Rate My Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela

Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela is a Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University, where she holds the South African National Research Foundation Research Chair in Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma and serves as Director of the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ). She earned a BA degree and Honours in Psychology from Fort Hare University, a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Rhodes University, and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Cape Town. Her doctoral thesis examined legacies of violence through case studies of perpetrators, including Eugene de Kock. She served on the Human Rights Violations Committee of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 1994 to 1998.

Her research focuses on traumatic memories in the aftermath of political conflict, post-conflict reconciliation, empathy, forgiveness, and transgenerational trauma. Key publications include the book A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness (2003), which received the Alan Paton Award and the Christopher Award; Narrating Our Healing: Perspectives on Working through Trauma (2008, co-authored with Chris van der Merwe); and Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness: Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past (2009, co-edited with Chris van der Merwe). She has also authored and edited additional volumes and numerous scholarly articles on these themes. Career appointments include Associate Professor and later full Professor of Psychology at the University of Cape Town (2003–2012) and Senior Research Professor at the University of the Free State (2012–2017) before her current role at Stellenbosch University. Major honors include the 2024 Templeton Prize, the Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award, a Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, honorary doctorates from multiple institutions including Rhodes University and Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Medal. She has delivered numerous public lectures and keynote addresses internationally and contributes to editorial and advisory roles in her field.