Looking back : WISER's Johannesburg

Chair: Keith Breckenridge

With: Sarah Nuttall, Hlonipha Mokoena, Isabel Hofmeyr, Jonathan Klaaren

Venue: Wiser Seminar Room, Richard Ward, 6^th Floor

In September 1886 gold was discovered on the dusty Transvaal highveld. What followed was the establishment and the rapid expansion of Johannesburg, a city that one historian recently described as, “extraordinary, mutating at speed from the ramshackle camps of motley diggers, labourers and traders to a modernising town unlike any other in the country.” 140 years later, Johannesburg’s residents are marking the birth of this remarkable and complicated city. Its history, cosmopolitanism, vibrancy, and complexities have also sustained Wiser, this year celebrating its 25th anniversary. To mark the occasion, four long-standing Wiser researchers will consider how Johannesburg has shaped their intellectual life and how the city and its transformations have given their scholarship a distinctive vantage point in global academic debates.

Lunch will be served. Please RSVP to Najibha.deshmukh@wits.ac.za