WISER Seminar Papers

WISER is very pleased to host the Wits Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities. The presentations for the remainder of the current academic semester are listed below. The seminar takes place every Monday during the teaching term at 4:00pm SA time. We are currently holding all of the discussions on Zoom. (For the Zoom link, please subscribe to the notices here. Participants should please note that they are required to read the paper prior to the event. WISER, and its predecessor institutions the Institute for Advanced Study and the African Studies Institute, have hosted similar seminars that date back to the late 1960s. The archive of those events is also available on the WISER web site at http://wiser.wits.ac.za.
Date Presented by Title
Monday, 19 February, 2024 - 16:00
  • Marine
  • al Dahdah
Mobile (for) Development: When Digital Giants Take Care of Poor Women
Monday, 26 February, 2024 - 16:00
  • Uhuru
  • Phalafala
Cosmologies of Breath
Monday, 4 March, 2024 - 16:00
  • Ranjit
  • Singh
The curious case of tweeting an Aadhaar number: trust/mistrust in security practices of public data infrastructures
Monday, 11 March, 2024 - 16:00
  • Lucy Sabin &
  • Jorge Olcina Cantos
Weathering Saharan Dust Beyond the Spanish Mediterranean Basin: A Dialogue Between Climatology and Postcolonial Critical Theories
Monday, 18 March, 2024 - 16:00
  • Rike
  • Sitas et al
Platform Politics and Silicon Savannahs : The Rise of on-Demand Logistics and Mobility in Nairobi and Kigali
Monday, 25 March, 2024 - 16:00
  • Rowan
  • Boyson
Air Makes Free: the 1772 Somerset Case and the Poetics of England’s ‘Pure Air’
Monday, 8 April, 2024 - 16:00
  • Helene
  • Strauss
Photosynthetic Justice
Monday, 15 April, 2024 - 16:00
  • Georges
  • Eyenga
The Invention of 'Kumba Age’. How did individuals' age become dynamic in Cameroon?
Monday, 22 April, 2024 - 16:00
  • Ruth
  • Sacks
Queen India’s Air: Saturation, Conditioning and Power
Monday, 6 May, 2024 - 16:00
  • Euclides
  • Goncalves
"Revisiting the Dead Archive through Air and Atmospheres" (tbc)
Monday, 13 May, 2024 - 16:00
  • Peter
  • Geschiere
Witchcraft logics and the biometric citizen
Monday, 20 May, 2024 - 16:00
  • Awadhendra
  • Sharan
(Re)Configuring Atmospheres: Design, Technology and the Quest for ‘Pure Air’ in Colonial India
Monday, 24 June, 2024 - 16:00
  • Gala
  • Rexer
Methodologies for Living with Toxicity: Polluting Infrastructures and Environmental, Reproductive and Racial Injustice in North London
Monday, 1 July, 2024 - 16:00
  • Matthew
  • Gandy
Atmospheres: Contestations and Configurations
Monday, 29 July, 2024 - 16:00
  • Ngala Chome
  • & Justin Willis
Debt, credit and obligation in Kenya’s 2022 elections
Monday, 5 August, 2024 - 16:00
  • Tunde
  • Okunoye
Carrot or Stick? Linking Nigeria’s National Identity Number (NIN) coerced enrolment with Questions of a shared Nigerian Identity
Monday, 12 August, 2024 - 16:00
  • John Keith
  • Hart
Trust: A question of belief
Monday, 19 August, 2024 - 16:00
  • Keith
  • Breckenridge
The meaning of the 2024 elections : biometric governance and the trust problem
Monday, 26 August, 2024 - 16:00
  • Richard
  • Steyn
Rhodes And His Banker: Empire, Wealth And The Coming Of Union
Monday, 9 September, 2024 - 16:00
  • Wendy
  • Willems
Racialised Publics: Coloniality, Technology and Imaginaries
Monday, 16 September, 2024 - 16:00
  • Deborah
  • James
Collaborations to curb involuntary indebtedness among welfare grant recipients
Monday, 30 September, 2024 - 16:00
  • Kevin
  • Donovan
The Moneychanger state
Monday, 21 October, 2024 - 16:00
  • Michelle
  • Spektor
Biometric Statecraft, Policing, and Fingerprint Technology in Palestine/Israel, 1920-1948
Monday, 28 October, 2024 - 16:00
  • Richard
  • Banégas
  • & Armando_
  • Cutolo
ID Wars in Côte d'Ivoire