47 Department of Philosophy Introduction: Who We Are UJ’s Philosophy department takes pride in providing a modern and decolonised philosophical education for our students. Our undergraduate and postgraduate offerings are delivered by a team of experts from the analytic, continental and African traditions. We are committed to providing our students with a philosophical home in which to engage with world-class scholars and our large and vibrant cohort of existing postgraduate students. We are exceedingly proud of the notable diversity of students, staff and styles, our devotion to quality teaching, and our substantial research impact. We are actively engaged in building a community of practice—committed to, and unified by, doing philosophy. UJ Philosophy is also the proud home of two centres: the Centre for Phenomenology in South Africa and the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (ACEPS), both offering a variety of ways in which postgraduate students can become involved in philosophical projects related to their research. We also maintain a network of connections with other departments at UJ and with other Philosophy departments at home and abroad. Some of our modules are presented in collaboration with these departments A Look Back at 2021 The 2021 academic year proved to be both incredibly challenging and surprisingly fruitful. Our student numbers, both undergraduate and postgraduate, grew healthily for this academic year. However, working under lockdown conditions meant that our teaching staff had to strain every fibre to ensure that those students stayed engaged and enthusiastic. We took the lessons from the first year of lockdown and experimented with new ways of delivering content and communicating with our students. Despite these challenges, we found ways of excelling in our teaching and research this year. The efforts of our staff were acknowledged with the following prestigious prizes: • Dr Asheel Singh won the Faculty of Humanities Best Post-Graduate Teacher Award 2021 • Prof Alex Broadbent won the 2021 Vice Chancellor ‘s Distinguished awards for Book of the Year. In between the online teaching and administration, our team of philosophers and their collaborators managed to produce an impressive amount of quality research on a wide array of topics and problems. The full list is too extensive to list here, but a special mention must be made of the two books published by philosophers in 2021: • Botha, C.F. (ed.) (2021). African Somaesthetics: Cultures, Feminism, Politics. Brill Studies in Somaesthetics (Volume 3). Amsterdam: Brill
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