Conversation, 4 March.
  5. Staphorst, L. (2024). On Breyten Breytenbach's legacy at Oxford. LitNet, 18 December. [Essay Published in Afrikaans as: Op Breyten Breytenbach se nalatenskap by Oxford].
  6. Staphorst, L. (2024). Linguistically sensitive. Knaap, 15 September. [Invited Essay Published in Afrikaans as: Taalgevoelig].
  7. Staphorst, L. (2024). Seen elsewhere: A shared language in the unknown. LitNet, 14 May. [Photo Essay Published in Afrikaans as: Elders gesien: 'n Gedeelde tongval in die vreemde].
  8. Boehmer, E. and Staphorst, L. (2024). On postcolonialism and the neerlandophone: an interview with Elleke Boehmer. Voertaal, 9 April. [Invited].
  9. Staphorst, L. (2023). Kleinboet Staphorst replies to Cicero. LitNet, 29 November. [Rebuttal to Critiques of my LitNet Akademies Article; Published in Afrikaans as: Kleinboet Staphorst antwoord Cicero].
  10. Staphorst, L. (2023). Entangled response. Knaap, 8 October. [Invited Rebuttal Essay Published in Afrikaans as: Verwikkelde repliek].
  11. Staphorst, L. (2022). Antjie Somers, meat eaters, and the question of complex reading: a response to Chan Croeser and Jacomien van Niekerk’s essays in the children and youth book seminar series. LitNet. [Essay Published in Afrikaans as: Antjie Somers, vleisvreters en die vraag om verwikkeld te lees: 'n Reaksie op Chan Croeser en Jacomien van Niekerk se kinder- en jeugboekseminaaressays].
  12. Keet, A., Staphorst, L., and Hamukuaya, H. (2021). Advancing Critical University Studies: a report on the fields of Critical University Studies in relation to Higher Education Studies and Higher Education Transformation Studies. CriSHET.
  13. Staphorst, L. (2020). ‘An African Elegy’ – Ben Okri: a brief analysis. Teaching English Today 10: 1-4. [Invited].

Creative Writing and Translation:

  1. Boehmer, E. [Trans. L. Staphorst]. (Forthcoming). Na die vulkaan en ander verhale. Cape Town: Karavan Press. [Short Story Collection (To the volcano) translated from English into Afrikaans].
  2. Nortje, A. [Trans. L. Staphorst]. (2025). Athol Fugard se uitnodiging. Versindaba. [Poem translated from English into Afrikaans].
  3. Kirsch, O. [Trans. L. Staphorst]. (2024). Nietemin. Versindaba. [Epic poem translated from English into Afrikaans].
  4. Rilke, R.M. [Trans. L. Staphorst]. (2022). Perels ontstring. Academia.edu. [Poem translated from German into Afrikaans].
  5. Rilke, R.M. [Trans. L. Staphorst]. (2022). Onwetend voor die hemel. Academia.edu. [Poem translated from German into Afrikaans].
  6. Butler, G. [Trans. L. Staphorst]. (2022). Karoodorp. Academia.edu. [Poem translated from English into Afrikaans].
  7. Staphorst, L. (2020). Assemblancing water. In: The Tributaries Project Catalogue. Ed. A. Hurst. Port Elizabeth: Nelson Mandela University: 191-198. [Ekphrastic poetry series].
  8. Staphorst, L. (2018). [hier is ons]. Amazwi 1: 3-5. [Trilingual poem; self-translated from Afrikaans to English].
  9. Staphorst, L. (2016). hier, die land | here, this land. LitNet. [Self-translated bilingual poem].
  10. Staphorst, L. (2016). feng shui. LitNet. [Self-translated bilingual poem].
  11. Staphorst, L. (2016). digter wordende | nearer becoming. LitNet. [Self-translated bilingual poem].

Peer Reviewing:

  1. Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q1 Cultural Studies].
  2. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q1 Linguistics].
  3. Names: A Journal of Onomastics. [WoS and Scopus indexed; Q1 Linguistics].
  4. Tydskrif vir Letterkunde: 'n tydskrif vir afrika-letterkunde | a journal for african literature. [WoS, Scopus and DOAJ indexed; Q1 Literature and Literary Theory].
  5. African Historical Review. [Scopus indexed; Q3 History; Q3 Cultural studies].
  6. English Academy Review: A Journal of English Studies. [Scopus indexed; Q1 Literature and Literary Theory].
  7. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies - Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity. [Scopus indexed; Q1 Literature and Literary Theory, Q2 History].
  8. Journal of Intercultural Studies. [Scopus indexed; Q1 Cultural studies; Q1 History].
  9. Imbizo: International Journal of African Literary and Comparative Studies. [DHET accredited].
  10. LitNet Akademies. [DHET accredited].
  11. Politeia: The Journal of Political Sciences and Public Administration and Management. [DHET accredited].
  12. South African Journal of Cultural History | Suid-Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Kultuurgeskiedenis. [DHET accredited].
  13. Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies. [DHET accredited].
  14. Stilet: Tydskrif van die Afrikaanse Letterkundevereniging [Journal of the Afrikaans Literature Association]. [DHET accredited].
  15. JULACE: Journal of the University of Namibia Language Centre.
  16. Ghana Journal of Education: Issues and Practice.
  17. Oxford Research in English.

Paper Presentations (International):

  1. Storying Contiguity: |xam poetics of the animal and questions of reading – Global Fables, Online, September 2024.
  2. |hu|huŋaŋ |ne e: ǂkakǝn au hi |enni |emm: on colonial Khoesan linguistics, animal speech, and a Southern articulation of ethical languaging practices – Speaking from the South, University of Adelaide, Australia, May-June 2024.
  3. Onoorganklik [Intransitive]: Onomastics, Apartheid Linguistics, and the Dearth of Critical Afrikaans Scholarship – Transitions, Société Canadienne D’onomastique / Canadian Society for the Study of Names Congress, Online, May 2022.
  4. Barakat, Koe(k)sisters, and the Bo-Kaap: discourses of Afrikaans, food, and power in relation to the Cape Malay community in South Africa – Asian Food and Power International Workshop, Charles University, Online, December 2021.
  5. The Translation-Machine of the Bleek and Lloyd Archive – American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, USA, March 2020. [Cancelled due to COVID-19].
  6. Between Labour, Land and a Lost Language: the slipperiness of indigenous rights for South Africa’s Karretjiemense – Global Minority Rights Summer School, National University of Public Service & Tom Lantos Institute, Hungary, July 2019.
  7. Toppling Translation: Omdigting as strategy to Move the Margin with-in the Post-Colony – Translation beyond the Margins, 10th International Translation Conference, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar, March 2019.  
  8. Owning the Body, Embodying the Owner: Complexity and Discourses of Rights, Citizenship and Heritage of Southern African San-Bushmen – Critical Perspectives on Human Rights, City College New York, USA, March 2019.
  9. Writing a Life Queered in Africa: Notes on Reading Poetry from African Writers as Phenomenological Knowledge - Intersecting Africa, Sexuality and Religion Conference, University of Ghana, September 2018.
  10. Sp(l)itting on the Tongue: to-words a just translation of Indigenous African Oral Traditions – Territories in Dispute: 9th Multidisciplinary Conference on Indigenous Peoples, Universiteit Roosevelt, The Netherlands, May 2018.

Paper Presentations (National - South Africa):

  1. "Jus' reimagine a lil' bit": literary theory, Afrikaans poetry criticism, and conceptualising the "bridge anthology" in relation to Loit Sols's Moerstaal (2021) - 5th Black Afrikaans Writers' Symposium, University of the Western Cape, October 2025. [Presented in Afrikaans].
  2. Conceptualising "verd(r)inging" [supersessory-suppresionary-thingification] as a form of BADaptation: oral tradition, epistemic violence, and the interaction between G.R. von Wielligh's Bushman Stories (1919-1921) and Wendy Maartens's San-Child Reads the Wind (2024) - 3rd Amazwi Conference on Children's Literature, Amazwi South African Museum of Literature, October 2025.
  3. Conceptualising "verd(r)inging" [supersessory-suppresionary-thingification] as a form of BADaptation: oral tradition, epistemic violence, and the interaction between G.R. von Wielligh's Bushman Stories (1919-1921) and Wendy Maartens's San-Child Reads the Wind (2024) - Afrikaans Literary Studies Society Biennial Congress, University of the Free State, September 2025. [Presented in Afrikaans].
  4. On Boreas and his Bushman brother: Oxford, Afrikaans, and the Meerfoutdigtheid [More-Faulted-Thickness] of the South - Etienne van Heerden Veldsoirée, Cradock, July 2025. [Invited; Presented in Afrikaans].
  5. “And, naturally, Kaaps is Afrikaans”. Emergent Ethno-Linguistic Nationalism, Kaaps Afrikaans, and ‘Colouredness’ in South Africa - 3rd Kaaps Symposium, University of the Western Cape, August 2024. [Presented in Afrikaans].
  6. The Karoo as universe: on field-thinking, |xam-Afrikaans and the Bushman-university – Etienne van Heerden Veldsoirée, Cradock, September 2023. [Invited; Presented in Afrikaans].
  7. On Afrikaans’s literary henceforth: between decadence and decolonisation – Afrikaans Literary Studies Society Biennial Congress, Nelson Mandela University and Rhodes University, August 2023. [Presented in Afrikaans].
  8. “Innie Malmesbuġy waa ôs bly”: Linguistic Citizenship, Arabic-Afrikaans, and the Burr R in Ashwin Arendse’s Swatland (2021) – Afrikaans Literary Studies Society Biennial Congress, Nelson Mandela University and Rhodes University, August 2023. [Presented in Afrikaans].
  9. “she is the last one my lord”: belonging, authenticity and textuality in Jolyn Phillips’ Bientang (2020) – Afrikaans Literary Studies Society Biennial Congress, Online, September 2021. [Presented in Afrikaans].
  10. "I just know this Bushman-language of ours": Afrikaans language history, the |xam Bushmen, and verbs that sit walk from yonder - South African Academy for Science and Art Student Symposium, Online, October 2020. [Presented in Afrikaans].
  11. The wound says it to me: the moral worldview of the |xam as eco-moral phenomenology – South African Academy for Science and Art Student Symposium, Online, October 2020. [Presented in Afrikaans].
  12. "Ek ken net hierdie Boesmantaal van ons" ("I just know this Bushman-language of ours"): Afrikaans, Creolization and the Last Possession of South Africa's First People - Language and the (De)Colonisation of the African Coast, Nelson Mandela University, October 2018.
  13. “Many tongues”: self-translation as relation of the self in Antjie Krog’s Lady Anne: A Chronicle in Verse (2017) – Afrikaans Literary Studies Society Biennial Congress, Stellenbosch University, September 2018.  [Presented in Afrikaans].
  14. "Our's": Antjie Krog and the Search for a Hyperobjective Self in Mede-wete (2014) - Afrikaans Literary Studies Society Biennial Congress, Stellenbosch University, September 2018. [Presented in Afrikaans].
  15. On the genealogy of Afrikaans: rethinking an indigisteme through retranslations of |Xam kukummi - Rethinking KhoeSan Indigeneity, Language and Culture Conference, University of Johannesburg, August 2018.
  16. To-words Morality: Notes of an Indigenous Southern African Ethic through the |xam Language and Literature - Rethinking KhoeSan Indigeneity, Language and Culture Conference, University of Johannesburg, August 2028.
  17. An Emboddied Tongue: Omdigting and Translation – Post-Graduate Conference on Literature, Creative Writing, Media and Culture, University of the Western Cape, May 2018.
  18. Lady, Madam or Auntie: Antjie Krog and Auto-Translation as Identity-Negotiation – Multilingualism and New Linguistic Identities, Nelson Mandela University, August 2017.
  19. The Colour-ed Voice: Afrikaans and the Discourse on More-Languagedness – Conference of the Language Associations of Southern Africa, Rhodes University, June 2017. [Presented in Afrikaans].

Seminars and Forums:

  1. |xam Parapet Inscription at Rhodes House - South African Discussion Group, University of Oxford, October 2025. Co-presented with Elleke Boehmer.
  2. “She muttered in broken Dutch": Language, voice, and relationality in Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm (1883) - Nineteenth-Century Graduate Forum, University of Oxford, February 2025. 
  3. “People of the Ancient [Race]”: Victorian Sensibilities, the Geschlecht Complex, and Racialised Thinking through the English Translations of |xam Folklore in the Bleek and Lloyd Archive - Nineteenth-Century Graduate Forum, University of Oxford, November 2024.
  4. “Stories that float from afar”: the Bleek and Lloyd archive, the |xam-Bushmen, and the transformation of South African studies – Department of Afrikaans and Netherlandic Studies Seminar Series, University of the Western Cape, October 2021. [Invited seminar; Presented in Afrikaans].
  5. Water-y Likeness: the uncommon archetype in poetry and song – SARChI Chair in Identities and Social Cohesion in Africa Tributaries Project Seminar Series, Nelson Mandela University, May and October 2019. [The popularity of the seminar led to it being presented twice – the only seminar in the series to have done so].
  6. Ongehoord: Voices Unaccented, Voices Unharmonized. Language and Southern Africa’s First Peoples in Discourses of Higher Education Transformation – Department of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies Seminar Series, Nelson Mandela University, August 2019.
  7. Translation and the Post-Colonial – Department of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies Seminar Series, Nelson Mandela University, April 2018.

Guest Lectures:

  1. Linguistic Citizenship, Literature, and New Approaches to Reading – BA Honours in Linguistics Seminar, Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, Stellenbosch University, October 2023. [Presented in Afrikaans].
  2. Poetry and the Image as Ekphrasis – 3rd Year Creative Writing, Nelson Mandela University, April 2019.
  3. Social consciousness in post-modern film – 3rd Year Film Studies, Nelson Mandela University, March 2018.
  4. Scriptwriting and the post-colonial gaze – 3rd Year Scriptwriting, Nelson Mandela University, March 2018.
  5. Ecological philosophy and post-modern Afrikaans poetry – 1st Year Afrikaans Literary Studies, Nelson Mandela University, February 2018. [Presented in Afrikaans].
  6. Political consciousness, memory and post-modern Afrikaans prose –1st Year Afrikaans Literary Studies, Nelson Mandela University, August 2017. [Presented in Afrikaans].
  7. Social consciousness and post-modern film – 3rd Year Film Studies, Nelson Mandela University, March 2017.
  8. Scriptwriting and the post-colonial gaze –3rd Year Scriptwriting, Nelson Mandela University, March 2017.

Other Aademic Qualifications:

  1. MSc (African Studies), Distinction, University of Oxford (Wolfson College), 2021-2022. Dissertation: Decolonising the death of |xam: Tracking the origins of the language of folklore in the Karoo. [Languages engaged in the dissertation: |xam, Afrikaans, English, Dutch]. Supervisor: Dr Peter Brooke. Courses: Themes in African History and Social Sciences; Research Methodologies; African Literature. 
  2. MA (Linguistics) [Research Degree], Cum Laude, Nelson Mandela University, 2019-2021. Dissertation: Ongehoord: Voices Unaccented; Voices Unharmonized. Afrikaans and South Africa's First Peoples in Discourses of Higher Education Transformation. [Written in a mixture of English and Afrikaans; Languages engaged in the dissertation: Afrikaans [Standard, Orange River, Kaaps], English, |xam, N|uu]. Supervisor: Dr Mariana Kriel; Co-supervisor: Dr Marisa Botha. Examiners: Prof Paul Roberge (University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill); Prof Andries Coetzee (University of Michigan).
  3. MA (Philosophy) [Research Degree], Cum Laude, University of the Western Cape, 2018-2020. Dissertation: The wound says it to me: The moral worldview of the |xam as eco-moral phenomenology. [Written in Afrikaans; Languages engaged in the dissertation: |xam, Afrikaans, English]. Supervisor: Prof Antjie Krog; Co-supervisors: Prof Oritsegbubemi Oyowe; Prof William Ellis. Examiners: Prof Hein Willemse (University of Pretoria); Prof Rianna Oelofsen (University of Forth Hare). 
  4. BA Honours (Linguistics), Cum Laude, Nelson Mandela University, 2018. Project: vel-lig | skin-ley [Self-translated, bilingual ekphrastic poetry collection]. Supervisor: Prof Marius Crous. Courses: Formal Linguistics; Applied Linguistics; Multilingualism; Translation Studies; Creative Writing.
  5. BA Honours (Literary Studies), Cum Laude, Nelson Mandela University, 2017. Treatise: Lady, Madam, or Auntie: Self-translation in Antjie Krog's Lady Anne: A Chronicle in Verse (2017). [Written in Afrikaans; Languages engaged in the treatise: Afrikaans, English]. Supervisor: Prof Marius Crous. Courses: Literary Theory; Afrikaans Poetry; Dutch Prose; Oral Tradition.
  6. BA (Liberal Arts), Cum Laude, Nelson Mandela Metroplitan University, 2014-2016.

Awards and Achievements:

  1. George Parkin Distinguished Service Award, Rhodes Trust. 2025.
  2. Clarendon Scholarship, University of Oxford. 2023-2026.
  3. Oppenheimer Memorial Trust International Doctoral Scholarship. 2023-2026.
  4. Open-Oxford-Cambridge (OOC) Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) Studentship, University of Oxford. 2023-2026.
  5. Lincoln College Kingsgate Scholarship, University of Oxford. 2023-2026.
  6. MacCracken Fellowship, New York University. 2023. [Declined].
  7. Smuts Cambridge International Scholarship, University of Cambridge. 2023. [Declined].
  8. Peterhouse Postgraduate Studentship Reservist, University of Cambridge. 2023.
  9. Gates Cambridge Scholarship Finalist, University of Cambridge. 2023.
  10. Kirk-Greene Prize for the Best Overall Performance, Oxford MSc in African Studies. 2022.
  11. Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Best Postgraduate Achievement (Social Sciences and Humanities), Nelson Mandela University. 2022.
  12. Nelson Mandela University Council Award for Best Masters by Dissertation (Social Sciences and Humanities), Nelson Mandela University. 2022.
  13. Dean’s List, Faculty of Arts, University of the Western Cape. 2021.
  14. Mandela Rhodes Scholarship. 2020-2021.
  15. Best Paper, South African Academy for Science and Art Student Symposium. 2020.
  16. Abe Bailey Fellowship. 2019.
  17. Rupert Family Trust Award for Best Honours Graduate (Social Sciences and Humanities), Nelson Mandela University. 2019.
  18. South African National Department of Arts and Culture Scholarship. 2017, 2018, 2019.
  19. Rhodes Scholarship (SA-at-Large) Finalist. 2018.
  20. University of the Western Cape Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research Scholarship. 2018.
  21. South African Academy for Science and Art Scholarship. 2018.
  22. Afrikaans Language and Culture Society [ATKV] Postgraduate Scholarship. 2018.
  23. Cape Foundation Scholarship. 2018. 
  24. Ernst and Ethel Eriksen Trust Scholarship. 2018. 
  25. Nelson Mandela University Postgraduate Research Scholarship. 2017.
  26. Southern African Society for Netherlandic Studies Scholarship. 2015, 2016, 2017.
  27. Nelson Mandela University Scholar Merit Award. 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017.
  28. ATKV Undergraduate Scholarship. 2015.
  29. Derek Gray Memorial Award. 33rd International Eskom Expo for Young Scientists. 2013. With this award I delivered a paper at the Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar, and I was the official representative of the African continent at Nobel Week.

Learned Society Membership:

  1. Afrikaanse Taal- en Letterkundevereniging [Afrikaans Linguistics and Literary Studies Society].
  2. English Academy of Southern Africa. 
  3. Historical Association of South Africa | Historiese Genootskap van Suid-Afrika.
  4. Literature Association of South Africa | Letterkundeassosiasie van Suid-Afrika. 
  5. Philosophical Society of Southern Africa.
  6. Regional History Society of Southern Africa.
  7. South African Society for Cultural History | Suid-Afrikaanse Vereniging vir Kultuurgeskiedenis.
  8. Southern African Historical Society.
  9. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society.
  10. Suid-Afrikaanse Vereniging vir Neerlandistiek [Southern African Society for Netherlandic Studies]. 

Academic Profiles:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pzqxx9IAAAAJ&hl=en

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luan-Staphorst 

https://oxford.academia.edu/LuanStaphorst