It is a year since my longstanding colleague, comrade, mentor and friend, Prof. Lis Lange, passed on. Today I heard her name spoken in a university meeting at UCT; her legacy in an institution where some members really treated her quite badly, lives on. Lis came to South Africa - having grown up in Argentina, done her undergraduate studies at the University of Buenos Aires and a master's at the Collegio de Mexico - to study History at Wits University. I met her ten years later at the Council on Higher Education, where I arrived still being a master's student at UCT. For almost a quarter of a century, our scholarly paths and our personal paths would intersect henceforth.
In the last 12 months, Jonathan Jansen and Andre Keet took up the challenge to bring together an impressive group of scholars to compile a Festschrift - a celebratory book - on the life and work of Lis Lange. It has just been published by African Minds. In a series of chapters, Lis life and work is portrayed, giving an idea of her thinking opus, her friendships and family life, her politics and her scholarly and policy activism.
The full book Festschrift: Tribute in Honour of Maria Lis Lange: Scholar, Administrator, Activist, Leader (2026) is open access available here and my chapter in particular is here.
