UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.— Gabeba Baderoon, associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, African studies and comparative literature at Penn State, was recently awarded an honorary doctorate from South Africa’s Nelson Mandela University.
Baderoon, a South African native and co-director of Penn State’s African Feminist Initiative, was recognized for her work as a poet, scholar and public intellectual, with the university referring to her as “one of the foremost literary voices to emerge from democratic South Africa.”
“Her poems showcase the ordinary and the historical, providing readers with a platform of new ways of understanding the intersections of personal memory and collective history,” the award’s citation read. “Through her writing and teaching, she has contributed to a broader understanding of the diverse intellectual traditions that have shaped South African society. Her work foregrounds voices and histories that have often been marginalized, bringing them into dialogue with global conversations about race, religion, gender and belonging.”
Baderoon said she thoroughly enjoyed participating in the commencement ceremony, which included numerous scholars she greatly admires and “some of the most beautiful regalia I’ve ever seen.” Several old friends with whom she went to school were among those in the audience.
“The ceremony was moving and memorable, with a powerful address on the responsibility of an education from the chancellor of the university, Dr. Naledi Pandor, whom I was honored to meet,” Baderoon said. “Afterwards, the chancellor hosted a special dinner for all the graduating doctoral students. It was an unforgettable day.”
Baderoon called the honorary degree an “unexpected and profound honor.”
“Being conferred with an honorary degree by a university named after one of the great fighters for liberation, Nelson Mandela, made me think strongly about what an education means,” she said. “During my address, I spoke about the fact that my mother was the first person in her family to earn a university degree, and as a medical doctor who worked in poor neighborhoods for her whole life, she translated that achievement into thousands of acts of goodness. This prompts the question: What can we do with our education to create enduring goodness?”
The award comes at a particularly busy time for Baderoon, who is currently working on her next book, “Autobiography of Sand: Relief Map of a Drifting Mind,” a memoir in verse detailing her experience with a concussion. Her other books include “Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa,” “Regarding Muslims: From Slavery to Post-Apartheid” and “The History of Intimacy.”
In June, Baderoon will coordinate an exploratory seminar on poetry, translation and Indigenous languages that will take place at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, where she served as a fellow during the 2024-25 academic year. The seminar will bring together Native American and South African poets for the first time for a discussion about a decolonial poetics of translation. It’s a follow-up to a translation workshop held at Penn State’s Humanities Institute (HI) in April 2024 where Baderoon worked with Rosemary Jolly, interim head of the Department of Comparative Literature, Abby Ryder-Huth, a translator and comparative literature doctoral student, and visiting South African poets to translate the epic poem “Bientang,” written by HI visiting scholar Jolyn Phillips, from Afrikaans into English.
Then, this fall, Baderoon and Michelle Bae-Dimitriadis, associate professor of art education, Asian studies, and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, will lead the HI-hosted Collaborative Colloquium on Transnational Romance, which will explore feminist approaches to the global popularity of TV romance dramas.