Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research

JIAS Seminar Series | 20 Years of Women’s Organisations and Democracy in South Africa: Contesting Authority

Join Professor Shireen Hassim in conversation with Professor Natasha Erlank (UJ) and Dr Sithembile Mbete (PARI) for an insightful panel discussion exploring the book’s enduring legacy.

As we commemorate 70 years of the Women’s March, we reflect on the book’s enduring contribution to scholarship, feminism, democracy, and social justice.

📅 13 August 2026
🕠 17:30 for 18:00
📍 JIAS, 1 Tolip Street, Westdene, Johannesburg | In person & online

Register via the link https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/b2YWuyYMcg?origin=lprLink

or scan the QR code.

This month: welcome to our new Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Edson Chiwenga, reflections from in Rome, and insights on fintech, flooding, tokenised cattle, Otto1890, and Brazil's PIX.

🔗 https://shorturl.at/4gyDE
📩 Subscribe: https://shorturl.at/MJnSn

🌿 SEMINAR | Books in the Biosphere: Highlights from a Lecture Series at the British Library

How do plants, insects, archives and books shape the way we understand knowledge, history and the natural world?

Join Professor Isabel Hofmeyr for a thought-provoking seminar exploring the intersections of literature, ecology and archival research.

📖 Topics include:
🌱 Smuts and Mandela through their plants and books
🪲 Insects in archives and how they redefine documents
🌿 Pressed plants in herbaria and African herbal medicines

📅 Date: Wednesday, 29 July 2026
🕒 Time: 15:00–16:00 (SAST)
📍 Venue: The Wits Club, Braamfontein Campus West, Wits University
💻 Format: Hybrid

🔗 Register: https://shorturl.at/WZRAF

We are delighted to announce our Co-Curator for the 9th Edition of the Gaborone Book Festival
🥳🥳📚📚📚

Dr. Kirk B. Sides
Assistant Professor of English
Affiliate Faculty of African Cultural Studies
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Kirk Sides is an Assistant Professor in English and an Affiliate Faculty Member of African Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has worked at academic institutions in the US, the UK, and South Africa. Kirk has been a Research Fellow both at the University of Witwatersrand’s Institute for Social and Economic Research in Johannesburg, South Africa, as well as the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich. His book, Environmental Entanglements: African Literature’s Ecological Imaginary (2025) from Oxford University Press, charts a long history of ecological thinking in African literatures from the start of twentieth century up to the present. An African continent edition of Environmental Entanglements was also published by Wits University Press (The University of the Witwatersrand) in January 2026. His current research project, Narrative on the Edge, looks at the relationship between environmental change and storytelling practices.

Congratulations to Dr Buhle Dlodlo and Dr Luck Makuyana, together with your supervisors, Prof Isabel Hofmeyr and Prof Grace Musila, on this remarkable achievement 🎉🎓

Wishing you all the very best as you embark on the next chapter. May it be filled with continued success ✨

Wits - University of the Witwatersrand

“Today, manifestly little interest is shown in making the circle more inclusive. Rather, the idea is to make borders as the primitive form of keeping at bay enemies, intruders, and strangers—all those who are not one of us. (…) Borders are no longer sites to be crossed but lines that separate.”
Achille Mbembe in ‘Necropolitics’ https://witspress.co.za/page/detail/?K=9781776143276

🐦 You're invited to Avian Encounters: Bird/Human Relations!

Join WiSER online every Monday (4–5 PM SAST) from 27 July–26 Oct 2026 for conversations on birds, climate change, migration, art, literature & more.

Featuring William Kentridge, Mia Couto and many others.

🔗 Abstracts & bios: https://shorturl.at/mTIOW
🔗 Register: https://shorturl.at/xVeSa

Meet Professor Hlonipha Mokoena! Author of The Nightwatchman - Representing Black Men In Colonial South Africa published by Wits University Press

Prof Mokoena is a historian and the Director of Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research she is also the author of Magema Fuze: The Making of a Kholwa Intellectual ❤️📚

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications.