People at WISER
Director
Hlonipha Mokoena is the Director at WISER. Before June 2015 she worked in the Anthropology Department at Columbia University. She is the author of Magema Fuze: The Making of a Kholwa Intellectual and has a strong research interest in South African intellectual history. Her new...
moreDeputy Director
Keith holds the Standard Bank Chair in African Trust Infrastructures. He studied at Wits and Johns Hopkins and completed his PhD at Northwestern in 1995. He writes about the cultural and economic...
moreProfessor
Sarah Nuttall is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies and was the Institute's Director from 2012 to 2022. She is the author of Entanglement: Literary and Cultural Reflections on Postapartheid, editor of Beautiful/Ugly: African and Diaspora Aesthetics, and co-editor of...
moreProfessor
Professor
Isabel Hofmeyr is Professor Emeritus at Wits University, based at WISER and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University. She was previously Professor of African Literature at Wits and Global Distinguished Professor at NYU....
moreVisiting Professor
Professor Sarr is widely known for his outstanding work on the restitution of African artefacts. In 2017, in tandem with Benedicte Savoy, he was commissioned to produce a report by the French President Emmanuel Macron to produce a report...
moreVisiting Professor
Shireen Hassim is a Visiting Professor at WISER and spends time in residence at the Institute. She is a former Professor of Politics at Wits and was seconded to WISER for a period of three years from the Department of Political Studies....
moreProfessor
Professor Rottenburg is working with and from WiSER to build a continent-wide focus on science and technology studies in Africa. He is known internationally for his pathbreaking contributions to major intellectual areas of study which include postcolonial social theory and debates on...
moreProfessor
Jonathan Klaaren is Professor of Law and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is appointed at the Law School and at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER). He teaches, researches, and writes in the areas of human rights,...
moreSenior Researcher
Laura Phillips is Researcher in the African Trust Infrastructures Chair. She holds a PhD in African History from New York University and has worked on histories of rural South Africa, histories of mining, and class formation. Laura also holds a grant from the...
moreVisiting Professor
A former Rhodes scholar, Steinberg has a doctorate in political theory from Oxford University where he currently teaches.
Steinberg is a public intellectual of note, a multitalented writer whose insightful and engaging work covers a remarkably wide range of topics related to some of the...
Financial Manager
Adila Deshmukh joined WiSER in June 2004 after having pursued a fulfilling career in the tourism industry for ten years, promoting and selling Southern Africa. At WiSER, her focus is on financial management and she works closely with staff, doctoral fellows, visitors and writing fellows....
moreSenior Administrator
Najibha Deshmukh joined WISER in September 2002. Before joining WISER, Najibha worked in a number of positions at the University, including at Wits TV, the Faculty of Humanities, the School of Human and Community Development and, for a short period , the office of the Dean. She has...
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