Seminars

Book discussion of The Fixer : Visa Lottery Chronicles

Monday, 8 March, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Charlie
Piot

Please read pp1 - 35 of the open access version of The Fixer : Visa Lottery Chronicles at https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/24897

Potential History - Unlearning Imperialism

Monday, 15 March, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Ariella Aïsha
Azoulay
This seminar has been cancelled, and will be rescheduled later in the year.

Please read the following three, short texts in preparation for the seminar.

Freedom, Property and Markets

Tuesday, 23 March, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Lucy
Allais

Kant’s political philosophy is based on freedom; chapter 1 of part 1 of the text concerns private property rights. What is the relation between these?

What we can learn from the data about metropolitan political economies?

Monday, 29 March, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Crispian
Olver

The presentation, examining the economic and infrastructural performance of Cape Town, Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay will refer to the data in the attached slides.

The New Religious Political Right in South Africa

Monday, 12 April, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Siphiwe
Dube

This paper traces the genealogy of the New Right from its earlier inception in the late 1980s and early 1990s, unravelling the core features of the 'New Right' that can be demonstrated to be relevant for current day South Africa.

The Long Road to Compensation for Silicosis Sufferers in South Africa

Monday, 10 May, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Albert
Mushai

Silicosis has troubled the South African mining industry since the 1880s. Since 1902, several commissions of inquiry have investigated this problem but none of them recommended common-law liability as an appropriate mechanism for compensating victims.

Modernist/Modernising South Africa

Monday, 17 May, 2021 - 15:00
Presented by: 
Stephen
Sparks

[Please note the unusual time for this event.]

Fostering Decoloniality in Music: From Local Archives to Global Dialogue

Monday, 24 May, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Lindelwa
Dalamba

Presented by Lindelwa Dalamba, Philip Burnett, Roe-Min Kok and Yvonne Liao

The Impasses of Politics: Sexual Violence and the ANC in Exile

Monday, 31 May, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Rachel
Sandwell

In the late 1990s, as the hearings of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) began, stories of past abuse, including sexual violence, within the exiled camps of the African National Congress (ANC) emerged.

‘Interlocking Transactions’: Micro-foundations for ‘Racial Capitalism’

Monday, 7 June, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Sharad
Chari

This is a draft chapter for a book edited by me, Melanie Samson and Mark Hunter, celebrating the work of Gillian Hart.

The Labour-drug Question in precarious times: The rise of Heroin and Xanax

Monday, 14 June, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Mark
Hunter

A considerable amount of research shows that drugs in colonial settings drew groups into relations of dependence—that is, they acted as ‘labour inducers’ and ‘labour enhancers’ in the words of Jankowiak and Bradburd.

Criminal Faces: Beauty, Race and Criminality in Western Thought and the Development of Digital Profiling

Monday, 21 June, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Edward
Higgs

Artificial intelligence systems are being developed to identify known ‘criminals’ through facial recognition profiling, and also to identify criminal physiognomies of those considered to be potential criminals.

Exploring Omeka S for Digital Cultural Heritage

Monday, 28 June, 2021 - 12:00
Please distribute widely.  There is no cost to participants. 

Rhodes, violence and the statue at Oriel College, Oxford

Monday, 2 August, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
William
Beinart

This is an abstract of the historical appendix to the commission appointed by Oriel College to discuss the Rhodes legacy, which I would like to make the basis of the discussion.

From travel to arrival: mapping intersectionality’s landings in the Global South 

Monday, 23 August, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Srila
Roy

This paper briefly reflects on intersectionality’s travels to two distinct locales in the Global South, India and South Africa, where it has been enthusiastically taken up by academics and activists alike.

The Formulation of the 'Coloured Question' (1932-1950)

Monday, 30 August, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Janeke
Thumbran

This paper examines how the ‘coloured question’ was initially formulated through the biological essence that underpinned this racial category.

Animist Eco-logics: The Speculative Ecosystems of Amos Tutuola

Monday, 6 September, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Kirk
Sides
This paper looks at the work of Nigerian author Amos Tutuola arguing that Tutuola’s first works, The Palmwine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, inaugurate a negotiation over which poetics and politics were best suited to imagine and thus write a post-colonial future.

The Troubled Promised Land: Political Theology in South Sudan

Monday, 13 September, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Christopher
Tounsel
This chapter begins with a description of developments in South Sudan since the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CpA). Division and enmity between southern factions persisted during the postwar years, and independence

Laboring for whiteness: The rise of Trumpism and what it tells us about racial and gendered capitalism in the United States

Monday, 27 September, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Jeff
Maskovsky

This talk explores the ways that whiteness and paternalism work to categorize labor in the 21st century United States.

Planetary forests: Remote sensing, field sciences and carbon markets in Central Africa

Monday, 4 October, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Véra
Ehrenstein

This paper is a work in progress. It is about how the climate crisis puts the central African forests centre stage.

(Hetero)Topologies of an Eastern Cape Province Nature Reserve

Monday, 11 October, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
James
Merron

This paper is about the relationship between aerial photography and ground surveys in terms of space making in South Africa.

Magic mountain: ‘The ancestors cannot be relocated’

Monday, 18 October, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
David
Kearabetswe
Coplan &
Moopelo

Abstract The recognition of African ‘traditional’ or ‘customary’ law and its ideological elevation to a status that in principle equals that of the written, legislative South African legal code has provided professional opportunities for anthropologists.

Experts of the Surface and Underground: Cartography and Geological Knowledge in the Territorial Construction of the Witbank Labour District, c. 1899-1930s

Monday, 25 October, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Irvin Sifiso
Jiyane
The development of the Witbank coal area has been explained by historians and other scholars in terms of environmental exploitation, its railway connectivity to the Witwatersrand, and the availability of cheap and strictly controlled African labour.

Grounding the paradox of cohesion and contestation in public space

Monday, 8 November, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Temba
Carmel
Middelmann &
Rawhani

Assumptions surrounding public space and norms in Johannesburg’s public space management and policies appear to be based on core aims such as inclusivity and justice which ultimately aspire to social cohesion.

What is degradation?

Monday, 15 November, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Meredith
Root-Bernstein

In this presentation I challenge the widespread notion that environmental degradation is an ecological state.

The Colour of Inequality in South Africa and Brazil: Making Sense of Transformative Social Policy.

Monday, 22 November, 2021 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Madalitso
Phiri

South Africa’s and Brazil’s social policy architectures attempt to address the residues of institutional poverty, inequality, and unemployment.

Revolutionary mathematics : risk, class and the financial overthrow of mining capitalism

Monday, 28 February, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Keith
Breckenridge

This paper is an attempt to account for the ascendancy of finance in the South African economy, and the collapse of gold mining.   It emphasises the contest between the derivatives markets that were nurtured by the Black-Scholes-Merton formula, and the Bretton Woods gold standard, both

Twilight governance: local power, politics and participation in Luanda

Monday, 7 March, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Sylvia
Croese

In this presentation I will provide an outline of the main arguments of the book project that is currently under contract with Wiley Blackwell, as part of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research Studies in Urban and Social Change series.

Designing a syndemic risk environment: racial containment and health in historical context.

Monday, 14 March, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Sanyu
Mojola

This chapter describes the creation and reproduction of Washington D.C’s syndemic risk environment.

Omeka : Making Progress Workshop

Tuesday, 22 March, 2022 - 15:00

Omeka

The Archive Machine: The Truth Commission and the Archaeology of Apartheid

Monday, 28 March, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Jacob
Dlamini

It has been 24 years since South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) delivered its final report to then-President Nelson Mandela, and 19 since the TRC’s Amnesty Committee presented its findings to Mandela’s successor Thabo Mbeki.

Cultural Property and The Question of Repatriation

Monday, 4 April, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Danny
Herwitz

From one perspective repatriation is understood as the return of stolen property to its original owners. Which is a legal model.

Macroeconomic determinants of South Africa’s post-apartheid income distribution

Monday, 11 April, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Adam
Aboobaker

South Africa’s distributive regime is striking to all who observe it.

American ideology and the politics of pain in a South African university

Monday, 25 April, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Jeremy
Seekings

Please register for this Zoom event here before the event.

‘Grass in the cracks’: Gender, social reproduction and climate justice in the Xolobeni struggle.

Monday, 16 May, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Beth Goldblatt &
Shireen Hassim

This chapter examines the opposition by members of the Xolobeni community to proposed mining on their communally-occupied land, including through litigation.

The Ends of War : Homecoming for the Indian Soldier and Follower, 1914–21

Monday, 6 June, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Radhika
Singha

The concluding chapter from The Coolie's Great War.  Though largely invisible in histories of the First World War, over  550,000 men in the ranks of the Indian army were non-combatants.

Programme in African Digital Humanities : Beyond Year Three

Thursday, 28 July, 2022 - 13:00

WISER's Programme in African Digital Humanities invites you to join us for a series of on-li

Finding Nemo: Energy, Justice and Transition

Monday, 1 August, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Upamanyu Pablo
Mukherjee

Please register in advance of the meeting on Zoom at

A History of Black Lawyers in South Africa

Wednesday, 3 August, 2022 - 09:00

WiSER, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building, East Campus

The Bitter Aloe Project: Applying Advanced Machine Learning to the Truth and Reconciliation Archive

Monday, 22 August, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Steve
Davis

The current moment in the digital humanities marks an inflection point as third wave machine learning transforms the legibility of archives. The Bitter Aloe Project is an experimental intervention into new methods of reading archives via the automation of structured data extraction.

Anti-colonial resistance in South Africa and Israel/Palestine: comparative dimensions

Monday, 29 August, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Ran
Greenstein

Based on a newly-published book, the paper highlights themes drawn from a historical overview of resistance politics in South Africa and Israel/Palestine.

Imported Black Books, Radical Undesirability, and Comparative Reading Under Apartheid

Monday, 5 September, 2022 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Stephane
Robolin

Whereas scholarship has generally cast the narrative of apartheid-era censorship in understandably national terms, this essay asks: What would an international account of apartheid censorship look like? And what are its implications?

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