Dr Ruth Lipschitz

Faculty Coordinator (Design Studies)
Name: Ruth Lipschitz
Location: 121, FADA Building, APB Bunting Road Campus
FADA Design Studies Staff, FADA Management Staff  Staff Members

Contact Details:
Tel: 011 559 1607

Email: ruthl@uj.ac.za

About Dr Ruth Lipschitz

Dr Ruth Lipschitz holds a PhD in Philosophy (Visual Cultures) from Goldsmiths, University of London, and MA and BA Hons in History of Art from the University of the Witwatersrand. Her research focuses on species, racial, and sexual differences in contemporary South African art and visual culture. Her work draws on deconstruction, critical race theory, posthumanism, human-animal studies, psychoanalysis, as well as film and media studies. In addition, Dr Lipschitz has an ongoing research interest in post-Holocaust art, trauma and memory studies. She is also on the editorial board of the journal Image & Text and undertakes peer review for national and international journals.

Academic qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy (Visual Cultures) Goldsmiths, University of London (2015)

Master of Arts (History of Art), University of the Witwatersrand (2000)

BA Honours (History of Art), University of the Witwatersrand (1994)

BA (History of Art, and Drama and Film), University of the Witwatersrand (1992)

Teaching

Design Studies is an interdisciplinary module that emphasises critical and decolonised thinking concerning visual cultures. Dr Lipschitz lectures and convenes the second-year Design Studies programme.  She teaches courses on posthumanism, feminism, design perspectives in the Environmental Humanities, and Africanfuturism.

Supervision

Dr Lipschitz is available to supervise postgraduate research on the African anthropocene, capitalocene, bioart, and environmental Humanities, posthumanism, human-animal studies, post-Holocaust art, memory, trauma and visual culture, gender and queer theory, and Africanfuturism. She supervises across departments and currently has postgraduate (MA and PhD) students from both Visual Art and Industrial Design.

Selected Publications

Lipschitz, Ruth. 2023. Queer Trouble at the Origin: Steven Cohen’s Cradle of Humankind (2012), in Race and Animals edited by Jonathan Thurston. Michigan University Press.

Lipschitz, Ruth. 2019. Dance with Nothing but Heart (2001): Death, the ’Animal’ and the Queer ’Taste’ of the Other, in Literature and Meat since 1900 (2019) edited by Seán McCorry and John Miller. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature ISBN 978-3-030-26916-6 ISBN 978-3-030-26917-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26917-3

Lipschitz, Ruth. 2018. “Abjection” in The Edinburgh Companion to Animal Studies. Edited by Lynn Turner, Ron Broglio and Undine Sellbach (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).

Lipschitz, Ruth and Benita de Robillard. 2017. ‘Race and “the Animal” in the Post-Apartheid ‘National Symbolic’’ Image & Text 30: 73-93.

Lipschitz, Ruth. 2016. “Archival Aftershock: On Spectral Justice, Non-Criminal Death and Infinite Responsibility” in Critical Addresses. The Archive-in-Practice. Edited by Leora Farber and Claire Jorgensen. (Johannesburg: The Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre (VIAD), University of Johannesburg).

Lipschitz, Ruth. 2012. “Skin/ned Politics: Species Discourse and the Limits of ‘The Human’ in Nandipha Mntambo’s Art” Hypatia 27(3): 546-566, special issue: Animal Others edited by Kari Weil and Lori Gruen.

Academia.edu webpage: https://johannesburg.academia.edu/RuthLipschitz