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Events

Launch of the report of the Fiscal Policies for Health

When: Tuesday, 24 January 2017 - Tuesday, 24 January 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Resource Centre, School of Public Health
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

 

Aarika.Sing@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-2426

 

The report on Fiscal Policies for Health will be launched on 24 January 2017.

The inquiry preceding the report was a consultative research endeavour, which explored the potential uses of fiscal policy tools to address and prevent disease in South Africa.

The inquiry was structured around a research secretariat housed at PRICELESS SA at the University of the Witwatersrand in the School of Public Health, and a high level advisory panel. The report documents the findings of the Inquiry on Fiscal Policies for Health.

It was found that the preliminary evidence that fiscal measures – including taxes and subsidies – can improve health in the short-term without relying either on additional budgetary allocations to Ministries of Health or on public health systems to work more efficiently, as well as raise revenue.

These fiscal measures could thus help to reduce inequalities in health and contribute to progress towards meeting numerous sustainable development goal targets.

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South Africa Economic Update

When: Wednesday, 25 January 2017 - Wednesday, 25 January 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Thembeka Hlatshwayo on (011) 717-3617 or Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

The Wits Business School, in partnership with the World Bank, will host a panel discussion to unpack the latest South Africa Economic Update report.

The report focuses on recent economic developments in South Africa and the relationship between private investment and job creation. It analyses the effectiveness and efficiency, cost, and impact of investment tax incentives (ITIs) granted to the various economic sectors for additional investment and job creation.

Panellists include:

  • Dr Sébastien Dessus: Main author, World Bank Program Leader: Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe)
  • Garth Strachan: Deputy Director General: Industrial Development Division, Department of Trade and Industry
  • Philippa Rodseth: Executive Director, Manufacturing Circle; Professor Kalu Ojah: Deputy Head of School and Professor of Finance, Wits Business School

The event will be facilitated by Saleem Karimjee, Senior Manager, Southern African Region for the International Finance Corporation.

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Varsity Cup Rugby Match

When: Monday, 30 January 2017 - Monday, 30 January 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Wits Rugby Stadium
Start time:16:45

The FNB Varsity Cup presented by Steinhoff International kicks off with a game in January, with the opening fixtures taking place on 30 January 2017.

FNB Wits, who regained their Varsity Cup status after finishing at the top of the FNB Varsity Shield presented by Steinhoff International log, will host the 2015 champions FNB Shimlas (University of the Free State), on the night’s first televised match.

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Discovery Wits 5km night run

When: Thursday, 02 February 2017 - Thursday, 02 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Sturrock Park, Wits Sports Admin
Start time:18:00

  The annual Wits 5km Night Race takes place during Orientation Week.

Join fellow Witsies for this thrilling night walk around campus. Registrations will start at 16:00 on the day of the event or during O-Week and Welcome Day.

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Cancer research symposium

When: Thursday, 09 February 2017 - Thursday, 09 February 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
The Adler Museum, Wits Medical School foyer,
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

Registrations and enquiries: Christopher.Mathew@kcl.ac.uk or Raquel.Duarte@wits.ac.za or call (011) 488-3623

The Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience and Wits-MRC Common Epithelial Cancer Research Centre will host a symposium sponsored by the CANSA.

The aim of the symposium is to showcase cancer research at Wits, provide networking opportunities and promote research collaborations. The programme will cover sessions on Epidemiology and Surveillance, Genetics and Molecular Biology, Pathophysiology and Therapy. Registration and attendance is free.

 

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Pharmacogenomics as an opportunity for precision public healthcare solutions in Africa

When: Wednesday, 08 February 2017 - Wednesday, 08 February 2017
Where: Off campus
B1 Tony Davies, NIOH building, 25 Hospital Street, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg
Start time:10:00
RSVP:

Jocelyn.Gayenga@wits.ac.za  or Jacqueline.Frost@wits.ac.za   

The Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience and the Division of Human Genetics will host a seminar to be presented by Collen Masimirembwa.

Masimirembwa is Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and of Health Sciences. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town and at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Masimirembwa is also President and Chief Scientific Officer at the African Institute of Biomedical Science and Technology (AiBST) based in Zimbabwe, a research and education institute whose vision is to develop and deliver life transforming healthcare solutions for Africa.

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The chemistry of love

When: Tuesday, 31 January 2017 - Tuesday, 31 January 2017
Where: Off campus
The Orbit, 81 De Korte Street, Braamfontein
Start time:20:00
Cost: R20

What are the physiological factors that combine in the melting pot of this thing that makes the world go round?

Is there a love map, a kind of template of the perfect partner? Is this based on appearances, personality, a limbic resonance or pheromones (which may even elicit a specific immune response to a potential partner)? Or is it all just guided by hormones?

During this year's first session of Science & Cocktails Johannesburg, Dr Joji Mercier will deconstruct the body's chemistry and physiology involved in attraction and lust: an addictive heady state that swirls us into new romances and reduces us to nervous exhilarated wrecks floating in a parallel universe.

 

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Judges Albie Sachs and Dikgang Moseneke in conversation

When: Saturday, 28 January 2017 - Saturday, 28 January 2017
Where: Off campus
Apartheid Museum, Cnr Northern Parkway & Gold Reef Roads, Ormonde, Johannesburg
Start time:15:00
RSVP:

Info.Witspress@wits.ac.za  by 26 January 2017

Wits University Press and Pan Macmillan will host retired Constitutional Court judges, Albie Sachs and Dikgang Moseneke.

The judges will be in conversation with Niren Tolsi, freelance journalist and co-founding editor of The Con. They will discuss the writing of South Africa’s Constitution, their personal experiences around constitution making and upholding its principles, as well as the challenges that the country faces to advance equality, human dignity and freedom.

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Davos Deconstructed: What it means for business and the economy in South Africa

When: Friday, 03 February 2017 - Friday, 03 February 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Thembeka Hlatshwayo on (011) 717-3617 or Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

The Wits Business School will host a breakfast panel discussion with some of South Africa's key leaders discuss the findings of the recent WEF in Davos.

Davos 2017 saw a powerful delegation from South Africa join leaders and peers from around the globe to engage on the theme of Responsive and Responsible Leadership. The Wits Business School will host a breakfast panel discussion with some of South Africa's key leaders from across sectors to discuss the findings of the recent World Economic Forum that took place in Davos as well as share thoughts in the build up to WEF Africa, as Durban gets prepared to host leaders from across the globe.

Panellists (all Davos attendees) will share their insights from across sectors and include:

  • Siyabonga Gama - Transnet CEO. 
  • Mokena Makeka - Chief Imagineer and Creative Designer, Makeka Design Lab, Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum- 
  • Zamantungwa Khumalo - Executive Producer at Power FM, Global Shaper at World Economic Forum
  • Sid Wahi - CEO, CNBC Africa
  • BrandSA team- will attend to add insights into the discussion on the planning and outcomes from Davos and the upcoming thoughts for WEF Africa Durban.

The panel discussion will be moderated by WBS Executive in Residence, Euvin Naidoo, who is a member of WEF's Global Expert Panel and a Young Global Leader Alumnus.

Euvin serves as Partner and Managing Director in  BCG's Johannesburg office, in his capacity as Head of BCG Africa's Financial Institutions (Banking and Insurance) Practice.

RSVP

 

Date: 3 February  2017

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Launch of the DfID Extractives Hub

When: Friday, 10 February 2017 - Friday, 10 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
CSMI, 3rd Floor, Chamber of Mines Building
Start time:10:00
RSVP:

Lileen.Lee@wits.ac.za

Join the Centre for Sustainability in Mining and Industry for the Johannesburg launch of DfiD’s extractive hub.

The Centre for Sustainability in Mining and Industry (CSMI) for Johannesburg will launch the Department for International Development (DfiD) extractive hub. This is an online platform which provides access to information and technical expertise on the extractives sector (mining, oil and gas) to support policy making and good management. Designed primarily to reach government officials, it is also available to other stakeholders and researchers in the sector.

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Master the Art of Networking

When: Tuesday, 07 February 2017 - Tuesday, 07 February 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

The Wits Business School will host a Master the Art of Networking presentation.

Helen Nicholson, a business networking specialist and Wits alumnus, will deliver the presentation.

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How can actuaries be a force for good? A dive into the world of financial inclusion partnerships

When: Thursday, 09 February 2017 - Thursday, 09 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
The Liberty Actuarial Auditorium, Room 112, 1st Floor, Mathematical Sciences Laboratory Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za  or (011) 717-6272

Soshan Soobramoney and Divya Babu from Old Mutual will deliver this seminar.

The actuarial profession possesses unique skills to address global inequality and the socio-economic challenges associated with such disparity.

The seminar will investigate financial inclusion within the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and will explore the role of partnerships in tackling financial and socio-economic challenges.

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The 2017 State of the Nation Address: Analysis and Insights

When: Friday, 10 February 2017 - Friday, 10 February 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:7:00

The Wits Business School will host a breakfast panel discussion on the morning after the State of the Nation Address delivered by President Jacob Zuma.

 The panel members, who will share their analysis and insights on  State of the Nation Address, include:

  • Professor Adam Habib (Wits Vice-Chancellor)
  • Dr Geoff Heald (Senior Lecturer, Wits Business School)
  • Ralph Mathekga (independent political analyst)
  • Simon Freemantle (Senior Political Economist in Standard Bank’s global research team)
  • Moeletsi Mbeki (political analyst and author).

The discussion will be facilitated by financial journalist and TV and radio personality Siki Mgabadeli. 

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EU “refugee crisis”: Responses east and west and beyond

When: Tuesday, 14 February 2017 - Tuesday, 14 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Centre Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building
Start time:13:30

The African Centre for Migration & Society will host Professor Branka Likic-Brboric to present a seminar on the recent “refugee crisis” in the EU.

The presentation addresses the recent “refugee crisis” in the EU, diverging responses between “old” and “new” member states and subsequent streamlining towards deterrent migration policy, rising xenophobia, and populism.

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Mathematics teachers' circles: Development that promotes teacher-university collaboration

When: Wednesday, 15 February 2017 - Wednesday, 15 February 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
M4, Marang Block West
Start time:13:00

The MARANG Centre for Mathematics and Science Education will host a seminar to be presented by Axelle Faughn.

Faughn is a Associate Professor of Mathematics Education at Western Carolina University, North Carolina.

A Mathematics Teachers’ Circle (MTC) is a model for professional development which empowers teachers through an encouraging, collaborative and non-competitive community of mathematics educators.

 

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Trump, Globalisation and Free Trade - An Alternative

When: Wednesday, 15 February 2017 - Wednesday, 15 February 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

The Wits Business School present a public lecture by renowned British politician, activist and author Peter Hain, the Right Honourable Lord Hain of Neath.

He will tackle the following questions:

  • Is Trump part of the wider threatening right wing populism?
  • Has globalisation failed too many people?
  • Are decent, secure working class jobs compatible with free trade?

 

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Policy instruments and the governance of the large metropolis

When: Thursday, 16 February 2017 - Thursday, 16 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Far West Studio, 2nd Floor, John Moffat Building,
Start time:16:00
RSVP:

Busi.Nkosi@wits.ac.za

CUBES, together with the Gauteng City-Region Observatory and Spatial Analysis and City Planning will host Professor Patrick Le Gales to deliver this lecture.

Le Gales is a Research Professor of Sociology and Politics at Sciences Po, Centre d’Etudes Européennes and will deliver the lecture on his recent research.

He chairs the “Cities are back in town” and “Restructuring the state” research groups, and is the Director of the Urban Studies programme at Sciences Po. 

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Opportunities and solutions to address the challenges of retailers in the liquid fuels industry

When: Thursday, 16 February 2017 - Thursday, 16 February 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

The Wits Business School will host an energy seminar that will explore solutions to address the key challenges in this segment of the liquid fuels industry.

Speakers include:

  • Reggie Sibiya (CEO, Fuel Retailers Association)
  • Mohamed Carrim (General Manager, Retail, Sasol Oil)
  • Dr Rod Crompton (former petroleum regulator, National Energy Regulator of South Africa)

 

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The profane and the prophetic at a South African beach

When: Friday, 17 February 2017 - Friday, 17 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Anthropology Museum, Central Block
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Info.Cityinstitute@wits.ac.za          

RSVP:

Info.Cityinstitute@wits.ac.za          

The Wits City Institute will host its first seminar series for 2017 to be presented by Dr Phindezwa Mnyaka from the University of the Western Cape.

Mnyaka will discuss her paper which proposes a reading of photographs through the lens of circular time that sees images as potentially recalling the past while prefiguring the future.

 

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Wits interdisciplinary mine health and safety seminar

When: Wednesday, 22 February 2017 - Wednesday, 22 February 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Resource Centre, School of Public Health
Start time:9:00
RSVP:

Lileen.Lee@wits.ac.za by 17 February 2017

The Wits Mine Health and Safety Research Group will host its first interdisciplinary mine health and safety seminar.

The seminar is for researchers and postgraduate students from across Wits to share their research.

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Water and trade: Global governance or local preferences?

When: Wednesday, 22 February 2017 - Wednesday, 22 February 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Classroom G, Research Hub Mwalimu House, Wits School of Governance
Start time:12:30
RSVP:

Phindile.Mohanoe@wits.ac.za  / (011) 717-3524

 

Professor Mike Muller will shed light on this topic.

Although water is seldom traded between countries, there are calls for trade policy to be used to influence water policy. Should European environmentalists be able to tell African farmers what they can do with their water?

 

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Towards an operational framework to monitor Afromontane forest structure and carbon storage in KZN

When: Wednesday, 15 February 2017 - Wednesday, 15 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Room BP016, Bernard Price Building
Start time:13:15

The School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies will host Dr Jolene Fisher to present the Geospatial Science seminar series.

The Geospatial Science seminar series is aimed at providing a monthly forum for current research and ideas, as well as speakers from the GIS, remote sensing and spatial analysis industry and prospective employers.

 

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Book Launch: Digital Activism in the Social Media Era

When: Tuesday, 21 February 2017 - Tuesday, 21 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Centre, Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building
Start time:13:00

This book launch will be held in a form of a panel discussion.

PANEL

  • Dr Glenda Daniels
  • Dr Iginio Gagliardone
  • Prof. Viola Milton

CHAIR

Prof. Pier-Paolo Frassinelli

DISCUSSANT

Prof. Ylva Rodny-Gumede

 

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Lawnbefok: Civilising grass on the highveld

When: Tuesday, 21 February 2017 - Tuesday, 21 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
First Floor, Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
Start time:16:00

The Wits City Institute will host Jonathan Cane, postdoctoral fellow at the Institute to present this seminar

The central object of concern for this seminar is the South African lawn: a colonial idea and ideal with far-reaching implications for the environment, for the expression of ownership and national belonging. The common sense view of the lawn as a stable, flat, green, family-friendly and apolitical surface is measured against an eccentric archive of real and imagined lawns from the Highveld between 1886 and 2016. The ‘lawn art’ archive includes maps, (photographs of) geographic spaces, intentionally and unintentionally unbuilt architectural proposals, empty spaces on the page and the ground, patterns of lived space, uses and obscene misuses, reappropriations and rejection of spaces on paper and in person. Cane will argue that neither the real nor imagined boundaries which divide civilised nature from the wilderness are able to provide an immutable, safe, impermeable bulwark. The South African lawn, like many other postcolonial landscapes, is muddy, queer and alive, resisting optimistic narratives of progress and growth.

 

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Overtime: Representations, values and imagined futures of 'classical african ART'

When: Tuesday, 21 February 2017 - Tuesday, 21 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Art Museum, corner of Bertha (ext. of Jan Smuts Ave) and Jorissen Streets, Braamfontein, Johannesburg
Start time:18:30
RSVP:

http://za05.rocketseed.com/content/wits-art-museum 

Join the Wits Art Museum (WAM) for the opening of Overtime, a collaborative exhibition that includes both past and present WAM students and staff.

The participants were encouraged to engage the museum’s ‘classical African Art’ collection from which they produced new multimedia works in order to question the value of the classic African items and the making of meaning.  The exhibition will run until 23 April 2017.

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Wishart laws in graphical models

When: Thursday, 23 February 2017 - Thursday, 23 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
The Liberty Actuarial Auditorium, Room 112, 1st Floor, Mathematical Sciences Laboratory Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-6272

The School of Statistics and Actuarial Science will host Salha Mamane to present this seminar.

The Wishart distribution is a matrix-variate generalisation of the gamma distribution. Its main application is as a covariance model, thus its pervasive use in finance as a multivariate volatility model. In this seminar, Mamane will present a harmonious construction of Wishart exponential families in graphical models. His method is based on analysis on convex cones.

 

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Marikana: The origins of a labour movement

When: Thursday, 23 February 2017 - Thursday, 23 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Anthropology Museum
Start time:11:30
Enquiries:

Rogers.Orock@wits.ac.za

Luke Sinwell will present the Wits Anthropology Weekly Seminar Series.

Sinwall is author of The Spirit of Marikana: The rise of insurgent trade unionism in South Africa published in 2016 by Wits University Press.

 

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Politics of exclusion of LGBTIQ groups amongst conservative Christian groups in Uganda

When: Tuesday, 28 February 2017 - Tuesday, 28 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
ACMS Seminar Room, SH 2163, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House (Senate House)
Start time:12:30

The African Centre for Migration & Society ( ACMS) will host Dr Barbara Bompani to present this seminar.

She will present on issues of exclusion, danger, urgency, morally-framed public action, sexual citizenship and social pollution intrinsic in Ugandan Pentecostal narratives and theological understandings. More information

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Testing the suitability of partial adjustment regressions on the JSE

When: Wednesday, 01 March 2017 - Wednesday, 01 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
SEBS Seminar Suite, New Commerce Building
Start time:13:00
RSVP:

Siyabonga.Molaba@wits.ac.za

The School of Economic and Business Sciences (SEBS) will host Professor Chimwemwe Chipeta and David Mcclelland to present this research seminar.

The seminar will discuss the trade off against the pecking order models for firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. They will argue that the pecking order model has more statistical power than partial adjustment models in rejecting random financing behaviour in simulated data sets. Additionally, the Censored Tobit Regressions appear to perform better that the GMM model at rejecting target adjustment behaviour on randomly generated data sets.

 

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Youth and generation in South African historiography

When: Tuesday, 07 March 2017 - Tuesday, 07 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House (Senate House)
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Michelle.Gallant@wits.ac.za

Professor Clive Glaser’s inaugural lecture will shed light on the above topic.

The lecture looks at concepts of youth and generational conflict in the shaping of South African history. He will argue that generational conflict has been an important feature of our history since the nineteenth century.

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Money for nothing, work for love: Radical imaginaries of the future of labour and distribution

When: Friday, 03 March 2017 - Friday, 03 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Centre Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building
Start time:8:00

The Society Work and Development Institute (SWOP) will host Dr Liz Fouksman to present their first breakfast seminar.

SWOP will share their new research on Work, water, community and livelihood in peril. The research documents the destruction of work, water, community and livelihoods by the current wave of intensified marketisation, posing the question of alternatives to social crisis.

 

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THE HEALTH GAP: Health Equity is a matter of social justice and human rights

When: Thursday, 23 February 2017 - Thursday, 23 February 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
School of Public Health
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

rechelle.tsunke@wits.ac.za   / (011) 717 1193

The School of Public Health will host the Inaugural Annual Lecture on Health Equity.

Sir Michael Marmot, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London will deliver the keynote address. He will argue that social injustice is the greatest threat to global health and demonstrate that physical conditions (heart/lung disease and mental illness) are linked to social disadvantage.

He will advocate radical change in the way we think about health and society and encourage stakeholders to address the societal imbalances that compromise health equity. The lecture is established as part of the Sheiham Family/Wits Programme on Social Determinants of Health and Health Inequality.

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Big Data for Africa

When: Tuesday, 28 February 2017 - Tuesday, 28 February 2017
Where: Off campus
The Orbit, 81 De Korte Street, Braamfontein
Start time:20:00

Bhekisipho Twala will present this session of Science & Cocktails Johannesburg on Big Data.

What is Big Data? Does it matter in Africa and why? How can South Africa make the most of Big Data? And can we still trust Big Data after the opinion polls got it wrong in the recent US elections and BREXIT?

Big Data is watching you. Intelligent systems and Big Data analytics already affect our lives at many levels, from approving our loans to analysing traffic accidents and predicting the spread of diseases.

While Big Data offers an incredible glimpse into global society, the continent of Africa is starkly absent. Analyses of traditional large datasets like social media capture the local events and perspectives of African countries very poorly. Yet, with a special focus on Africa and the addition of technologies like machine translation, is it not possible to bring the continent back into the view of “big data”

Twala is director of the newly-formed Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Johannesburg, will introduce us to the rapidly advancing technology that makes Big Data possible, expand on the challenges preventing the take-off of Big Data in Africa, and show how universities, industry, government and communities can come together to address these challenges and effectively use Big Data for the economic benefit of society.

 

 

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Secure the base, decolonise the mind

When: Thursday, 02 March 2017 - Thursday, 02 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Great Hall
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

kelebogile.tadi@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-1146

RSVP:

Live Streaming at: streaming.wits.ac.za

Wits University and the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences are proud host renowned Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.

Wa Thiong'o is a novelist and theorist of post-colonial literature and currently a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California. He is a recipient of eleven Honorary Doctorates and an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Some of his early works include Weep not Child, The River Between, A Grain of Wheat, Secret Lives and Decolonising the Mind.

 

Live Streaming at: streaming.wits.ac.za

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Robert Sobukwe Lecture

When: Monday, 27 February 2017 - Monday, 27 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, Second Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House (Senate House)
Start time:18:00

This lecture will focus on the life of Mangaliso Robert Sobu

It is s political multilogue by the Wits Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania and the Wits Transformation Office on the life of Robert Sobukwe. The lecture will feature academics from the University and others. The keynote speaker will be Tsietsi Molebatsi.

 

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Why working memory matters: A developmental cognitive science approach

When: Tuesday, 14 March 2017 - Tuesday, 14 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, Second Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House (Senate House)
Start time:18:00

The inaugural lecture of Professor Kate Cockcroft will shed light on the above topic.

While much research has focussed on the theoretical aspects of working memory and the use of experimental paradigms to test these, far less has been concerned with how an understanding of working memory can be applied to everyday situations.

Translation of experimental findings to everyday application is often a major challenge, and caution is needed when extrapolating from tightly controlled research environments to the uncontrollable and often unexpected realities of everyday life.

Understanding how working memory operates has particular relevance for how children learn, since it is heavily implicated in classroom activities that involve following instructions, focussing and completing tasks.

In this lecture, Cockcroft will address five interrelated questions related to working memory and its application to education, learning and development. In doing so, she highlight the contributions to her research has made in answering these questions.

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How media covered the #Feesmustfall movement in 2016

When: Wednesday, 01 March 2017 - Wednesday, 01 February 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Humanities Graduate Centre Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building
Start time:12:30
RSVP:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScCC576W-1AR4J6cH7oXRa2AEpvHmkn0hEyOcZ85Wlmw0zXJQ/viewform?c=0&w=1 

Wits Journalism will host a half-day conference on how the media covered the #FMF protests last year.

Student leaders, University management, and working journalists and editors through South African National Editors Forum (SAnef), will participate in the conference.

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Principals Upfront Dialogues

When: Wednesday, 01 March 2017 - Wednesday, 01 March 2017
Where: Off campus
Matthew Goniwe School of Leadership and Governance, 40 Hull Street, Vrededorp, Johannesburg
Start time:14:00
RSVP:

http://comms.bridge.org.za/bf.php?fid=5313&id=84b26b88a3e9e678 

Principals Upfront is a platform where school leaders come together to share working practice about different facets of school leadership.

The Wits School of Governance in partnership with BRIDGE, the Catholic Institute of Education (CIE), the Matthew Goniwe School of Leadership & Governance and the Sasol Inzalo Foundation are to host three Principals Upfront dialogues a year.

Principals Upfront is a platform where school leaders come together to share working practice about different facets of school leadership. 

The first dialogue of 2017 is an analysis of the matric results and what they mean for principals. The panel will include a combination of primary and high school principals who will look at changing the narrative from lower down the system. 

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Engineering Careers Fair

When: Wednesday, 01 March 2017 - Wednesday, 01 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Solomon Mahlangu (Senate House) Concourse
Start time:8:30

The Wits Graduate Recruitment and Employability Awareness Programme present a careers fair for engineering students.

Students are invited to meet and greet Mzansi’s top engineering employers to find out about bursary, internships and graduate programmes available. Companies such as Hatch Goba, McKinsey and Company, KPMG, Air Liquide, Bain and Company, Defy Appliances, Deloitte, Torrecid SA, Investec and many others will be at the fair.

 

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Iranian mythology, traditional ceremonies and festivals

When: Wednesday, 01 March 2017 - Wednesday, 01 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Origins Centre
Start time:18:30
Enquiries:

(011) 717-4700/ Bookings.Origins@wits.ac.za

Cost: R60 adults/ R48 Wits staff/R30 students

Professor Abolghasem Esmailpour Motlagh will present this public lecture.

The central collection of Persian mythology is the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, written over a thousand years ago. Ferdowsi's work draws heavily, with attribution, on the stories and characters of Mazdaism and Zoroastrianism, not only from the Avesta, but from later texts such as the Bundahishn and the Denkard as well as many others.

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Civil resistance and non-violence

When: Thursday, 02 March 2017 - Thursday, 02 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Room 248, Robert Sobukwe House (Central Block)
Start time:9:00
RSVP:

janecherrytree@gmail.com

The Departments of Sociology and International Relations are hosting the Democratic Marxism Theory workshop.

Speakers include student activists, community activists and scholar activists. The crisis of contemporary capitalism and its oppressions has engendered various modes and forms of resistance.

Many transnational and local movements have found innovative ways to challenge power, invent new forms of power, disrupt everyday circuits, capture social media presence, win legitimacy and deepen support for their struggles.

An important body of literature has also developed around these new ways of bringing non-violence into mass resistance. This theory workshop will grapple with this cutting edge literature and its theoretical approaches to non-violent mass resistance, while thinking about how we strengthen transformative struggles.

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Mind your “ps” and queues: Aspects of queueing theory and queueing networks

When: Friday, 03 March 2017 - Friday, 03 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
The Liberty Actuarial Auditorium, Room 112, First Floor, Mathematical Sciences Laboratory Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

 Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za /(011) 717-6272

David Rose from the School of Statistics and Actuarial Science at Wits will present this seminar.

Queueing theory has grown to include applications from human waiting lines in among others supermarkets and banks.,  Here too airline traffic problems can be modelled by queueing theory, as can vehicular traffic on the roads and when ships enter a port for off/loading of cargo or passengers.

A technological field where the theory of queues and their incorporation into networks has been applied, especially in recent years — although still tied to its origins in telephone traffic congestion — is telecommunication and computing networks.

Rose’s PhD thesis and MSc dissertation fall largely under the last-mentioned field, albeit with idealised models. Some results and ideas from this work will be discussed, but a fair part of the talk will be devoted to certain fundamental concepts from queueing theory.  

 

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Decolonising the curriculum

When: Thursday, 02 March 2017 - Friday, 03 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Club
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

Yasmina.Dadabhay@wits.ac.za

The Centre for Learning, Teaching and Development will host this symposium

The keynote speaker is Professor Brenda Liebowitz from the University of Johannesburg. The programme is available on request. 

 

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Absa Premiership Match: Bidvest Wits vs. Bloemfontein Celtic

When: Friday, 03 March 2017 - Friday, 03 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Bidvest Stadium
Start time:20:00
Enquiries:

Nosipho Mabaso on (011) 339-1112 or ticketing@bidvestwits.co.za  

Bidvest Wits will play with Bloemfontein Celtic in the next upcoming Absa Premiership match.

Wits staff members may request complimentary tickets for this match from the Bidvest Wits offices in Sturrock Park, near the Wits University Sports Administration offices, on working weekdays between 09:00 and 16:00. Please contact the office in advance and specify how many tickets you would like to receive for this match. Tickets are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

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Faces of the city seminar series

When: Tuesday, 07 March 2017 - Tuesday, 07 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
First floor seminar room, John Moffatt Building
Start time:16:00
RSVP:

Thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za             

The Wits City Institute and the Centre for Urbanism & Built Environment Studies will host Dr Giovanni Allegretti to present this seminar.

Allegretti is from Coimbra University in Portugal and he will share concerns and views on large infrastructure: opportunities, limits and open challenges of the public debate methodology in Europe.

 

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Animal minds

When: Friday, 17 March 2017 - Friday, 17 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Emthonjeni Centre Auditorium
Start time:13:30
Enquiries:

Kate.Cockcroft@wits.ac.za

Professor Oliver Turnbull from Bangor University, UK will present this talk.

Opinions differ as to whether non-human animals are conscious and if so, how this state differs from conscious experience in humans.

The lecture will briefly review the issue of what constitutes a human mind, and the likely neuroscientific basis of mind in humans. This talk will address the ways that scientists have sought to evaluate non-human minds: for example through language, self-recognition and the experience of emotion.

In the process, specific examples are presented of animal minds: from various mammal and bird species, and in cephalopods.

The implications that follow from this literature are then briefly discussed, including animal welfare and animal rights. The talk concludes with the interesting question of the likelihood, and nature, of extraterrestrial minds.

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Book Launch: A Working Life, Cruel Beyond Belief

When: Monday, 06 March 2017 - Monday, 06 March 2017
Where: Off campus
National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 4 St Andrews Road, Parktown
Start time:18:00
RSVP:

rsvp@jacana.co.za

A Working Life, Cruel Beyond Belief is an autobiography by Alfred Temba Qabula, poet and trade unionist.

This republication of a 1989 book has a new introduction by Blade Nzimande, Minister of Higher Education and Training, and is published by Jacana Media. A Working Life, Cruel Beyond Belief media release

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Book Launch: The Unresolved National Question

When: Tuesday, 07 March 2017 - Tuesday, 07 March 2017
Where: Off campus
National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 4 St Andrews Road, Parktown
Start time:18:00
RSVP:

Corina.VanDerSpoel@wits.ac.za

The Unresolved National Question, is a book edited by Edward Webster and Karin Pampallis, and published by Wits University Press.

What is the unresolved National Question in South Africa? The re-emergence of debates on the decolonisation of knowledge has revived interest in the National Question.Tensions that were suppressed and hidden in the past are now being openly debated. Despite this, the goal of one united nation living prosperously under a constitutional democracy remains elusive.

The launch will take place in a form of panel discussion with Webster, Salim Vally, Siphamandla Zondi  (contributor to the book) and Karema Brown (political journalist).

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Reading and writing the city in relation to the politics of today

When: Thursday, 09 March 2017 - Thursday, 09 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Centre Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building, Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:10:00
RSVP:

Farah-Naaz.Moosa@wits.ac.za    

A panel discussion hosted by the Wits City Institute.

This event takes place during Professor Ayse Caglar’s visit to Wits University. Caglar is from the University of Vienna and a graduate of universities in Istanbul, Montréal and Berlin, and has worked in those cities as well as in Budapest. Her work focuses on migration to European cities and comparative exploration of the situation of migrants, particularly women, in such cities.

Her interests include writing the city in relation to its contemporary population changes. The panel will address changing and developing ways of reading and writing the city in relation to contemporary political developments. These include elections of populist governments in many countries, a rise in xenophobia and actions against migration.

Panellists include:  

  • Professor Ayse Caglar (University of Vienna and Wits City Institute Mellon Visiting Fellow)
  • Jonathan Cane (Post - doctoral fellow, Wits City Institute)
  • Dr Mpho Matsipa (Researcher, Wits City Institute)
  • Professor Alan Mabin (Emeritus Professor, Wits University)
  • Chaired by Professor Noëleen Murray (Director Wits City Institute + A.W. Mellon Foundation Chair in Critical Architecture and Urbanism)
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The female fear factory: A conversation around rape culture on campus

When: Wednesday, 08 March 2017 - Wednesday, 08 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Theatre
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Crystal.Dicks@wits.ac.za

This event will be a discussion around issues of sexual violence, gender-based harm and which is prevalent on campuses.

The Wits Gender Equity Office (GEO) and the Rebirth Society along with a collective of young female students present a Women’s Assembly themed The Female Fear Factory.

The event will be a discussion around issues of sexual violence, gender-based harm and which is prevalent on campuses.

This discussion launches the beginning of a six month campaign led by the GEO aimed at listening to the University community about experiences and solutions towards the eradication of rape culture and gender-based harm on campus.

The discussion will be facilitated by Refiloe Lepere and will feature Professor Pumla Gqola and student and worker representatives.

Performances by the Thenx Ladies, Phillipa Yaa De VilIiers and other Poets.

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Of foreigners and struggles for service delivery: Subjectivities of migrant traders in Sasolburg

When: Thursday, 09 March 2017 - Thursday, 09 March 2017
Where: Off campus
CISA Committee Room, Jorissen Street, Braamfontein
Start time:14:00

The Centre for Indian Studies will host postdoctoral fellow Dr Walter Matina to present this seminar on the struggles of service deliveries for foreigners.

Sasolburg in the Free State is a town which peculiarities and oddities stem from a very politically, racially and economically charged past.

Constructed around the Sasol coal to oil processing plant, Sasolburg saw an influx of migrant labour from various parts of the country, both at the time of its inception and after independence in 1994. As a place that primarily lacks autochthons, it has witnessed violent outbursts against perceived outsiders.

The politics of belonging have thus been drawn out by second generation local migrants turned naturalised inhabitants of Sasolburg against first generation international migrants from the Indian subcontinent as well as from the north-eastern part of the African continent.

In a moment that seems preoccupied with the causes and effects of xenophobic violence on both the victims as well as the perpetrators, there seems to have been a glossing over of the daily lived realities of the migrant. This has begged the question of how the migrant perceives their conditions and deploys creative ways of navigating them.

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Three talks by Erik Swyngedouw and Henrik Ernstson

When: Monday, 13 March 2017 - Tuesday, 14 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:10:15

The School of Human Geography will host Professor Erik Swyngedouw from Manchester to present three talks, one of which will be with Dr Henrik Ernstson from UCT.

The School of Human Geography will host Erik Swyngedouw, Professor of Geography at Manchester University and a writer and speaker on political ecology, urban governance, political theory and radical thought.

Swyngedouw will give three talks on 14 and 15 March, one of which will be with Dr Henrik Ernstson, an urban political ecologist and Research Fellow at the African Centre for Cities at University of Cape Town and the KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory in Stockholm.

Liquid Power: Water, Power, and Modernity in Spain, 1898-2010

Date: 14 March 2017

Time: 10:15 – 12:00

Venue: Room 122, Bernard Price Building, Braamfontein Campus East

RSVP: Melanie.Samson@wits.ac.za

O Tempora! O Mores! Interrupting the anthropo-obscene: To re-politicise our current human-nonhuman moment in proper political and egalitarian terms

A seminar by Professor Swyngedouw and Dr Ernstson based on their forthcoming book.

Date: 14 March 2017

Time: 16:15 – 18:00

Venue: Room 016, Bernard Price Building, Braamfontein Campus East

RSVP: Melanie.Samson@wits.ac.za

Climate change and the process of post-politicisation

This talk is part of the Wits School of Governance Conversation series.

Date: 15 March 2017

Time: 12:30 – 14:00

Venue: Classroom G, Mwalimu House, Wits School of Governance, Parktown Management Campus

RSVP: Phindile.Mohanoe@wits.ac.za  

 

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Information technology and Computer Science Careers Fair

When: Thursday, 16 March 2017 - Thursday, 16 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Science Stadium Foyer
Start time:9:00

The Wits Graduate Recruitment and Employability Awareness Programme present the 2017 Information Technology (IT) and Computer Science Careers Fair.

IT, Computer Science, Information and Electrical Engineering students are invited to come meet and greet Mzansi’s top IT graduate employers to find out about bursary, internships and graduate programmes available at their companies.

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Transformation: Is it a bitter pill to swallow?

When: Thursday, 16 March 2017 - Thursday, 16 March 2017
Where: Off campus
The Women’s Gaol, Constitution Hill, 11 Kotze Street, Old Fort Building, Braamfontein
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Samkelo.Nsibande@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-2190

The Faculty of Health Sciences and the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics at Wits host eminent panelists at the Ethics Alive symposium on Thursday, March 16.

Ethics Alive 2017 is a week-long programme of debates and discussions exploring the ethics, law, and human rights in healthcare practice. Central to the programme is transformation as it relates to health professionals and their role in society, the health care system, and the wellness of society broadly.

(Ethics CPD 4).

PROGRAMME:

Programme Chair:  Professor William Daniels, Chair of the Transformation Committee, Faculty of Health Sciences

17h30 Registration and Refreshments 

18h00 Opening and Welcome to Symposium: Professor Martin Veller, Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences

18h10 Presentations: 

  • Dr Freda Lewis-Hall, Executive President and Chief Medical Officer, Pfizer Inc.
  • Professor Dan Ncayiyana, Emeritus Professor, University of Cape Town
  • Mr Nkosinathi Biko, Executive Trustee, Steve Biko Foundation 

19h20 Panel Discussion 

19h50 Presentations of Ethics Alive Undergraduate Bioethics Competition Prizes 

20h00 Closure

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Pop Idols of Science Heats

When: Thursday, 16 March 2017 - Thursday, 16 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Theatre
Start time:9:00
RSVP:

Jacqui.Jacobs@wits.ac.za by 10 March 2017

Famelab 2017 contestants will convey a scientific concept of their choice in just three-minutes.

They will be judged by leading researcher’s, media personalities and science policy makers on the content, clarity and charisma of their performance.

Hosted by: Jive Media, CoE-SM, CoE-MaSS and CoE-Paleosciences.

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Spatio-temporal clustering and modelling of wildfire density from 2006 to 2010 in the DRC

When: Wednesday, 15 March 2017 - Wednesday, 15 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Room BP016, Bernard Price Building
Start time:13:15

The School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies will host Freddy Bangalesa to present this Geospatial Science seminar series

 The Geospatial Science seminar series is aimed at providing a monthly forum for current research and ideas, as well as speakers from the GIS, remote sensing and spatial analysis industry and prospective employers.

The programme comprises a mixture of invited international and South African speakers, and researchers at any level (from established professors to the postgraduate and postdoctoral levels) at the University of the Witwatersrand.

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Acts Continued Careers Night

When: Wednesday, 15 March 2017 - Wednesday, 15 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
SHB 5, Solomon Mahlangu House (Senate House)
Start time:18:00

Acts Continued will host a Career Night with successful corporate executives to talk about their formula for success.

Speakers include Advocate Mummy Sempe, Siza Majola ,Welcome Mashinini , Dr Prince Makualule, Thuso Mbedu and Sabica Pardesi.

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Democratic competition: The good, the bad, and the ugly

When: Thursday, 16 March 2017 - Thursday, 16 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:12:00
RSVP:

Ricardo.DeSaoJoao@wits.ac.za      

The NRF/British Academy Research Chair in Political Theory, Professor Lawrence Hamilton, will host Professor Ian Shapiro to present this public lecture.

Shapiro will argue that the recent trends to decentralise decision-making and the governance of political parties in the name of enhanced democratic control have been self-defeating, and he proposes appropriate remedies.

Shapiro is Sterling Professor of Political Science and Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University.

He has written widely and influentially on democracy, justice, and the methods of social inquiry.

 

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Book Launch: Thinking Freedom in Africa

When: Wednesday, 15 March 2017 - Wednesday, 15 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WISER Seminar Room,6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:18:00

Wits University Press and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research will host the launch of Michael Neocosmos' book.

The concept and phenomenology of freedom are subjects of heated ongoing debates. Michael Neocosmos’s brilliant tome brings this discourse to bear on contemporary South Africa.

The book will be launched in a form of a panel discussion with author, Michael Neocosmos and respondents, Professors Achille Mbembe (WiSER) and Richard Pithouse (WiSER). 

 

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#TakeOnRacism: Anti-Racism Week 2017

When: Thursday, 16 March 2017 - Thursday, 16 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Braamfontein Campus East: Umthombo Walkway Braamfontein Campus West: Amic Deck Parktown Education Campus: Linder Auditorium Walkway Parktown Medical School
Start time:10:00
Enquiries:

Kendall.Petersen@wits.ac.za

The Wits Transformation and Employment Equity Office will host a public engagement initiative as part of Anti-Racism Week 2017.

This year, the national campaign themed, #TakeOnRacism will run from 14-21 March 2017.

The public engagement initiative will be held on four Wits campuses, at which members of the University community will be encouraged to pledge their commitment to #TakeOnRacism in their respective mother tongues, on posters which will be documented in a photographic essay.

This year’s campaign comes at a crucial time, in light of the recent xenophobic violence in the country.

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Why the brain matters colloquium feedback and launch of brain matters seminars

When: Thursday, 23 March 2017 - Thursday, 23 March 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Resource Centre, Ground Floor, Wits School of Public Health
Start time:16:00
RSVP:

Tanya.Calvey@wits.ac.za

The DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development together with the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, will host this seminar series launch event.

The event is also co-hosted with the Southern African Neuroscience Society, and the Wits Cortex Club. 

Speakers include Professor Willem Hendrik Gispen from the University of Utrecht, Professor Peter Vale from the University of Johannesburg, and Professor Linda Richter, Dr Tanya Calvey and Dr Sahba Besharati from Wits University.

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Challenges facing the South African mining industry

When: Thursday, 23 March 2017 - Thursday, 23 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, Second Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House (Senate House)
Start time:17:00
RSVP:

Heleen Duffey at office@saae.co.za by 16 March 2017

The South African Academy of Engineering and Wits University will host Professor Cyril O’Connor to present this lecture.

O’Connor is CEO of South African Minerals to Metals Research Institute. It has been estimated that South Africa has the largest mineral reserves in the world with a value of between US$2.5 and $4.7 trillion. The country’s mineral deposits are dominated by platinum-group metals (88% of global reserves), manganese (80%), chrome (72%), vanadium (32%) and gold (30%).

On the other hand the mining industry in South Africa faces significant challenges and pressures:

  • To reduce the utilization of key resources such as energy and water,
  • To manage health and safety risks,
  • To improve productivity through a greater degree of automation,
  • To reduce the environmental impacts of the operations and of waste production,
  • To ensure that the industry earns licenses to operate from indigenous communities and
  • To ensure safe and secure mine closure processes.

These challenges must be addressed in the context of diminishing ore grades and in recent years, in particular, depressed commodity prices. Yet it is common cause that modern economies, especially those in the developing world, are greatly dependent on mining. Hence it is critical for South Africa to develop a strong and sustainable mining industry that contributes meaningfully to the economic growth of the country and to the enhancement of the quality of life of all its citizens.

 

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Truth is overrated

When: Monday, 27 March 2017 - Monday, 27 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:16:00

The Wits City Institute presents a talk by Christopher Lutterodt – Quarcoo, a self-professed 'Cult Storyteller'.

Lutterodt-Quarcoo is a London based designer, director and writer. His interests and background in film, art and politics are typically materialised as installations using cinematic devices and religious conventions allowing for the presence of reverence and the ineffable.

In 2016 he founded Unmaterialised a nomadic archive blurring the lines between fact and fiction.

His practice and interests have seen him be commissioned to talk about his findings and strategies as well as devise scenarios for policy-makers and cultural institutions.

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Symposium on multidisciplinary research to eliminate TB

When: Thursday, 23 March 2017 - Thursday, 23 March 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Adler Museum of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, York Road, Wits University
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Bavesh.kana@wits.ac.za

 

RSVP:

adler.museum@wits.co.za

 

A symposium on interdisciplinary research for TB elimination ahead of World TB Day.

The Faculty of Health Sciences and the Office of Research & Postgraduate Affairs invite you to a symposium on interdisciplinary research for Tuberculosis (TB) elimination in commemoration of World TB Day.

The symposium takes place on Thursday 23 March. World TB Day is Friday 24 March 2017.

PROGRAMME:

Symposium opening

Prof. Zeblon Vilakazi, DVC: Research and Postgraduate Affairs and Prof. Maria Papathanasopoulos, Assistant Dean: Research and Postgraduate Affairs

TB and Big Data analysis

Prof. Lesley Scott, Department of Molecular Medicine and Haematology

HIV and TB

Dr Neil Martinson, Deputy Executive Director of Wits Perinatal HIV Research Unit

Can we find all the bacteria?

Prof. Bavesh Kana, Co-Director DST/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research

Implementation of the GeneXpert

Puleng Marokane, Programme Manager at the National Health Laboratory Services

Drug resistant TB: NIX and STREAM trials

Dr Nokuphiwa Mvuna, Sub-investigator at Clinical HIV Research Unit, Wits Health Consortium

Informed Consent

Prof. Claire Penn, Professor of Speech Pathology & Audiology

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FameLab Semi-Finals

When: Friday, 24 March 2017 - Friday, 24 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, Second Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:11:30

FameLab semi finalists will share the scientific ideas in three minutes.

Wits FameLab Semi Finals

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Cobalt blues: The half life of radiotherapy in Uganda

When: Wednesday, 29 March 2017 - Wednesday, 29 March 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:13:00

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) will host Marissa Mika from University College London to present this seminar.

Focusing on the history of cancer care in Uganda for the past 50 years, Mika will show how the historically situated techno-politics of a one-time radiotherapy donation continue to shape the ethical and practical realities of cancer care today in one corner of the Global South. This is a meditation on the "half-life" of machines, technocratic imaginaries, and the limits of repair in an unequal world.

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Bidvest Wits vs. Platinum Stars

When: Saturday, 01 April 2017 - Saturday, 01 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Sturrock Park
Start time:18:00

Absa Premiership match between Bidvest Wits and Platinum Stars.

Wits staff members may request complimentary tickets for this match from the Bidvest Wits offices in Sturrock Park, near the Wits University Sports Administration offices, on working weekdays between 09:00 and 16:00. Please contact the office in advance and specify how many tickets you would like to receive for this match. Tickets are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

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Metabolic disorder in southern Africa: Biology, history and global health

When: Tuesday, 04 April 2017 - Tuesday, 04 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Emthonjeni Centre
Start time:8:30
RSVP:

Megan.Scott1@wits.ac.za

The Health Communication Unit will host Professor Megan Vaughan to present this talk.

Vaughan from University College London is Professor of African History and Health, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vice-Dean Interdisciplinary, Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences, and co-Chair Grand Challenge Global Health.

Professor Vaughan’s specialises in the history of East and Central Africa. Her interdisciplinary work has focused on the history of medicine and psychiatry in Africa, on the history of famine, food supply and gender relations and on slavery in the Indian Ocean region.

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Book launch: Nwelezelanga: The star child

When: Thursday, 06 April 2017 - Thursday, 06 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Writing Centre, Ground Floor, Wartenwelier Library
Start time:13:00
RSVP:

Kgaogelo.Lekota@wits.ac.za

Unathi Magubeni will be reading from his debut novel, Nwelezelanga: The Star Child, published by Jacana.

“Magubeni handles the sacred subject in a way that neither slants nor meddles. For this reason, when African traditionalists learn of Magubeni’s book they will be nervously curious but will discover that they needn’t have been. It will be a rare gift for the scholars, and we ordinary readers will not remember our lives before Magubeni happened.” writes Thando Mgqolozana, author of A Man Who is Not a Man, Unimportance and Hear Me Alone. Signed copies will be available for sale.

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Transdisciplinary diversity and societal challenges

When: Friday, 07 April 2017 - Friday, 07 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Club
Start time:13:00
RSVP:

Helen.Stewart@wits.ac.za by 5 April

The Research Office at Wits will host Visiting Scholar Professor Roderick Lawrence from University of Geneva to present this lunchtime seminar.

The seminar will discuss and illustrate the diversity of transdisciplinary research and practice applied in recent years to address major challenges including climate change, non-communicable diseases and urbanisation in a rapidly changing world. Transdisciplinary contributions recognise the complexity of these challenges, and the need to understand the specific cultural, geographical and political context in which they exist. The added value of all transdisciplinary contributions is their potential to promote shared understanding among a wide range of stakeholders in society and agreement among them about how to respond to these challenges.

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The containment chronotrope: The European refugee crisis and shifting sovereignties in Sub-Saharan

When: Tuesday, 11 April 2017 - Tuesday, 11 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
ACMS Seminar Room, SH 2163, South East Wing, Second Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House (Senate House)
Start time:12:30

Professor Loren Landau will present this seminar hosted by the African Centre for Migration & Society.

Landau will consider how Europe’s defensive posturing and extra-territorialisation will reshape its relationship to Africa and Africans’ relations to each other and space. He argues that the billions of Euros dedicated to border control and the prevention of mobility within and out of African countries is generating a ‘containment chronotrope’.

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‘Radical economic transformation’ versus ‘white monopoly capital’? The case of the mining industry

When: Tuesday, 25 April 2017 - Tuesday, 25 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Centre Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building
Start time:14:00

The Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) will launch a new report by Duma Gqubule.

Gqubule is the Director of the Centre for Economic Development and Transformation and the country’s leading commentator on BEE in the mining industry. Gqubule  will discuss how far the mining sector has fallen short of its ownership and other Charter targets, the issues raised by the current standoff over the ‘once empowered, always empowered principle’, and the prospects for its meaningful transformation over the next decade. 

Respondents - Carol Paton (Business Day) and Mbuyiseni Ndlozi (Economic Freedom Fighters)

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Reaching the unreached: Skills development policies and the promise of ICT

When: Tuesday, 04 April 2017 - Tuesday, 04 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Club
Start time:21:30
Enquiries:

Caroline.Mavhutha@wits.ac.za 

RSVP:

Caroline.Mavhutha@wits.ac.za by 29 March 2017 

The REAL Centre and NORRAG, an Associate Programme of the Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland, will host this seminar.

This seminar will present the results of an ongoing scoping study jointly undertaken by the two institutions. It investigates the interplay between skills development and ICT policies and practice at national and local levels, focusing on marginalised populations in South Africa and India.

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The future of medical scheme coverage at Wits: The nexus of narrow interests and wider policy

When: Wednesday, 05 April 2017 - Wednesday, 05 April 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Research Hub Mwalimu House, Classroom G
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Phindile.Tsepetsi@wits.ac.za   

Wits School of Governance will host a conversation with Professor Alex van den Heever.

He will present on the state of the South African medical schemes system and national health policy and their relevance for Wits in making choices about how best to protect those working, and formerly working, for Wits and their dependents.

Over the past two decades the private health system has changed considerably – with conflicts of interest heavily influencing the kind and quality of coverage many income-earning families have access to, and the affordability thereof.  

Not well understood are the influences government’s present deregulation agenda together with failures to properly regulate the industry will have on the quality of private health protection offered in future and especially the impending risks faced by anyone forced to depend on open commercial medical schemes for their coverage.

This talk will therefore attempt to relate the macro perspectives to the local choices that should be considered by Wits into the future.

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Density forecasting of long-term electricity demand in South Africa using quantile regression

When: Thursday, 06 April 2017 - Thursday, 06 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Room 112, 1st Floor,The Liberty Actuarial Auditorium, Mathematical Sciences Laboratory Building
Start time:12:15
Enquiries:

Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-6272

Paul Mokilane, statistician at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and PhD candidate at Wits, will present this seminar.

Electricity demand forecasting is crucial not only in the day-to-day running of power systems, but also in system planning. Long-term forecasts are useful in capital planning.

However, any prediction comes with uncertainties. Uncertainties in predictions imply that forecasts should ideally be probabilistic.

Poor predictions could have far reaching consequences because an overestimate of long-term electricity demands could result in substantial wasted investment in the construction of excess power facilities, while underestimating of demands could result in insufficient generation and unmet future demand.

The long term hourly electricity demand was forecasted using Quantile Regression (QR). In QR, the hourly electricity demand at different quantiles of the demand distribution which effectively described the full demand distribution is forecasted.

 

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Bidvest Wits vs Smouha SC

When: Saturday, 08 April 2017 - Saturday, 08 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Bidvest Stadium
Start time:15:00
Enquiries:

Marcel Kutumela or Silindile Sibiya on (011) 339 1112 or ticketing@bidvestwits.co.za

An upcoming CAF Confederation Cup Match between Bidvest Wits and Smouha SC, an Egyptian Football Club.

Wits staff members may request complimentary tickets for this match from the Bidvest Wits offices in Sturrock Park, near the Wits University Sports Administration offices, on working weekdays between 09:00 and 16:00. Please contact the office in advance and specify how many tickets you would like to receive for this match. Tickets are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

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Plastic Form and the Extro, and Emergent versions of Christopher Mlalazi’s Running with Mother

When: Monday, 10 April 2017 - Monday, 10 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:10:15
Enquiries:

Merle.Govind@wits.ac.za

The Department of African Literature will host Ashleigh Harris from Uppsala University to present this seminar.

Polo Moji from the French and Francophone Studies at Wits will be the discussant.  

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Bidvest Wits vs Lamontville Golden Arrows

When: Tuesday, 11 April 2017 - Tuesday, 11 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Bidvest Stadium
Start time:19:30
Enquiries:

Marcel Kutumela or Silindile Sibiya on (011) 339 1112 or ticketing@bidvestwits.co.za

An upcoming ABSA Premiership match between Bidvest Wits and Lamontville Golden Arrows.

Wits staff members may request complimentary tickets for this match from the Bidvest Wits offices in Sturrock Park, near the Wits University Sports Administration offices, on working weekdays between 09:00 and 16:00. Please contact the office in advance and specify how many tickets you would like to receive for this match. Tickets are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

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Interest in indigenous knowledge: A search for cultural identity?

When: Tuesday, 11 April 2017 - Tuesday, 11 April 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Staff Lounge
Start time:12:00

Meshach Mobolaji Ogunniyi,Emeritus Professor in the School of Science at Mathematics and Education, University of the Western Cape, will present this lecture.

For a long time interest in indigenous knowledge (IK) among Black Africans and the diaspora has largely been driven by a search for sociocultural identity.

Of factors responsible for this of loss of identity, the most poignant perhaps, have been the Slave Trade, colonialism, racial discrimination and/or apartheid spanning a period of 500 years.

To overcome the negative effects of these human tragedies, Africans and the diaspora have been making strenuous efforts to regain their sense of identity by mobilising their indigenous knowledges for their socioeconomic emancipation. The question, on this special African Day is: What is the story so far?

 

Other Key Africa Week Events

School

Date & Time

Venue

Speakers/performers

School of Education

11 April at 12:00 to 14:00

Staff Lounge

Dr Robyn Whitaker

School of Arts

12 April  at 15:00 to 19:30

Wits Arts Museum

Professor Muxe Nkondo (UNISA)

School of Literature and Languages

13 April 12:00 to 14:00

Wits Writing Centre

Mothobi Mutloatse

Napo Masheane

Maakomele R. Manaka

 

School of Arts

13 April 12:00 to13:30 & 17:00 to 19:30

Wits School of Arts

Mpho Molikeng  music workshop

Afrikaans Film screening  by Dylan Valley

 

 

 

 

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Ahmed Kathrada: A man for all seasons

When: Tuesday, 11 April 2017 - Tuesday, 11 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WSOA Apollonia Theatre, 2nd Floor,
Start time:17:30

The WSOA Film and TV Division will host a special screening of a documentary during Africa Week to commemorate the life of the late Ahmed Kathrada.

The documentary, Ahmed Kathrada: A Man For All Seasons, which was made to celebrate Kathrada’s 85th birthday and to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his release from prison.

The film traces an extraordinary life journey as an activist, a Rivonia trialist, a prisoner on Robben Island and the founder of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. It features interviews with Rivonia trialists including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Denis Goldberg; fellow Robben Island prisoners and close friends and colleagues.

 There will be a post-screening discussion with Ken Kaplan (one of the producers) and Noor Nieftagodien (Chair of the Wits History Workshop and activist).  

 

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Paul Weinberg exhibition and book launch

When: Wednesday, 12 April 2017 - Wednesday, 12 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Origins Centre
Start time:18:00
RSVP:

bookings.origins@wits.ac.za

The Origins Centre present the opening of an exhibition and launch of Paul Weinberg‘s book, Traces and Tracks.

Weinberg and Tikhwebe Satau will host a walkabout of the exhibition on13 April 2017 at 13:00.The exhibition and book comprises of photographs taken of the San over a 30 year period that began in 1984.

 Traces and Tracks at the Origins Centre

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Accounting Careers Fair

When: Tuesday, 11 April 2017 - Tuesday, 11 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
FNB Foyer
Start time:9:00

The Wits Graduate Recruitment and Employability Awareness Programme present the 2017 Accounting Careers Fair.

Commerce, Business Sciences and Economics students  will be able to meet South Africa’s top Commerce & Business Sciences graduate employers and find out about bursary, internships and graduate programmes they offer. Companies represented include  Rothschild, BCG, McKinsey & Company, BDO, Mazars, Nedbank, Investec Bank, KPMG, Deloitte & Touche, Grant Thornton, PKF/VGA Chartered Accountants, Sanlam Health (CAMAF), PwC and many more.

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Wings for Life World Run

When: Wednesday, 19 April 2017 - Wednesday, 19 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Science Stadium
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Chipo Kamukwamba on 079 540 8425/chipo.kamukwamba@gmail.com or Shanon Leibach on 076 875 0073 sleibach4@gmail.com 

The Wits Sports Council, the Disability Rights Unit and Red Bull, are hosting a Wits activation run on campus to raise awareness for the upcoming World Run.

The World Run will be held in Centurion. All staff and students of any fitness level are welcome. Entry is free.

Wings for Life is a nonprofit research foundation that conducts life-changing spinal cord research projects and clinical trials at several prestigious institutions around the world. The international  Wings for Life World Run from which every cent of the entry fees goes towards finding ways to improve the lives of those living with spinal cord related disabilities.

 

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The history of neuroscience in Africa

When: Thursday, 20 April 2017 - Thursday, 20 April 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Resource Centre, Ground floor, School of Public Health
Start time:17:00

Professor Vivienne Russell, Emeritus Professor, University of Cape Town will present this seminar.

The DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development, the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, the Southern African Neuroscience Society, and the Wits Cortex Club will present the first of six seminars in 2017 on neuroscience.

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Understanding batch chemical processes: Modelling and case studies

When: Friday, 05 May 2017 - Friday, 05 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Room 334, 3rd Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.tadi@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-1146

Prof. Thokozani Majozi from the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering will launch his new book.

Batch chemical processes, so often employed in the pharmaceutical and agrochemical fields, differ significantly from standard continuous operations in the emphasis upon time as a critical factor in their synthesis and design.

With this inclusive guide to batch chemical processes, the author introduces the reader to key aspects in mathematical modeling of batch processes and presents techniques to overcome the computational complexity in order to yield models that are solvable in near real-time.

This book demonstrates how batch processes can be analyzed, synthesized, and designed optimally using proven mathematical formulations.

The text effectively demonstrates how water and energy aspects can be incorporated within the scheduling framework that seeks to capture the essence of time. It presents real-life case studies where mathematical modeling of batch plants has been successfully applied.

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Human Rights in Name Only: The Struggle to Social and Economic Transformation in Post-Apartheid SA

When: Wednesday, 05 April 2017 - Wednesday, 05 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, Second Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:15:00
Enquiries:

Omphemetse.Masilo@wits.ac.za 

RSVP:

Omphemetse.Masilo@wits.ac.za 

The Development and Leadership Unit in collaboration with the Wits Golden Key will host this year’s Human Rights Human Dialogue.

The keynote address will be delivered by Former Chair of the African Union Commission, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

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Celebrating Africa Week

When: Monday, 10 April 2017 - Thursday, 13 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Check the schedule for venues
Start time:12:00

The Faculty of Humanities invites you to enjoy a week of celebrations.

African Instrument Workshop, by Volley Nchabeleng

Born in Limpopo, Sebei Volley Nchabeleng played music from an early age.
He is an international recording artist, producer, teacher and master of African percussion. He has performed in more than 23 countries and his music resonates with the diverse influence of sounds from around the world.
Currently, Volley is a producer and a creative director for theatre productions, as well as a tutor in traditional instruments at Prestige College and for the SA Army Military Band. He is also studying Music Theories at UNISA.
Volley performed for the European, Ten Years of Democracy Celebration Show, at the Puisano Jazz Festival and many more prestigious events and festivals.

Afrikaaps, by Dylan Valley
Director: Dylan Valley | Producer: Miki Redelinghuys & Lauren Groenewald | Genre: Documentary | Year produced: 2010
Country: South Africa

Synopsis: In his debut documentary, ‘Afrikaaps’, Dylan Valley explores the untold Creole history of Afrikaans, using what he knows best: hip-hop, humour, and personal perspective. The film follows a group of artists creating the stage production, ‘Afrikaaps’, as they trace the true roots of Afrikaans to slaves in the Cape. The fi lm reclaims and liberates Afrikaans from its reputation as the language of the oppressor, taking it back to the people who own it.

Dylan Valley is an award winning South African fi lmmaker, born and raised in Cape Town. His work includes Lost Prophets, Prophets of the City; Afrikaaps, and Incacerated Knowledge.

Valley currently holds an associate lectureship at the Wits. He is also a contributing writer and editor of the web-platform, Africa’s a Country. 

Tour of Museum
Special tour of the Lifescapes Exhibition led by Stacey Vorster

Music Concert
Iphupho likaBiko Jazz Ensemble
(An ensemble mixes South African Jazz, Pop, and Classical Music to produce a unique sound that seeks to evoke a new understanding and appreciation of South African Youth Culture).

Africa Week hosted by the Faculty of Humanities

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Indigenous Knowledge Systems: Contemporary Urban Poetry

When: Thursday, 13 April 2017 - Thursday, 13 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Writing Centre
Start time:12:00

As part of Africa Week, the School of Literature, Language and Media invite you to come and enjoy Contemporary Urban Poetry.

Africa Week Contemporary Urban Poetry

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Is the “global” in “global literature” the same as the “global” in “global climate change”?

When: Tuesday, 11 April 2017 - Tuesday, 11 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:13:00

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) will host this seminar by Daniel Elam from University of Toronto.

He will examine various case studies in literary criticism to highlight the intertwined histories of world literature and the Anthropocene.

Elam will argue for the importance of connecting Erich Auerbach’s commitment to “irdische” literature and criticism and Frantz Fanon’s commitment to “la terre.” Auerbach’s irdische is often mistranslated in English as “secular” although it literally means “earthly,” and he will suggest that we must understand Fanon’s terre as quite literal and therefore not at all synonymous with the famously untranslatable “le monde.

In the age of the Anthropocene, it becomes imperative to think climate change and world literature together – not least because literature in the Anglophone book market pre-packaged as “global literature” has arrived from locations that have already begun to suffer the effects of global climate change.

His argument here is that we already possess historical precedent for this form of literary analysis, and that discussions of global literature have always been, not incidentally, also discussions about the environment.

 

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A ‘marshall plan’ for human settlements: how mega projects became South Africa’s housing policy

When: Tuesday, 11 April 2017 - Tuesday, 11 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
Start time:16:00

Dr Richard Ballard, Specialist Researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory will present this talk.

In 2014 the national Department of Human Settlements announced that it would phase out its many small housing projects of a few hundred units.

Henceforth all housing would exclusively be delivered in large settlements of thousands or tens of thousands of units. Shortly afterwards, the Gauteng provincial government announced its own version of the policy, stating that it intended to build dozens of new cities around the province. This talk examines the turn to mega projects within the Human Settlements sector in South Africa.

Three questions will be addressed: Where is the mega projects policy turn articulated?; What are the rationales that feed into this policy direction?; and How has the policy been received? Ballard will show the genesis of this policy direction, its heterogeneous nature and its logics. This policy moment flows from some major experiments in scaled up projects since the 1990s.

These were informed by a desire to ramp up the quantity of housing delivery that had been declining in the years prior to the announcement of the new policy, the appeal of designing entirely new integrated settlements, a drive to invest in deprived areas, and the expectation that large projects can cut through bureaucratic entanglements slowing down smaller projects.

The policy direction has been criticised for presuming to be able to attract economic activity to new settlements and, in the event of failing to be able to do so, exacerbating an already disbursed urban pattern which is difficult to service and that requires workers to commute long distances or renders them unable to find work.

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Moving the state dialogue

When: Wednesday, 12 April 2017 - Wednesday, 12 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, Southwest Engineering Building
Start time:15:30
RSVP:

Omphemetse.Masilo@wits.ac.za

The Development and Leadership Unit will host a dialogue themed: The challenge to good governance: Integrity, transparency and accountability in public administ

The aim of the Moving the State Dialogue is to create a platform for young thought leaders to converge, share their thoughts and formulate practicable solutions for some of South Africa’s most pressing issues. The keynote address will be delivered by Dr Makhosi Busisiwe Khoza, Chairperson of the Public Service and Administration as well as Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation Committees.

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Drama for Life South African Theatre Season 2017: New histories – new beginnings

When: Thursday, 20 April 2017 - Saturday, 22 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Theatre
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

Zanele.Madiba@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-4672

Drama for Life South African Theatre Season will provide a platform for artists to claim their rightful place as the cultural leaders of tomorrow.

It will offer young artists a space to experiment with new ideas in the hope of nurturing new South African narratives. In collaboration with the Wits Theatre, the South African Theatre Season hosts three exciting new programmes namely a production of ONE, Rehearse//Reveal programme and Maimane!

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Dispossessing the dispossessed? Mining and rural struggles in Mokopane, Limpopo

When: Friday, 21 April 2017 - Friday, 21 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:8:00

The next breakfast seminar in a series presented by the Society Work and Development Institute (SWOP) will feature new research by SWOP’s emerging researchers.

The papers document the destruction of work, water, community and livelihoods by the current wave of intensified marketisation, posing the question of alternatives to social crisis.

 

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The aid effectiveness agenda: Norms and practices

When: Tuesday, 25 April 2017 - Tuesday, 25 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Room 8, Robert Sobukwe Building (Central Block)
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Lerato.Podile@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Lerato.Podile@wits.ac.za

The Development Studies Programme together with the International Relations Department will host this joint seminar presented by Professor Stephen Brown.

Brown is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and currently a Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study. He has published widely on foreign aid, democratisation, African politics and political violence.

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Biometric capitalism and the future of history

When: Tuesday, 16 May 2017 - Tuesday, 16 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House (Senate House)
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

The inaugural lecture of Professor Keith Breckenridge will shed light on the above topic.

South African historical scholarship and the Humanities in general have reached an intellectual impasse. This moment can be described in many ways, but it is characterised, overall, by an obvious narrowness of research ambitions, the collapse of comparative inquiry, a preoccupation with pathos and, above all, a general failure of broad historiographical curiosity.

The causes of this predicament are many: It is a product of the earlier success of Marxist historicism across the Humanities and Social Sciences, the resource predicaments that confront South African universities in general, and the general weakness of our intellectual culture. Nor are we alone in this.

Across the Anglophone world, historians are losing an intellectual battle to disciplines that rely on mathematical reasoning to understand and shape society. Yet the condition is also clearly escapable. In this lecture, Breckenridge wants to suggest a methodology for liberating ourselves by returning to the core questions that animated historians in the 20th century.

Close attention to the economics of the present, and of the future, is key to this project. Currently, South Africa and many of the other countries on this continent are being transformed by a new form of biometric capitalism.

The lecture will explain what that means, and why South African history has been important to its global development, but it will also show that this strange transition, and its global significance, can only be comprehended, and controlled, by those who understand historiography.

Breckenridge is Deputy Director at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research.

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WiCDS Wednesday seminar

When: Wednesday, 12 April 2017 - Wednesday, 12 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
13th Floor, University Corner, Wits Arts Museum, Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:14:00

Georges Pfruender and Dorothee Kreutzfeld will present this seminar hosted by the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies (WiCDS).

The seminar will discuss the ways in which such interventions can facilitate understanding of urban contexts and produce new knowledge. Pfruender is Chair for Cultural Education and Theatre Education, University of Applied Sciences and Arts North Western Switzerland and Kreutzfeld is an Artist and Curator at the Wits School of Arts.

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Spatiotemporal dynamics of landscapes : urban transitions for a sustainable future

When: Tuesday, 18 April 2017 - Tuesday, 18 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, 1st Floor, John Moffat Building
Start time:16:00

Professor Barend Erasmus from the Global Change Institute at Wits will present this talk.

Erasmus is one of South Africa’s leading experts in the field of climate change, spatial ecology and land cover change. The Africa of the future is an urban Africa.  The processes that determine the nature, pace and degree of urbanisation, in different places are complex, and varied. The one common thread, though, is the transition from rural-dominated to urban-dominated environments and structures. In an attempt to untangle the causality in complex social-ecological systems (SES) that sets the scene for these transitions, Erasmus and his team rely on long term data on settlements patterns, natural resource use, human demography and environmental variability. At a rural savanna field station in the eastern Lowveld savanna of South Africa, they used a combination of remotely sensed data and detailed household-level field studies spanning 50 years of data collection, to understand energy and food In this talk, Erasmus will synthesise the findings of 11 researchers over 13 years of research at a rural savanna field station , and explore the policy and management implications from these long-term spatiotemporal studies on ecosystems and urban patterns.

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Overview of NASA's MISR instrument and its applications

When: Wednesday, 19 April 2017 - Wednesday, 19 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Room 16, Bernard Price Building
Start time:13:15

Professor Michel Verstraete, Visiting Professor at the Global Change Institute at Wits will present this Geospatial Sciences seminar.

NASA's Terra space platform, dedicated to the observation of the Earth, was launched on 18 December 1999 and is still operational today. The Multiangle Imaging SpectroRadiometer instrument measures the reflectance of the planet in four spectral bands from nine different directions.

These 36 data channels are suitable to address a wide range of climate and environmental applications and provide a unique opportunity to document the anisotropy of the environment.

A processing system has been designed and implemented at Wits' Global Change Institute to derive advanced biogeophysical products to quantitatively describe terrestrial environments at the spatial resolution of 275 m.

The combination of multiangular observations and state of the art algorithms delivers unique products of high quality over long periods of time. The current status of the project will be outlined and some of the products will be showcased.

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Auditor-General to present at Wits

When: Wednesday, 19 April 2017 - Wednesday, 19 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
School of Accountancy, FNB 101
Start time:15:00

The School of Accountancy at Wits will host the auditor-general, Mr Kimi Makwetu to present this public lecture.

Makwetu will present an in-depth analysis of the municipal audit outcomes and discuss the importance of accountability.

 

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Likelihood inference for non-linear jump diffusions with state-dependent intensity

When: Thursday, 20 April 2017 - Thursday, 20 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Room 112, 1st Floor, The Liberty Actuarial Auditorium, Mathematical Sciences Laboratory Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-6272

Dr Etienne Pienaar will present this seminar.

Jump diffusion processes can be seen as a generalisation of standard diffusion processes whereby the trajectory of the underlying diffusion process is allowed to be perturbed by a jump process.

Unfortunately, the analysis of diffusion models in general is extremely difficult, due in most part to the intractability of the probabilistic dynamics of such processes, with only a few simple models having analytically tractable transitional densities.

For these purposes, we develop a method for approximating the transitional densities of a class of time-inhomogeneous jump diffusions with state-dependent and/or stochastic intensity. By deriving a system of equations that govern the evolution of the moments of the process, Pienaar will show that we are able to approximate the transitional density through a density factorisation that contrasts the dynamics of the jump diffusion with that of its jump free counterpart.

In this talk, Pienaar will also briefly discuss some of his experiences with industry and share some thoughts on how to change/develop the interface between industry and the untapped brain power residing within statistics (and other) departments. He will argue that the current climate in academia may present a unique opportunity to change/improve business models in scientific academia.

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Bidvest Wits and SuperSport United

When: Tuesday, 25 April 2017 - Tuesday, 25 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Bidvest Stadium
Start time:19:30
Enquiries:

Marcel Kutumela or Silindile Sibiya on (011) 339-1112 or ticketing@bidvestwits.co.za

Catch this ABSA Premiership match between Bidvest Wits and SuperSport United.

Wits staff members may request complimentary tickets for this match from the Bidvest Wits offices in Sturrock Park, near the Wits University Sports Administration offices, on working weekdays between 09:00 and 16:00. Please contact the office in advance and specify how many tickets you would like to receive for this match. Tickets are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

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The health of high-level mathematics in South Africa by 2030

When: Wednesday, 10 May 2017 - Wednesday, 10 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

Professor Loyiso Nongxa’s inaugural lecture will discuss the above topic.

Since its inception in 1936 the Fields Medal, widely regarded as the Nobel Prize for young mathematicians, has never been awarded to an African mathematician. Until August 2014, no female mathematician had won the medal. Is this a reflection on the quality of our mathematical contributions or supporting evidence for the calls to decolonise mathematics? Or both?

Nongxa is the Director of the Centre for Mathematical and Computational Sciences at Wits.

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What is transformation and why do we need it?

When: Monday, 24 April 2017 - Monday, 24 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:13:15
Enquiries:

 cecilia.smith@wits.ac.za

The Wits Transformation and Employment Equity Office will host its first Transformation Dialogue for 2017.

The Transformation Dialogues form a core component of the annual events for the Office, and are intended to provide the University community with a space in which to engage on pertinent Transformation issues. The dialogues are conceptualised as lunchtime conversations in a space which is safe, free of judgement and respectful of differences.

Recognising the potential need to start off on a clean slate, the theme for the first dialogue is “What is transformation and why do we need it?” and it is hoped that this space will bring together multiple perspectives that will effectively take the University closer to realising its goal of a unified Institutional Culture, driven by a collective belief in what Transformation in the University is meant to be.

The dialogue will include presentations from various sectors in the University community. Since this is intended as a lunchtime conversation, these presentations will be kept as brief as possible in order to devote the bulk of the time to fruitful and respectful engagement with the audience. Finally, it is the hope that this dialogue will serve as the starting point for several dynamic and productive conversations throughout the year.

Please note: This event will be recorded.

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The moral geographies of mothers in greater Johannesburg

When: Tuesday, 25 April 2017 - Tuesday, 25 April 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, 1st Floor, John Moffat Building
Start time:16:00

Dr Alexandra Parker from the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) and Dr Margot Rubin from Wits will present this seminar.

There is a rich mine of literature on spatial exclusions due to race, in South African cities, however few studies have focused on the gendered spatial experiences of women and more particularly, mothers.

This seminar based on research from the GCRO explores the spatial dynamics of mothers in Johannesburg: how mothers navigate their and their families’ daily lives; the challenges that they face; their routes, supports and efforts that typify their lives.

The research shows that the spatial injustices of the past and new inequalities impact the everyday movements and practices of women. In addition, these spatial practices are influenced by a form of moral geography, which result in compromises and sacrifices for both mother and child. Exploring the spatial geographies of the mothers provides valuable insights and exposes the depth of spatial inequalities and poor urban management in new ways.

 

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Translanguaging and Ubuntu in the 21st Century: Charting new frontiers for multilingual education

When: Tuesday, 09 May 2017 - Tuesday, 09 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Rechelle.Tsunke@wits.ac.za /(011) 717-1193

The inaugural lecture of Professor Leketi Makalela will shed light on the above topic.

Makalela is the Head of the Division of Languages, Literacies and Literature at the Wits School of Education. In this lecture, Prof. Makalela will question both monolingual and epistemic biases enshrined in the doctrine of one language-one- classroom. Using translanguaging as a cultural competence of multilingual students, he will argue for strategic use of more than one language (input-output exchange) as a transformative and decolonising pedagogy.

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Ausimm Delprat Distinguished Lecture

When: Tuesday, 02 May 2017 - Tuesday, 02 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Jacqui@saimm.co.za

Emeritus Professor, Tim Napier-Munn (University of Queensland), acclaimed researcher and author, will present this lecture.

He will review the proud history of technological developments in mineral processing and the likely future challenges to innovation in the field.  The lecture will be followed by lively discussion. The event will be hosted by the Western Cape Branch of the South African Institute for Mining and Metallurgy.

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The Klasies River Landscape: Waves in time

When: Wednesday, 03 May 2017 - Wednesday, 03 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Archaeology Seminar Room (Room 212), Origins Building,
Start time:13:20
Enquiries:

Jerome.Reynard@wits.ac.za

Professor Sarah Wurz from the Wits School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies will present this archaeology seminar.

According to recent genetic studies, South Africa occupies a central position in the evolutionary phylogenetic tree of Homo sapiens. Klasies River was a favoured place for an unusually extended period of time, and as such provides a remarkable window into the lifeways and cognition of early Homo sapiens ancestors that settled in this area. Due to the Klasies River’s landscape’s significance in exploring modern human origins, it has been declared a National Monument in 2016. Wurz will discuss how Klasies River main site contributes to understanding the globally and universally important issue of modern human origins. 

 

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General Careers Fair

When: Tuesday, 16 May 2017 - Tuesday, 16 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Old Mutual Sports Hall
Start time:9:00

The Wits Graduate Recruitment and Employability Awareness Programme presents to you the 2017 General Careers Fair.

Students are invited to come meet South Africa’s top commerce and business sciences graduate employers to find out about available bursary, internships and graduate programmes.

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Tracing the metabolism of the everyday: Livelihoods and informality in Delft, Cape Town

When: Tuesday, 02 May 2017 - Tuesday, 02 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
Start time:16:00

The next The Faces of the City seminar will be presented by Dr Suraya Scheba.

Scheba is from the African Centre for Cities & Environmental and Geographical Sciences Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. 

The seminar is based on a paper which explored everyday practices of ‘informality’ as performed in Delft, a low-income community within the City of Cape Town, drawing on an ethnographic study carried out in 2016. The primary aim of the study is to build understanding of the practices and processes through which people gain access to livelihoods, land and services, within the context of urban precarity.

This interest is given form through examining the confluence of everyday practices, within public and private spaces, including street trade, home- based enterprises and the home. Furthermore, through building understanding, the study findings also offer insight into the spatiality, actor networks and infrastructure that these practices engender as well as a reflection into the capacity of everyday political subjectivity to carve out spaces of belonging within the city in relation to structural logics of urban development.

 

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Book launch: Illustrated glossary of southern African architectural terms: English-Isizulu

When: Wednesday, 03 May 2017 - Wednesday, 03 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Ground Floor, John Moffat Building,
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Marisa.Sauls@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-7726

The School of Architecture and Planning is hosting the launch of Franco Frescura and Joyce Myeza’s new book.

This glossary brings together in one volume the terminologies that are used by indigenous builders as well as subsequent colonial white settlers including buildings of the so-called Cape Dutch, English Georgian, Victorian and Indian traditions.

 

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Wits Choir’s Africa Month Celebration Concert

When: Thursday, 04 May 2017 - Thursday, 04 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Main Theatre
Start time:19:00
Enquiries:

Lerato.Sekele@wits.ac.za / 011 717 1372 

The Wits Choir in association with Wits Theatre presents the Wits Choir’s Africa Month Celebration Concert that will be a feast of songs from our continent.

The concert will include songs from Tanzania, Ghana, Mali, Kenya, Namibia and other African countries and unsurprisingly, many from South Africa. This concert will give audiences a preview of what the Choir will be presenting on their tour to France and Germany later this year.

Wits Choir will premiere a number of songs at their African Month Celebration Concert. One such work is a composition that was commissioned for Wits Choir by Samro Endowment for the National Arts . Composed by Mokale Koapeng, a well-known composer, the song is called Thloko ya meThloko ya gagwe. Another song arranged by South African composer Eduard Bosman which will be premiered is God is hier teenwoordig. Other songs include some Wits Choir ‘oldies’ like Malaika and Ntyilo, NtyiloJe Wajua Yesu anipenda and S’khandamayeza!

The Young Wits Choir will also make their appearance to sing several combined items with Wits Choir. This younger sibling of the 55 year-old Wits Choir was established in 2013 and is a wonderful addition to the Wits Choir family.

The Choirs, whose diverse membership is drawn from a multitude of cultures, nationalities, occupations and ages, understands the value of hard work and discipline. The Choir is indisputably dedicated to the advancement of a spirit of reconciliation and transformation in South Africa. Through the example they set, choir members serve as ambassadors of Wits University and South Africa both at home and when abroad.

A SHORT HISTORY OF WITS CHOIR

Wits Choir is now in its 55th year of existence. It was originally called The Witwatersrand University Choir and was founded by students from two diverse student bodies.

The first was The University Choral Society and they decided to use the profits from their 1961 production of Oklahoma to buy choral music and start a choir. Wits Choir 2017_2

On the other hand, at the same time, a group of students on the Students’ Engineering Council also decided to form a choir. Towards the end of that year the two groups combined and the Wits Choir was formed. 

Wits Choir is vibrant, young, and colourful. Membership is open to all, resulting in a fully representative choir drawn from diverse national and international cultures. 

The Wits Choir motto is ‘Excellence through diversity’ and this manifests itself in everything the Choir does, be it repertoire, membership of the choir, performances.

An example of this diversity is the fact that Wits Choir has sung for over 20 Heads of State both in Africa and abroad, and also at the opening of a sewage plant in Mpumalanga.

During the last 21 years of the newly-constituted Wits Choir there have been many highlights:

  • The Choir had the honour to sing at three occasions for Nelson Mandela. They also had the honour of singing at his Memorial Service at Wits University. The message of Ubuntu that he lived by, is one that Wits Choir strives to emulate.
  • The extensive outreach programme for the advancement of choral music and conducting through mini-tours to amongst others the Cape Platteland, Mpumalanga, and Northern KwaZulu-Natal has afforded the Wits Choir the opportunity to work with local choirs and conductors furthering music education and forming meaningful partnerships. The Choir also regularly holds choir festivals and workshops involving singers and conductors from church, school and community choirs.
  • The Wits Choir has often had the privilege to perform on television, with the last one being on Morning Live on SABC 2 to celebrate Freedom Day which is commemorated on April 27th.
  • The Wits Choir has spread the magic of South African music and culture through tours to Namibia (1998 and 2015), Kenya (2001), Argentina (2003), the Czech Republic (2006), the Seychelles (2009) and in 2011 to the USA and Canada. They performed on the Fringe of the 2008 and 2010 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.
  • A new Wits Choir – the Young Wits Choir was established in 2013 and it is an extension of Wits Choir with its focus being on music education and skills training, and its motto Yearning, Willing and Committed makes it a worthy younger sibling!

The Wits Choirs bring the music of South Africa and of our continent to audiences everywhere. The Choirs aim to show the beauty, intricacies, diversity and complexity of the music in the world.

Ticket prices: Online: R70 adults (R40 Wits staff and Wits students, children, pensioners); Door: R75 adults (R45 Wits staff and Wits students, children, pensioners)

Wits Choir

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Arts in health – perspectives on stigma: Performance, art and therapies symposium

When: Friday, 05 May 2017 - Saturday, 06 May 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Wits Adler Museum
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Zanele.Madiba@wits.ac.za / 011 717 4672

Drama for Life, Wits School of Arts and the Adler Museum of Medicine present the Arts in Health Symposium.

This symposium brings together art practitioners, arts therapists, theatre makers and public health researchers who are working and thinking through how the arts are being used to help explore ethical issues on health. It aims to be an exchange on practice and an opportunity to enrich interdisciplinary research.  The symposium will present and explore Drama for Life’s latest creative research work and provide an opportunity to share evidence-based practice. Curated by drama therapist, lecturer and theatre-maker Refiloe Lepere, this symposium is located in Drama for Life’s collaborative approach to interdisciplinary pedagogy and practice, valuing multiple narratives, contexts and indigenous knowledge systems; and will comprise performances, seminar presentations and workshops.

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Bidvest Wits and Maritzburg United

When: Sunday, 07 May 2017 - Sunday, 07 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Bidvest Stadium
Start time:15:00
Enquiries:

Marcel Kutumela or Silindile Sibiya on (011) 339-1112 or ticketing@bidvestwits.co.za

Catch this ABSA Premiership match between Bidvest Wits and Maritzburg United.

Wits staff members may request complimentary tickets for this match from the Bidvest Wits offices in Sturrock Park, near the Wits University Sports Administration offices, on working weekdays between 09:00 and 16:00. Please contact the office in advance and specify how many tickets you would like to receive for this match. Tickets are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

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Translanguaging as pedagogy

When: Tuesday, 16 May 2017 - Tuesday, 16 May 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
B4, Bohlaleng Block,
Start time:12:15

The Hub for Multilingual Education and Literacies will host this seminar in partnership with UCT and the University of Birmingham.

The presenters are Professors Adrian Blackledge and Angela Creese (University of Birmingham, MOSAIC Centre for Research on Multilingualism).  

 

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South Facing Exhibition

When: Sunday, 07 May 2017 - Sunday, 07 May 2017
Where: Off campus
Johannesburg Art Gallery, Cnr Klein and King George Streets, Joubert Park
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

Farah-Naaz.Moosa@wits.ac.za

The Wits City Institute will host the opening exhibition by Ângela Ferreira with other partners.

South Facing is Ângela Ferreira’s first solo exhibition at a public institution in South Africa. The exhibition includes recent and previously unseen work as well as a commission in response to the Gallery’s Meyer Pienaar extension.

Built in 1989 during the final years of apartheid, the extension was intended to create a more accessible public threshold between the original neo-classical colonial-era building and the adjacent urban park. Inherent structural problems resulted in JAG’s temporary closure in 2017, providing an opportunity to re-examine the relationship between an institution once regarded as a symbol of elitism with its emergent multicultural post-apartheid urban context.

Continuing an oeuvre of architecturally-responsive critical artworks, the commission draws on the visual history of the construction processes of the extension, particularly the contentious barrel-like copper-vaulted roofs, extending Ferreira’s ongoing investigations into colonial-era mining in South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Stone Free , 2012, and the Entrer dans la Mine , 2013).

Ferreira’s work is concerned with the ongoing impact of colonialism and post-colonialism in the present, particularly in the Global South. Her primary area of investigation has been the translation of modernism in the African-colonial context, and the complex social, aesthetic and architectural legacies of the modernist project. Ferreira’s practice draws its visual criticality from her dual African Portuguese identity, and the resulting body of work is rooted in South Africa, Mozambique and Portugal. The Johannesburg exhibition connects these three spaces, and provides an opportunity for audiences to engage with the artist’s multi-disciplinary research-based practice.

This exhibition is hosted in partnership with the Ministério da Cultura ,Direção-Geral das Artes, Camões -Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua, Camões - Centro Cultural Português (Maputo), Embassy of Portugal in South Africa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, City of Joburg, Friends of JAG and the Emile Stipp Collection 

Walkabout of the exhibition: Tuesday, 9 May 2017 from 10:30
Exhibition runs from 7 May - 30 July 2017 at Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG)
Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 – 17:00

Curated by Amy Watson

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Competence in chemistry: Component steps to skills and strategies

When: Thursday, 11 May 2017 - Thursday, 11 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Lecture Theatre C6, School of Chemistry
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Laila.Smith@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-6705

The South African Chemical Institute (SACI) presents the SACI Chemical Education Medal Award Talk by Professor Helen Drummond from North-West University.

Drummond will draw on his studies and experience to show that student performance increases when they receive guidance in the use of critical skills and strategies, and this should translate to higher grades in chemistry.

 

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Book launch: The backroom boy - Andrew Mlangeni’s story

When: Thursday, 11 May 2017 - Thursday, 11 May 2017
Where: Off campus
Melrose Arch
Start time:18:30
Enquiries:

info.witspress@wits.ac.za

Join the June and Andrew Mlangeni Foundation and Wits University Press for the launch of The backroom boy, Andrew Mlangeni’s story.

Mlangeni was a struggle stalwart, a rivonia trialist and Robben Island prisoner 467/64. The book is a story of Mlangeni’s fascinating journey from military trainee in Mao Tse-Tung’s China, the Rivonia Trial and 25 years on Robben Island, to now being the voice of the ANC’s conscience as Chair of the ANC’s Integrity Commission. Former president Kgalema Motlanthe will be the guest speaker.

More information:  The backroom boy, Andrew Mlangeni’s story

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Experimenting and Experiencing the city

When: Monday, 15 May 2017 - Thursday, 18 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:8:30
RSVP:

Ariane Bluteau at comm.research@ifas.org.za

The French Institute of South Africa, CUBES, and the Wits School of Architecture and Planning will host a series of events on experimenting the city.

The discussions tackle both the risk and the interest of a multi-disciplinary approach to questions on the city, based in experimentations and experiences from South Africa, Mozambique, Brazil, India, and elsewhere.

 

How does the notion of ‘spatial justice’ assist in understanding contemporary urban dynamics

Date: 15 May 2017

Time: 08:30 – 13:00

Venue: Dorothy Suskind Amphitheater, John Moffat Building, Braamfontein Campus East

RSVP: Ariane Bluteau at comm.research@ifas.org.za

 

What would ‘just’ governance of street trading look like in Johannesburg?

Date: 15 May 2017

Time: 14:00 – 18:00

Venue: Seminar Room, First Floor, John Moffat Building, Braamfontein Campus East

RSVP: Ariane Bluteau at comm.research@ifas.org.za

 

Public spaces and art

Date: 16 May 2017

Time: 09:00 – 16:00

Venue: Museum Africa, Newtown, Johannesburg

RSVP: Ariane Bluteau at comm.research@ifas.org.za

 

Housing the middle class – real state actors’ strategies and urban stakes

Date: 18 May 2017

Time: 08.45 – 17.00

Venue: Wits Club, Braamfontein Campus West

RSVP: Ariane Bluteau at comm.research@ifas.org.za

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Mail & Guardian critical thinking forum: Leadership lessons learnt from Oliver Tambo

When: Tuesday, 16 May 2017 - Tuesday, 16 May 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Wits School of Governance
Start time:17:30
RSVP:

shaunm@mg.co.za or call (011) 250 7355

This event will be hosted at the Wits School of Governance.

The Mail & Guardian together with SANRAL and the Oliver & Adelaide Tambo Foundation will host a Critical Thinking Forum on Oliver Reginald Tambo’s leadership lessons, using these to collectively participate and reflect in resolving current challenges.

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Bidvest Wits vs Polokwane City

When: Wednesday, 17 May 2017 - Wednesday, 17 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Bidvest Stadium
Start time:19:30
Enquiries:

Marcel Kutumela or Silindile Sibiya on (011) 339 1112 or ticketing@bidvestwits.co.za

Catch this ABSA premiership match between Bidvest Wits and Polokwane City.

This is the last home match for the 2016/2017 season. Wits staff members may request complimentary tickets for this match from the Bidvest Wits offices in Sturrock Park, near the Wits University Sports Administration offices, on working weekdays between 09:30 and 16:00. Please contact the office in advance and specify how many tickets you would like to receive for this match. Tickets are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

 

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Embracing technology and adapting processes to support blended and online learning

When: Wednesday, 17 May 2017 - Wednesday, 17 May 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Research Hub Mwalimu House, Classroom G
Start time:10:30
RSVP:

Phindile.Tsepetsi@wits.ac.za

The Wits School of Governance will host this conversation with Mike Hamilton, Founder and Director at Digital Inclusion.

His primary passion is the effective adoption, application and leveraging of technology in support of education. He will discuss technology in the context of tertiary educational delivery.

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Economic policy uncertainties and challenges in the Northern hemisphere

When: Thursday, 18 May 2017 - Thursday, 18 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
SEBS Seminar Suite, 1st Floor, New Commerce Building
Start time:11:00

The Wits School of Economic and Business Sciences (SEBS) hosts leading economist Professor Peter Sinclair to present this public lecture.

Sinclair is based at the University of Birmingham and is a renowned expert on monetary policy and international economics, having previously been a Fellow at Oxford University and an advisor to the Bank of England, as well as an advisor to numerous other Central Banks around the world.

He will address challenges around Trump, Brexit, the Euro, and Chinese slowdown.


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Drama for Life co-hosts the 19th ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival

When: Tuesday, 16 May 2017 - Saturday, 27 May 2017
Where: Off campus
Cape Town
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

zanele.madiba@wits.ac.za 

Drama for life will co-host the first ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival in Africa for young people and children.

Drama for Life (DFL)will be co-hosting the 19th ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival, the ‘Cradle of Creativity’ in collaboration with Association of Theatre for Children and Young People (ASSITEJ), The International Theatre for Young Audiences Research Network (ITYARN) and University of Cape Town. The World Congress which is going to be held for the first time ever on African soil will be taking place in Cape Town, South Africa from 16 – 27 May 2017.

The 19th ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival brings together theatre researchers, artists, educators and delegates from across the globe over 11 days. To contribute to conversations that chart the way forward and inspire future generations, DFL will host and facilitate focus days at the Theatre and Storytelling on 18 May at City Hall, Theatre for Social Change on 20 May at Guga S'thebe Cultural Hub in Langa, Theatre for Healing on 21 May at Guga S'thebe Cultural Hub and Theatre by Children for Children on 21 May at Vrygrond Cultural Hub.

DFL will also present papers, posters, workshops and theatre productions which addresses a range of issues that are specific to theatre for young audiences. The theatre productions to be showcased include:

Mainane! is a magical journey, a rite of passage, about a group of children who overcome seemingly insurmountable struggles in a land of on-going strife, anguish and outright conflict. This coming of age story, set against the backdrop of a contemporary South Africa, brings together a diverse group of young people who summon the courage to face extraordinary hardships against all odds.

It is the telling of a story of heroism embedded in vulnerability, a collective humanity and hope. Mainane! suitable for 7+ year olds, is directed by Warren Nebe in collaboration with the talented DFL Theatre Company members. Mainane! is presented by DFL Theatre Company in partnership with Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project. Showing: 20 - 21 May, IThemba Labantu Cultural Hub in Phillipi at 14:00

Drama for Life Theatre 430px

Insta-Grammar is a heart-wrenching story about speaking and keeping love in the whirlwind Instagram and SnapChat era.

Insta-Grammar is directed by Hamish Neill in collaboration with the DFL Theatre Company. Insta-Grammar is aimed at 13+ year old and is presented by DFL Theatre Company in partnership with Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project. Showing: 20 – 21 May, Guga S’Thebe in Langa at 17:00.         

Space Rocks is a brand new play aimed at audiences between the ages of 4 and 8 years old. It combines science, technology and mythology to create an innovative and playful theatrical experience about early childhood development and emotional growth. Each planet has a gift and a lesson to help them defeat Void and Vortex, who lurk on the edges of the galaxy.

Will JoJo overcome his fear of the dark? Will his big sister let him take the controls? With a blend of mythology and science, this play is about how children learn through play, and find hidden strength within as they take their first steps towards independence. Space Rocks, written by Tamara Schulz and directed by Craig Morris is produced as a joint partnership between DFL and Flying House. Showing: 25 May, Magnet Theatre Observatory at 14:30.

“The Cradle of Creativity provides a unique opportunity for South Africa to share cutting edge theatre for children and young audiences with all our African and international colleagues. It is a significant moment for people who want to understand the power of theatre to educate children” says Warren Nebe, Director of DFL.

DFL’s participation at the 19th ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival will consolidate their position as a global leader in an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to arts for social transformation and healing. 

About DFL

DFL, based at the University of the Witwatersrand, is an arts centre for social transformation and healing. It is dedicated to transforming arts, culture and heritage research, education and practice in Africa. Our commitment toward South Africa is found in our academic, short course and community engagement programmes and projects throughout the country. This commitment is embedded in a belief that the performing arts have the ability to give voice, respect and dignity to all who live in our country. It is the arts that enable us to imagine new narratives and to experience a new consciousness. It is for this reason we are committed to making a meaningful contribution toward the 19th ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival.

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Evolution of spatial epidemiology: From John Snow to Big Data

When: Wednesday, 17 May 2017 - Wednesday, 17 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Room 0016, Bernard Price Building
Start time:13:15

This Geospatial Sciences seminar will be presented by Dr Jabulani Ncayiyana from the Wits School oh of Public Health.

Ncayiyana is a lecturer and epidemiologist at the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Wits School of Public Health. He is an academic coordinator of NIH/Fogarty UNC/Wits AIDS Implementation Research and Cohort Analyses Training Grant. His main research interests are in TB and HIV prevention and control, especially but not exclusively in the areas of implementation research, social determinants of health, spatial and life course epidemiology. Ncayiyana teaches several courses in epidemiology, clinical trials and implementation science.

 

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Decolonising science? The case of human origins research

When: Wednesday, 17 May 2017 - Wednesday, 17 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:18:00

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research will host Christa Kuljian be in discussion with Professor Hlonipha Mokoena.

Kuljian is the author of the acclaimed Darwin’s Hunch: Science, Race and the Search for Human Origins .The discussion will be chaired by Sarah Nuttall. Scientists and their research are often shaped by the prevailing social and political context. Darwin’s Hunch explores this trend, and provides fresh insight on the search for human origins in South Africa over the past century.

Kuljian asks: “What impact did colonialism have on the views of scientists studying human evolution in the early twentieth century? What influence did apartheid have on the search? How have the changing scientific views about race, and racism, affected efforts to understand human evolution?” Mokoena will engage Kuljian in bold, outspoken and forthright discussion on this complicated and contested topic.  

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Resilience, social connectedness and education in challenging contexts

When: Friday, 19 May 2017 - Friday, 19 May 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Staff Lounge, Bohlaleng Block
Start time:13:15
Enquiries:

Matsie.Mabeta@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-3416

Professor Liesel Ebersöhn, from the University of Pretoria, will present on the above topic during the Wits School of Education Research Weekend.

How do teachers keep on teaching and students keep on learning in the presence of on-going poverty? How do they craft their lives to manage chronic adversity and remain in schools to teach and learn with positive outcomes?

 Ebersöhn will argue that, in challenging contexts with continued high structural disparity (comparable to that of South Africa) negative effects on education and well-being can be mitigated by using interventions that support teacher- and student resilience. In particular, such interventions need to be grounded on findings that social connectedness positively impacts on the attainment of positive outcomes, despite on-going contextual hardship.

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Gender, violence and sexuality: Collaborations for social justice in academia, activism and art

When: Tuesday, 23 May 2017 - Tuesday, 23 May 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Resource Centre, School of Public Health
Start time:15:00
RSVP:

Susann.Huschke@wits.ac.za by 17 May 2017

The School of Public Health will host a symposium featuring collaborative projects at the intersection of academia, activism and art.

The symposium will discuss three approaches to research and activism for social justice in the field of gender, violence and sexuality: the Sonke Change Trial in Diepsloot, which aims to challenge and reduce violence against women; the Know My Story project, an arts-based ethnographic study focusing on sex workers’ stories told through photography, art and text; and the Art for Activism approach used by Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action (GALA), including the Queer Crossings project, an arts-based research project with LGBTQ migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.

The symposium will be followed by an art exhibition and book launch featuring images and texts created by sex workers in the Know My Story project. The first 10 guests will receive a free copy of the Know My Story book.

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The crisis in the ANC and the struggle against corruption

When: Wednesday, 31 May 2017 - Wednesday, 31 May 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Research Hub Mwalimu House, Classroom G
Start time:12:30
RSVP:

Phindile.Tsepetsi@wits.ac.za      

The Wits School of Governance will host a conversation with Oupa Lehulere on the above topic.

Lehulere will talk about how monopoly capitalists and their allies in the ANC have corrupted something very precious in South Africa’s history, the proud and militant tradition of struggle for social justice. For over two decades, the ANC has presided over entrenched corruption, which must now be resisted, but that struggle will constitute a whole new historical epoch.

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Dealing with the tribe: the politics of the Bapo/Lonmin royalty-to-equity conversion

When: Friday, 26 May 2017 - Friday, 26 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:8:00
RSVP:

Ntombenhle.Khanyase@wits.ac.za by 19 May 2017

The Society Work and Development Institute (SWOP) will host Stanley Malindi and Gavin Capps to present their work on SWOP’s new research.

These papers document the destruction of work, water, community and livelihoods by the current wave of intensified marketisation, posing the question of alternatives to social crisis.

 

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Female-perpetrated sex abuse: Knowledge, power, and the cultural conditions of victimhood

When: Tuesday, 13 June 2017 - Tuesday, 13 June 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:17:30

Join Dr Sherianne Kramer, psychology lecturer, for the launch of her groundbreaking book into to gender, sexuality and victimhood.

The book examines the cultural conditions of possibility for FSA victimhood as a means to advance contemporary critical understandings of the role of gender and sexuality as instruments of modern power.

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Advocate George Bizos to deliver Nadine Gordimer Lecture

When: Thursday, 18 May 2017 - Thursday, 18 May 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Great Hall, Wits University
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Rechelle.tsunke@wits.ac.za

Cost: Free

Nadine Gordimer – student, writer and activist: Through the eyes of Advocate George Bizos

“The gales of war blew a 13-year-old Greek boy to our shores. He was to become a South African civil rights lawyer of international standing, a devastating cross-examiner of apartheid’s torturers and killers. Long before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was visualized, George Bizos pursued the truth about what was being done to those who suffered under, and had the courage to oppose, a racist regime that turned brutal tyrant. When George Bizos won a case, it was not just a professional victory, it was an imperative of a man whose deep humanity directs his life.” – Nadine Gordimer (1923-2014)

About George Bizos

Advocate George Bizos is a Wits alumnus who read law and graduated in 1954. Already driven by a keen sense of justice, he was active in student politics and served on the SRC. At Wits he began his lifelong friendship with Nelson Mandela, for whom he would later appear as counsel.

Bizos became a specialist in the political trial and appeared in most of the political-related trials from the late 1950s until the end of apartheid. He was a doyen among the ‘human rights lawyers’ and for any person charged with a political offence, Bizos was the first choice as advocate. He was part of the team that defended Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and others in the Rivonia Trial (1963-64) and he defended Albertina Sisulu, Barbara Hogan and other women, particularly those defying the carrying of passes from the mid-1950s onwards. At democratization, he declined to accept judicial office but was appointed by President Mandela to serve on the Judicial Services Commission, which recommended judges.

Bizos has maintained close ties with his alma mater. From 1978 to 1990 he was a member of the Board of Control of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits.  In 1999, Wits awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his contribution to the preservation and advancement of justice. 

Bizos and Gordimer met at Wits in the late 1940s. He was elected to the SRC for four years in a row when Gordimer – although not a registered student at the time – was closely associated with the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Gordimer would often discuss politics with Bizos in his capacity as SRC member as they were involved in the same student struggles. Bizos is Chairperson of The Friends of Nadine Gordimer Committee established in 2015.

About Nadine Gordimer (1923-2014)

Nadine Sylvia Gordimer was a precocious talent who began writing at the age of nine. She published her first story at 15. She was an occasional student at Wits in 1946 when she studied English literature and English language.  In her lifetime she wrote nine collections of short stories, eight novels, two volumes of literary criticism, and several plays for television. Her work was translated into 19 languages.  Virtually all of her works deal with themes of love and politics, particularly concerning race in South Africa.

Wits awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1984 and Gordimer won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. Among many other literary awards, Gordimer received the Chevalier de la  Légion d’Honneur (France) in 2007, which despite not being literary, “recognised perhaps the other side of my life”.

This “other side” was Gordimer’s political activism. She was a member of the ANC, which she worked with often while it was still an illegal organisation.

Gordimer told WITS Review in 2008: “The world thinks the problems began at the end of the 1940s when we invented apartheid, but the problems that we inherited go back centuries, of oppression, of totally unfair education...this backlog from the past, I always kept I mind, that with our wonderful new constitution that we’re so blessed with, you can’t possibly refuse to face the problems we have.”

About the Nadine Gordimer Lecture

This lecture series was inspired by the first round of lectures that Gordimer, with Pippa Stein, organised between 2004 and 2006. These were duly delivered by Susan Sontog (2004), Carlos Fuentos (2005) and Amartya Sen (2006). The lectures discontinued after Stein’s passing in 2006.

When Gordimer died in 2014, 10 friends gathered annually for dinner to pay tribute.  Among the 10 were Colin Smuts and Maureen Isaacson. They were nominated to approach the School of Literature, Language and Media at Wits to resurrect the lectures. Out of this came The Friends of Nadine Gordimer Committee, an NPO of which George Bizos is Chairperson.

“We considered it fitting that George’s status as an outstanding human rights lawyer and his close relationship with Nadine made him the ideal person to give the first lecture,” says Smuts.

The lectures are intended to become an annual series featuring both local and international distinguished speakers. The focus of the lectures will continue to reflect Gordimer's interests.

“She was an activist and had a wide range of interests in which she participated, and therefore we intended continuing with that tradition,” says Smuts.

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Practice changing advances in common cancers (breast and colorectal)

When: Tuesday, 20 June 2017 - Tuesday, 20 June 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
School of Public Health Auditorium, School of Public Health Building
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Antonia.Appel@wits.ac.za or (011) 717-2001

The Wits Faculty of Health Sciences Research Office will host the 15th Prestigious Research Lecture.

The lecture will be presented by Professor Paul Ruff, Head of the Division of Medical Oncology at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital and Dr Georgia Demetriou, lecturer and medical oncologist at the Donald Gordon Medical Centre.

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Family centred early intervention (FCEI) conference

When: Wednesday, 28 June 2017 - Friday, 30 June 2017
Where: Off campus
Rosebank Union Church, Sandton
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Naseema.Hassan@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-3747

The Wits Centre for Deaf Studies will host a conference in infant hearing loss and family support.

The Wits Centre for Deaf Studies will host the Family Centred Early Intervention (FCEI) Conference in Africa, a first of its kind, multidisciplinary, multi-stakeholder conference in the field of infant and child hearing loss. 

Every day 17 babies are born with hearing loss in South Africa and this excludes the number of children who develop hearing loss as a result of meningitis, ear infections or ototoxic medication. Hearing loss is an invisible disability with which most families battle. Family centred early intervention is the gold standard strategy for Deaf and hard of hearing infants and children.

The developing world has a unique face; one that sees the overwhelming burden of poverty and disease consuming the bulk of medical and social services. Hearing loss is consequently not prioritised, resulting in many Deaf children not having opportunities equal to those of their hearing peers.

Themed Creative strategies, programmes and innovations, facilitating the practical implementation and practice of Family Centred Early Intervention in the developing world, the conference aims to explore how FCEI can be introduced in a developing setting through shared ideas, strategies, and commitment to families and children in the field of infant and child hearing loss. 

The conference boasts a cohort of international speakers who will address issues of early brain and language development, literacy development, parent perspectives, deaf infants with multiple disabilities, and many more issues.

More than 18 countries will be represented at the conference. Bobbi Cordano, who is Deaf and President of Gallaudet University in Washington, will present at the pre-conference sessions and deliver the opening address on 29 June 2017, entitled, Successful Deaf & Hard of Hearing Adults …. It begins at Birth.

Award winning Deaf artist, Tommy Motswai, who has graced international stages through his pastel artwork, will exhibit his work. Motswai’s work is sought-after by collectors and is in major public and private collections throughout South Africa, including The Johannesburg Art Gallery, SA National Gallery, and the University of South Africa.

Other acclaimed Deaf attendees include Janie Erasmus, Miss Deaf SA 2015 and winner of the Miss Deaf World 2016 title. Steven Barnett, popularly known as the “Silent Conductor”, will provide entertainment through his amazing music composition skills.

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What does spatial transformation mean? Possibilities for a more equitable, livable Johannesburg

When: Friday, 02 June 2017 - Friday, 02 June 2017
Where: Off campus
Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, 1 Tolip Street, Westdene
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Inolofatseng Lekaba at mtmresearch@zoho.com

The Wits City Institute in collaboration with the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study will host this one day seminar.

What can we learn about the city from the new forms of privatised public space like hipster Maboneng, 44 Stanley, and parts of Braamfontein as well as the increasing number of walled-off micro spaces such as gated complexes, cluster developments, boomed-off areas, 'China' malls and American-style malls?  


This one day seminar consists of four sections: Johannesburg: Critical Concerns ; Rethinking Challenges and Exploring Solutions; a round table discussion between local government officials, scholars, urban developers and an art exhibition and theoretical photo essay on Johannesburg and New Delhi.

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Some moral issues arising from the representations of albinism in African

When: Thursday, 08 June 2017 - Thursday, 08 June 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
LT3, Medical School Building,
Start time:13:00

Dr Elvis Imafidon will deliver a talk on albinism in Africa.

Persons with albinism are often socially represented as disabled, queer and harmful beings by sub-Saharan African indigenous communities, despite the biological facts to the contrary. In this talk, Imafidon will discuss the ethical dimension of, and some immediate and latent moral issues that emerge from, such representations as an essential path to work in seeking for effective solutions to the challenges faced by the African albino population.

 

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What does South Africa’s energy future look like?

When: Tuesday, 13 June 2017 - Tuesday, 13 June 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
The Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:18:00

The Wits Business School will host a public lecture by energy expert Jarrad Wright.

Wright will provide an overview of the energy sector in South Africa and the options available. He will look at the current electricity playing field in the context of the National Development Plan (NDP) and against a backdrop of more recent trends in the sector.

 

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The archaeological technologies of gold mining and processing at Mutanda site

When: Wednesday, 28 June 2017 - Wednesday, 28 June 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
CSMI seminar room, 3rd Floor, Chamber of Mines Building
Start time:15:30
Enquiries:

Pontsho.Ledwaba@wits.ac.za

The Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Research Programme coordinated by the Centre for Sustainability in Mining and Industry (CSMI) will host this presentation.

Njabulo Chipangura, PhD candidate at the Anthropology Department at Wits University will presen the seminar. The seminar will commence with a presentation and then a facilitated discussion in the form of Q&A.

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Planning for water security

When: Tuesday, 06 June 2017 - Tuesday, 06 June 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

The Wits Business School will host a public lecture by Percy Sechemane, Chief Executive Officer of Rand Water.

Sechemane is also a member of the National Planning Commission and leads the task team on water.

In this lecture he will speak about the current water shortages and what can be done to plan for water security, focusing on:

  • Legislative, regulatory and overall policy considerations
  • The water situation in a South African context
  • Enabling water security planning, management and implementation
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Book launch: Critique of black reason

When: Tuesday, 06 June 2017 - Tuesday, 06 June 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WISER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za

Wits University Press and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) will host the launch of Professor Achille Mbembe’s book.

During the lauch of Critique of Black ReasonMbembe will be in conversation with Bongani Madondo, Candice Jansen, Victoria Collis-Buthelezi, Claudia Gastrow and Joshua Walker

 

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Being pragmatic: Examining the foundations of transdisciplinarity for global university challenges

When: Wednesday, 07 June 2017 - Wednesday, 07 June 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
GCI, 5th Floor, University Corner
Start time:15:30
Enquiries:

Brenda.Hendricks@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Brenda.Hendricks@wits.ac.za

The Global Change Institute (GCI) will host a transdisciplinary seminar with Matthew Rich-Tolsma (Principal at RISE Beyond).

This seminar will explore some core philosophical perspectives on transdisciplinarity with reference to Boyer, Nicolescu, and Morin, as well as proponents of critical theory, and critical realism. Rich-Tolsma will pay attention to the pragmatic usefulness (and possible limitations) of transdisciplinarity with reference to the pragmatic perspectives of Mead, Dewey, Elias, and others exploring implications for research, pedagogy, and curriculum in the university.

Rich-Tolsma is also a Chief Learning Officer at TSL Partners.

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Birders of Africa: History of a network

When: Thursday, 15 June 2017 - Thursday, 15 June 2017
Where: Off campus
CISA Committee Room, 36 Jorissen Street, Braamfontein
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

Lerato.Sekele@wits.ac.za 

The Centre for Indian Studies in Africa (CISA) will host historian, Nancy Jacobs from Brown University to present this seminar.

In her unique and unprecedented monograph on birding in Africa, Jacobs reconstructed the collaborations between well-known ornithologists and the largely forgotten guides, hunters, and taxidermists who worked with them.

Drawing on ethnography, scientific publications, private archives, and interviews, Jacobs addressed several questions: How did white ornithologists both depend on and operate distinctively from African birders? What investment did African birders have in collaborating with ornithologists?

By distilling the interactions between European science and African vernacular knowledge, this stunningly illustrated work offers a fascinating examination of the colonial and postcolonial politics of expertise about nature.

 

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What does South Africa’s energy future look like?

When: Tuesday, 13 June 2017 - Tuesday, 13 June 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
The Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

The Wits Business School will host a public lecture by energy expert Jarrad Wright.

South Africa’s energy future is a hot topic. What are our energy priorities? The updated Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) is seriously considering the controversial nuclear option. Is this the way to go?

 In this lecture, Wright will provide an overview of the energy sector in South Africa and the options available.

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Book Launch: Last Night at the Bassline

When: Sunday, 11 June 2017 - Sunday, 11 June 2017
Where: Off campus
Exclusive Books, Rosebank Mall, Rosebank
Start time:10:00
Enquiries:

Savannah Lucas at rsvp@jacana.co.za

RSVP:

Savannah Lucas at rsvp@jacana.co.za

Join Professor David Coplan and Óscar Gutiérrez for the launch of their book, Last Night at the Bassline.

Kaya FM’s Brenda Sisane will be in conversation with the authors and will be broadcasting live from the book launch.

This book lets the reader into the story of how a world of music and a venue that knew no borders, with an anti-xenophobic stance and multiculturalism, opened its doors to patrons of all creeds and musicians from the diaspora such as Louis Mhlanga, Oliver Mtukudzi, Gito Baloi and from the rest of the word while bringing Carlo Mombelli, Abdullah Ibrahim, Dorothy Masuka, Hugh Masekela and many more back into the country.

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Flashes, fragments, and the sound bite in writing ethnography

When: Wednesday, 14 June 2017 - Wednesday, 14 June 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za 

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) will host Susan Levine from the University of Cape Town to present this seminar.

Levine will address the grim and intractable realities of exploitation and poverty on farms in the Western Cape, not by way of an authoritative narrative but by way of a series of ‘flashes’ from her research on child labour in the Cape winelands (1997-2015).

She will focus on the writing of ‘flash ethnography’, a concept that she developed while trying to assemble a coherent analysis of child labour over time. 

Her research spans the period from child slavery at the Cape through to intergenerational forms of labour extraction and exploitation in the neoliberal post-apartheid era. At this stage, Levine’s thinking around the work of ‘flash ethnography’ is preliminary, newly imagined, and open to critique.

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Mapping xenophobic violence in SA

When: Tuesday, 20 June 2017 - Tuesday, 20 June 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
ACMS Seminar Room, SH 2163, South-East Wing, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

ACMS

Dr Alexandra Hiropoulos from the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) will present this seminar.

The seminare will be based on a paper that draws from spatial data on 500 incidents of xenophobic violence between 1994 and 2017, and from Census 2011 and other data to highlight maps of hotspot locations for xenophobic violence and discuss possible causal factors.

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Abuse of dominance as a competition law violation: Is the law a paper tiger?

When: Wednesday, 19 July 2017 - Wednesday, 19 July 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Chalsty Auditorium, Chalsty Centre, School of Law Building
Start time:18:30
Enquiries:

Mandela-Institute-Events@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

 Mandela-Institute-Events@wits.ac.za by 12 July 2017

The Mandela Institute at the Wits School of Law will host a public lecture by Eleanor Fox.

Fox is a Walter J. Derenberg Professor of Trade Regulation at the New York University School of Law and a scholar and teacher of competition law, European Union law, and issues of global governance and economic development. The lecture will explore the reach and bite of abuse of dominance laws around the world, their convergences and divergences. It will reflect on dominant firm strategies both to exclude and to exploit, as well as strategies to innovate and sell more and better goods. 

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International arbitration: Opportunities for South Africa

When: Wednesday, 12 July 2017 - Wednesday, 12 July 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Chalsty Teaching and Conference Centre, School of Law Building
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Mandela-Institute-Events@wits.ac.za

 

The Mandela Institute at Wits will host John Jeffrey, Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development as keynote speaker for this seminar.

The seminar is aimed at practitioners, attorneys and advocates, arbitrators, magistrates, engineers, economists, academics, representatives from commerce and industry, and government.

 

Closing date for registration: 30 June 2017

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Realising the vision for global mental health through primary health care transformation

When: Wednesday, 14 June 2017 - Wednesday, 14 June 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Large Auditorium, Emthonjeni Centre
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Nabeelah.Bemath@wits.ac.za

President of the World Federation for Mental Health, Professor Gabriel Ivbijaro will present this talk.

Ivbijaro will talk about the current trends on mental health and the role of professionals in Primary Mental Health Care. 

This seminar is hosted by the Wits Psychology Department, the South African Depression and Anxiety Group and the Psychological Society of South Africa.

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Publishing in Open Access Academic Journals

When: Thursday, 22 June 2017 - Thursday, 22 June 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Conference Room, 4th Floor Wartenweiler Library
Start time:11:30
Enquiries:

Denise.Nicholson@wits.ac.za / Thuli.Dhlamini@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Denise.Nicholson@wits.ac.za / Thuli.Dhlamini@wits.ac.za

The Wits Library will host a presentation by Sibabalwe Oscar Masinyana, Managing Editor at Taylor & Francis Africa.

Masinyana will talk about publishing in Open Access (OA) academic journals, with particular focus on scam (previously referred to as “predatory”) OA titles.

The presentation will explore the fast changing world of OA journals academic publishing and how it impacts authors, including how to choose an appropriate OA journal; assessing if an OA journal is considered to be a scam title; and exploring the repercussions of publishing in scam OA titles for the individual and the scholarly community.

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Book launch: Rioting and writing: diaries of Wits fallists

When: Thursday, 27 July 2017 - Thursday, 27 July 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Marilyn.Scheepers@wits.ac.za 

RSVP:

Marilyn.Scheepers@wits.ac.za by 16 July 2017

Rioting and Writing: Diaries of Wits Fallists provides a critical analysis of the #FMF movement and will be launched at two venues.

The book draws from its key pillars of Pan Africanism, intersectionality, Black radical feminism and student-worker solidarity. The book will be launched at two venues in a form of a panel discussion with students, academics and community activists.

 First Book launch:

Date: 24 June 2017

Time: 13:00 –15:00

Venue: Morris Isaacson High School Hall, Mphuthi St, Central Jabavu, Soweto

 

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Launch of a report: legislating the National Minimum Wage

When: Wednesday, 28 June 2017 - Wednesday, 28 June 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Club Conference Centre
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Clare Fincham at clare@saslaw.org.za 

How will the national minimum wage fit into our Labour Law?

Dr Shane Godfrey will present on this topic. The negotiations to introduce a national minimum wage are at an advanced stage at Nedlac.

Godfrey and Mario Jacobs from the University of Cape Town’s  Labour and Enterprise Policy Research Group have followed the developments closely and are in the process of finalising a research paper that grapples with how the national minimum wage agreement can best be legislated.

This considers questions of the national minimum wage’s relationship with existing laws, as well as the implications for sectoral determinations and bargaining council agreements. The structure of the legislation will have a strong impact on the success of the national minimum wage.

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Drama for Life Creative Research Hub goes mobile at the National Arts Festival

When: Thursday, 29 June 2017 - Sunday, 09 July 2017
Where: Off campus
Grahamstown
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

zanele.madiba@wits.ac.za

It’s all systems go for Drama for Life as they make their way to the National Arts Festival, the biggest annual celebration of the arts in Africa

The Drama for Life Creative Research Hub, in partnership with the National Arts Festival, will premiere a variety of original, new performances for children, families and older youth, experiential workshops for artists and community-practitioners; and the highly competitive REMIX Laboratory programme for selected community-based theatre practitioners from across South Africa. The REMIX Laboratory offers community-based artists an opportunity to experience the Festival ‘In Residence’ under the guided mentorship and leadership of Drama for Life professionals. 

This year, the Drama for Life Creative Research Hub will be launching its Arts in Conversation series of critical conversations in partnership with National Arts Festival’s THINK!FEST. Facilitated by expert Applied Arts Facilitators, these conversations seek to explore the construction of new performance terrains, methods and content in the South African landscape. The conversations, curated by Drama for Life’s Warren Nebe, will draw together emerging thought leaders and artists to grapple with complex questions about re-imagining the South African arts and culture landscape. Be prepared for engaged, active dialogues that will seek to disrupt the current status quo!

In addition to its home base at the newly renovated Public Library, the Drama for Life Creative Research Hub will reach out to children and youth across the Makana Municipality with applied arts workshops which aim to provide meaningful, playful and informative performances for children, youth and adults

The Drama for Life Creative Research Hub, in partnership with the National Arts Festival will include:

Mainane! - a magical journey, a rite of passage, about a group of children who overcome seemingly insurmountable struggles in a land of on-going strife, anguish and outright conflict.  Mainane! is directed by Warren Nebe and presented by Drama for Life Theatre Company in partnership with Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project. Mainane! will show at the Library Hall daily from 3-8 July at 16h00. The performance on 7 July will be followed by a post-show discussion.

Insta-Grammar – is a heart-wrenching story about speaking and keeping love in the whirlwind of the Instagram and SnapChat era. Insta-Grammar is directed by Hamish Neill in collaboration with the Drama for Life Theatre Company. Insta-Grammar is aimed at 15+ year old and is presented by Drama for Life Theatre Company in partnership with Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project. Insta-Grammar will be performed daily at the Library Hall at 10h00 from 3-8 July with a post-show discussion following the 10h00 show on 4 July.

Space Rocks - a new play aimed at audiences between the ages of 5 and 8 years old. It combines science, technology and mythology to create an innovative and playful theatrical experience about early childhood development and emotional growth. This beautifully crafted play is written by Tamara Schulz and directed by Craig Morris. Space Rocks shows daily from 3-8 July at 13h00, a post-show discussion will be held after the 13h00 performance on 6 July.

Kasi Stories: Stories not Often Told - Kasi Stories asks pertinent questions about the failure of the father figure in the South African context. Kasi Stories: Stories not Often Told is directed by Benjamin Bell and features Lebogang Mphahlele and Thulani Mtsweni. Kasi Stories: Stories not Often Told will show daily at 18h00 from 3-8 July. A post-show discussion will be held after the 18h00 performance on 6 July.

Following last year’s successful REMIX Laboratory programme, Drama for Life will again be offering two Wits accredited short courses in Grahamstown, namely The New Consciousness in Cultural Leadership and The Stories of Identities.

For further information visit the Drama for Life Creative Research Hub at the Library Hall or see the National Arts Festival programme.

About Drama for Life

Drama for Life, based at the University of the Witwatersrand, is an arts centre for social transformation and healing. It is dedicated to transforming arts, culture and heritage research, education and practice in Africa. Our commitment toward South Africa is found in our academic, short course and community engagement programmes and projects throughout the country. This commitment is embedded in a belief that the performing arts have the ability to give voice, respect and dignity to all who live in our country. The arts enable us to imagine new narratives and to experience a new consciousness.

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Over the rainbow: Black studies, black struggle, and the neoliberal turn

When: Tuesday, 27 June 2017 - Tuesday, 27 June 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za 

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) will host a public lecture and presentation by Robin Kelley.

Kelly is a Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at University of California, Los Angeles and the author of Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times and Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. This lecture will link two moments of insurgency on college campuses, mostly in the US but also in other places—those of the 1980s-90s and recent black protests.

The lecture will be introduced by Victoria Collis-Buthelezi and chaired by Bongani Madondo.

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Searching for Africa in America: Some preliminary reflections

When: Thursday, 06 July 2017 - Thursday, 06 July 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za 

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) will host a panel discussion with Professor Robin Kelley from University of California, Los Angeles.

Kelley will offer opening reflections on both historical and contemporary encounters between Africa and America.  His remarks will be followed by a discussion with the panellists which include Professor Achille Mbembe, Victoria Collis-Buthelezi, Mpho Matsipa and Richard Pithouse.

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Book Launch: Grace: A novel by Dr Barbara Boswell

When: Wednesday, 05 July 2017 - Wednesday, 05 July 2017
Where: Off campus
Love Books, Melville
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Barbara.Boswell@wits.ac.za 

Dr Barbara Boswell, Senior Lecturer, in the School of Literature, Language and Media, will launch her book, Grace.

Barbara will be in conversation with Professor Pumla Gqola from the African Literature Department at Wits. The novel deals with gender-based violence.

 

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Sex, art and death: The forensic science of human evolution

When: Tuesday, 11 July 2017 - Tuesday, 11 July 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Origins Centre Museum
Start time:18:30
Enquiries:

bookings.origins@wits.ac.za

Cost: R65 adults/R50 Wits staff/R35 students

The Origins Centre Museum hosts Patrick Randolph Quinney to present this public lecture.

Any science can be forensic when used in the criminal justice system, but now the crime scene investigation skills are being used to study human evolution. This lecture will cover how forensic skills are being applied to deep-time, including how biometrics are being used to investigate who made Palaeolithic cave hand stencils, and how forensic taphonomy was used in the analyses of body disposal by Homo naledi from the Rising Star Cave.

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The Kaleidoscope of Cancer: A survivor’s journey on all sides of the table

When: Thursday, 13 July 2017 - Thursday, 13 July 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Marie Curie Lecture Theatre, Medical School Building
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Irene.Jansevannoordwyk@wits.ac.za /(011) 717-2063

The School of Therapeutic Sciences in the Faculty of Health Sciences will host the annual Albertina Sisuslu Memorial Lecture.

The lecture honours the life and work of Albertina Sisulu - a nurse, humanitarian, activist, and woman of integrity and courage who epitomises the highest ideals of nursing and the health professions.

This year’s lecture will be delivered by Dr Mary Lou Galantino, Distinguished Professor at Stockton University, New Jersey, and Adjunct Scholar and Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Pennsylvania. As a co-survivor, researcher, clinician, and educator in cancer rehabilitation, she will share her point of view from these various vantage points.

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High time for a common integrated African policy on China

When: Thursday, 20 July 2017 - Thursday, 20 July 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:9:30
Enquiries:

Remofiloe Lobakeng at tlobakr@unisa.ac.za

The Africa-China Reporting Project at Wits hosts this symposium with the Institute for Global Dialogue at UNISA and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation.

This symposium will present a platform to critically examine the prospects of a pan-African policy and strategy to guide Africa’s engagement with China, in addition to moderating the implementation of the Johannesburg FOCAC Action Plan.

Speakers at the symposium include Dr Bob Wekesa, Dr Paul Tembe, Sanusha Naidu, as well as representatives from the Chinese Embassy in South Africa and officials from the Department of International Relations and Cooperation.

 

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Radical Economic Transformation and the National Development Plan

When: Thursday, 20 July 2017 - Thursday, 20 July 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits School of Governance
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

mpho.montwedi@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

mpho.montwedi@wits.ac.za

The seventh debate in the OR Tambo Debate series will unpack radical economic transformation and how this translates into the National Development Plan.

The Wits School of Governance, Oliver & Adelaide Tambo Foundation, United Nations Development Programme, and the Department of Planning Monitoring & Evaluation will host the seventh debate in the OR Tambo Debate Series.

This debate will unpack radical economic transformation, exploring the policy implications and how this translates into implementation of the National Development Plan. Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba will give the keynote address, followed by a panel discussion with esteemed panellists Professor Imraan Valodia, Dr Caryn Abrahams, Phuti Mahanyele, and Dr Neva Makgetla.

A question and answer session with the audience will follow the discussion.

 

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Islamic State and Terror: War Without End?

When: Tuesday, 01 August 2017 - Tuesday, 01 August 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

The Wits Business School will host a public lecture by Lord Peter Hain.

The Islamic State (IS) or ‘Daesh’ is the best resourced, most lethal terrorist force in history with a medieval ideology and a capacity to incite attacks worldwide, from Europe and the US to Nigeria and the Philippines. But is current policy in Washington, London, Brussels or Moscow able to defeat it? Is the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, between Sunni and Shia also at fault?

Wits Business School will host a public lecture in which Visiting Adjunct Professor, Peter Hain, the Right Honourable Lord Hain of Neath, will explore issues surrounding the highly complex IS phenomenon, including the capacity for, and implications of, military retaliation.  

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Algebra and dynamics of ultrafilters

When: Wednesday, 30 August 2017 - Wednesday, 30 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Michelle.Gallant@wits.ac.za

Professor Yuliya Zelenyuk will present her inaugural lecture on the above topic.

The operation of a discrete semigroup S extends to the Stone-Cech compactification beta S of S so that the left translations by elements of S and all right translations are continuous. The points of beta S are taken to be the ultrafilters on S, the principal ultrafilters being identified with the points of S. The semigroup beta S is interesting both for its own sake and for its applications to Ramsey theory and to topological dynamics. The first example of such application was the proof of Hindman's Theorem. It says that whenever the set N of natural numbers is finitely colored, there is an infinite subset A of N such that the set FS(A) of all finite sums of distinct elements of A is monochrome. He will give a brief introduction to beta S and present some new results.

 

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Book launch: The truth about crime - sovereignty, knowledge, social order

When: Thursday, 27 July 2017 - Thursday, 27 July 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

info.witspress@wits.ac.za

 

RSVP:

info.witspress@wits.ac.za

 

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research and Wits University Press will host the launch of a book by anthropologists Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff.

In this book, the two make a startling but entirely convincing claim about our times: it is not by our arts, our politics, or our science that we understand ourselves – it is by our crimes.

With special attention to South Africa’s struggle to build a democracy founded on the rule of law, they sweep outward to survey an astonishing range of forms of crime and policing, from petty thefts to the multibillion-dollar scams of too-big-to-fail financial institutions. Looking at recent transformations in the triangulation of capital, the state, and governance that have led to an era where crime and policing are ever more complicit, they offer a powerful meditation on new forms of sovereignty, citizenship, class, race, law, and political economy of representation – even the production of truth – that have arisen in the late modern world.

The book will be launched in a form of a panel discussion, chaired by Professor Hlonipha Mokoena. Speakers include Professors Achille Mbembe and Keith Breckenridge and the authors will be the respondents.

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Obesity in Africa: From epidemiology to cell biology

When: Tuesday, 01 August 2017 - Tuesday, 01 August 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Marie Curie Lecture Theatre
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

rechelle.tsunke@wits.ac.za 

Professor Nigel Crowther's inaugural lecture will shed light on obesity in Africa.

He will give an overview of the epidemiology of obesity in Africa and its relationship with other non-communicable diseases. The possible mechanisms by which excess adiposity leads to disease, and the molecular processes involved in the accumulation of lipids within fat cells will also be discussed.

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CANSA fun walk

When: Wednesday, 02 August 2017 - Wednesday, 02 August 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Ayanda.Bendile@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-3372

The Centre for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine (CESSM) is hosting a fun 2.5 and 5 km walk/run for CANSA awareness.

The goal of the walk is also to make individuals aware of the importance and benefits of regular exercise. There will be food and refreshments on sale as well as spot prize giveaways. Everyone is encouraged to donate any old sports clothing, shoes and/or donations in support for Cancer awareness.

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Research and conservation of large carnivores in South Africa

When: Thursday, 03 August 2017 - Thursday, 03 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
OLS 4, Oppenheimer Life Sciences Building
Start time:18:30
Enquiries:

Tamelyne.Vantonder@wits.ac.za or (011) 717-6403

RSVP:

Tamelyne.Vantonder@wits.ac.za or (011) 717-6403

Cost: R50

The School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences will host this alumni event which showcases recent developments in biology.

Dr Gus Mills will present this event. Mills spent 40 years conducting research on African large carnivores with SANParks in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier and Kruger National Parks. He was the founder of the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Carnivore Conservation Group and is a senior member of several International Union for Conservation of Nature Carnivore Specialist Groups.

 

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Book launch: Crossing the divide: precarious work and the future of labour

When: Tuesday, 08 August 2017 - Tuesday, 08 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Club
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Karin.Pampallis@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Karin.Pampallis@wits.ac.za

Join the editors of this book and Jane Barrett for a conversation about the book.

Worker vulnerability induced by neoliberal globalisation is affecting an increasing number of workers around the world. Crossing the Divide: Precarious Work and the Future of Labour (edited by Edward Webster and Akua Britwum) compare precarious work in India, Ghana and South Africa. The book shows how innovative organisational strategies are emerging in the Global South to bridge the widening divide between the formal and informal economies. 

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Creative hubs of coloniality in the South

When: Thursday, 10 August 2017 - Thursday, 10 August 2017
Where: Off campus
CISA Committee Room, 36 Jorissen Street, Braamfontein
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

info.cityinstitute@wits.ac.za 

The Wits City Institute and the Centre for Indian Studies (CISA), will host a seminar by Laura Burocco, Visiting Fellow at the Wits City Institute.

Burocco will present part of the findings of her doctoral project, which compares the Creative District in Rio de Janeiro and the Maboneng Precinct in Johannesburg as two new creative hubs in the South.

 

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Dissent: Ruth First Memorial Lecture

When: Thursday, 17 August 2017 - Thursday, 17 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Dorothy Susskind Auditorium
Start time:18:30
Enquiries:

ruthfirst2017@gmail.com

RSVP:

ruthfirst2017@gmail.com by Friday, 11 August 2017

Wits Journalism hosts the 16th annual Ruth First Memorial Lecture.

This year, as South Africans grapple with issues of dissent, discipline and loyalty, the event presents a panel discussion with some of those who have been most outspoken in recent months.

Speakers include: Dr Makhosi Khoza, Professor Raymond Suttner, Mbali Ntuli and Thandeka Gqubule

 

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Russian Film Festival

When: Thursday, 27 July 2017 - Friday, 04 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Apollonia Theatre ,2nd Floor, Wits School of Arts
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Pervaiz.Khan@wits.ac.za  

Cost: Free

The Wits School of Arts Film & TV Division and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation present the Russian Film Festival.

Seven new Russian films will be screened during the film festival as follows:

Battalion (drama, war film, historical; 120 min); Thursday, 27 July 2017, 17:30 
Friday (comedy; 87 min); Friday, 28 July 2017, 17:30 
Icebreaker (drama , disaster film; 120 min); Saturday, 29 July 2017, 13:30 
Pure Art (crime, thriller; 93 min); Saturday, 29 July 2017, 16:30 
Collector (drama film; 74 min); Wednesday, 2 August 2017, 17:30 
Good boy (comedy; 95 min); Thursday, 3 August 2017, 17:30 
Earthquake (drama, disaster film; 102 min); Friday, 4 August 2017, 17:30

 

Russian Film Festival

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National Science Week

When: Monday, 07 August 2017 - Friday, 11 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Amic Deck and Wits Theatre
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

Dr Ian Mckay at 011-717-6667

Wits will again participate in National Science Week, a week-long annual nationwide celebration of science, technology, mathematics and innovation.

National Science Week

This year’s national theme is “Advancing Science Tourism” and has been chosen because the United Nations declared 2017 as the “International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development”. In South Africa, science tourism is developing fast and being fueled even further by new discoveries being made annually, such as those made by Wits palaeoscientists in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site near Johannesburg.

This year Wits will again target university students and school learners as the key stakeholders in NSW. Academics and student societies play a huge role in promoting awareness of and engagement in issues surrounding science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). They can also promote key STEM subjects to school students, encouraging them to become the drivers of future innovation.

Why National Science Week?

Internationally, the capacity that a country has for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) is considered a critical factor in contributing to its prosperity and a sustainable environment. It is therefore important that society in general, values and appreciates the role that science and technology have to play in its present and future well-being.

Developed by the DST, the National Science Week programme in South Africa is a week-long annual nationwide celebration of science, technology, mathematics and innovation.

Wits National Science Week Programme (7- 11 August 2017)

An online Wits Science Survey and Competition where Wits students have their say about science STI related issues from 31 July - 21 August. 

 

Special tours of the Science and Engineering laboratories for high school learners who will interact with postgraduate students studying science and engineering, watch them perform experiments, and ask them questions about what it is like to study in these disciplines, what subjects they need to take at school and prospective career opportunities in these fields.

  • Daily tours
  • Time: 08:00 – 09:00 (meet); 09:00 – 11:00 (tours)
  • Venue: Start from the Amic Deck parking lot (by the Origins Centre), Braamfontein Campus West

A “Wits Science Slam Competition” where Wits postgraduate science, engineering and health sciences students present their research in 10 minutes to the visiting learners. School learners will be asked to vote for the best presentation. Each day a finalist will be chosen and at the end of the week the best presenters have a “slam off”!

  • Daily
  • Time: 11:30 – 13:00
  • Venue: Wits Theatre, Braamfontein Campus East

Prizes (laptops and tablets) are up for grabs for participants and voters in the science slam and online competition

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Book discussion: Pharmocracy - value, politics, and knowledge in global biomedicine

When: Wednesday, 02 August 2017 - Wednesday, 02 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za 

The Medical Humanities at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) will host a discussion on Professor Kaushik Sunder Rajan’s book.

Rajan (University of Chicago) will be in conversation with Julia Hornberger (Anthropology, Wits) and the discussion will be chaired by Professor Achille Mbembe.

Continuing his pioneering theoretical explorations into the relationships among biosciences, the market, and political economy, Rajan introduces the concept of pharmocracy to explain the structure and operation of the global hegemony of the multinational pharmaceutical industry.

His case studies from contemporary India demonstrate the precarious situation in which pharmocracy places democracy, as India’s accommodation of global pharmaceutical regulatory frameworks pits the interests of its citizens against those of international capital. Rajan’s insights into this dynamic make clear the high stakes of pharmocracy’s intersection with health, politics, and democracy.

 

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Not our sovereign selves: Dis-ease and the great African family of humankind

When: Thursday, 03 August 2017 - Thursday, 03 August 2017
Where: Off campus
CISA Committee Room, 36 Jorissen Street, Braamfontein
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

lerato.sekele@wits.ac.za 

The Centre for Indian Studies (CISA) will host a seminar by Nora-Lee Wales from the Department of English, University of Johannesburg.

Human genetics and the Out of Africa theory have been a boon for non-racialist discourse in that human unity, biologically speaking, is readily made to stand for political and social unity. Consequently, history is subsumed by nature and humankind is assured. But what a genetic perspective of the human also reveals is that we are not our sovereign selves. In this seminar, Wales will discuss three chapters in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible (2001) in which Africa as the origin, is rethought in light of an undoing of self and family.

 

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Is foreign aid relevant to sub-Saharan Africa’s needs?

When: Tuesday, 08 August 2017 - Tuesday, 08 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
SEBS Seminar Suite, 1st Floor, New Commerce Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

siyabonga.molaba@wits.ac.za

The School of Economic and Business Sciences (SEBS) hosts Dr Nyasha Mahonye to present this research seminar.

The seminar will be based on a paper which re-visits the important question on the relevance of foreign aid to Africa. Specifically, we sought to enquire whether foreign disbursed aid to selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa matches or is relevant to their prevailing socio-economic and political needs? The analytical approach of the paper is descriptive and qualitative in nature. The relevance of aid received to social, economic and other special circumstances is a strand that has been hugely neglected by the empirical research in development economics.

The findings show that military oligarchies, competitive-one-party systems and personal dictatorships are amongst the highest recipients of foreign aid in selected countries in Africa. Also, the explorations appear to show some mismatches in the distribution of aid and socioeconomic needs. These findings have important implications for policy in sub-Saharan Africa economies. There is a need to carefully assess the current needs of countries before committing and disbursing foreign aid. Donors ought to review agreed terms on foreign aid especially in the event of changing economic or social circumstances such as the occurrence of droughts, natural disasters, or disease outbreaks to name just a few.

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The hazards of singlehanded sailing

When: Thursday, 31 August 2017 - Thursday, 31 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

The inaugural lecture of Professor Michael Titlestad will consider three sea voyages.

These are the; Donald Crowhurst’s participation in the round-the-world Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968; Bas Jan Ader’s 1975, In search of the miraculous; and, the fictional voyage in Robert Stone’s Outerbridge Reach (1992). Each of the three interleaves geographic and written passages, yet, rather than the ethos of craft we identify with nautical expertise, we are called to imagine or trace the loss of the sailors’ existential anchors and their eventual deaths.

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BBC World Questions: South Africa

When: Thursday, 10 August 2017 - Thursday, 10 August 2017
Where: Off campus
The Market Theatre, Newtown, Johannesburg
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

BBC

RSVP:

Follow this link to register: https://www.eventsforce.net/britishcouncil/frontend/reg/tRegisterEmailNew.csp?pageID=477278&_ga=2.6243440.250415616.1501592246-398913721.1501592246&eventID=980&tempPersonID=532774&eventID=980 

The BBC World Service programme World Questions comes to South Africa next month at a crucial time in the country's history.

Opposition parties have pushed for a vote of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma, and later in the year, the ANC will vote who will replace him as party leader. Which direction will South Africa take?

BBC presenter Nancy Kacungira, a panel of leading politicians and a live audience will be in Johannesburg on August 10th to discuss the major issues facing South Africans now - social and economic transformation, black economic empowerment, corruption, land redistribution - and of course, the future leader of the ANC. Our panel comprises of  Sihle Zikalala of the ANC, Leigh-Ann Mathys of the EFF, Wits Vice-Chancellor and Prinicpal, Professor Adam Habib and Sipho Pityana, businessman and convenor of the Save South Africa campaign.

More information: https://www.britishcouncil.org.za/events/bbc-world-questions-public-debate 

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Genetic testing simplified

When: Thursday, 10 August 2017 - Thursday, 10 August 2017
Where: Off campus
Division of Human Genetics, National Health Laboratory Service, Ground Floor, Watkins Pitchford Building, Cnr Hospital & De Korte Streets, Braamfontein
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

noelene@gcnet.co.za

The Division of Human Genetics at Wits will host a seminar presented by Dr Swaroop Aradhya.

Aradhya is a board-certified molecular geneticist and cytogeneticist who has helped shape professional practices and technology applications in clinical genetic testing over the past 15 years. He joined Invitae to help bring genetics into mainstream medicine by innovating laboratory technologies, fostering advances in evidence-based clinical standards, and building mechanisms to empower individuals globally to access their genetic information.

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Socialising the genome

When: Thursday, 10 August 2017 - Thursday, 10 August 2017
Where: Off campus
Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Seminar Room, The Mount, 9 Jubilee Road, Parktown
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

noelene@gcnet.co.za

The Division of Human Genetics at Wits and the GC NETWORK, (Pty) Ltd. hosts this public lecture by Dr Anna Middleton.

Middleton, Head of Society and Ethics Research Group, Wellcome Genome Campus, Cambridge, UK will explore ethical, legal and social issues raised by genomics in this lecture. She will discuss her research and endeavours to turn genomics from (what is for many) an anti-social concept (‘I won’t understand it’, ‘I didn’t do science at school’) to a more social concept. Her approach to research is grounded in her clinical experience of working directly with families in the NHS as a genetic counsellor.   

 

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Book launch: The rise of Africa’s middle class: myths, realities and critical engagements

When: Thursday, 10 August 2017 - Thursday, 10 August 2017
Where: Off campus
Seminar Room 1-09, Old College House, Hatfield Campus, University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Start time:15:00
Enquiries:

Cecelia.Samson@up.ac.za

Wits University Press and the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria will launch this new book by by Henning Melber.

Rise of Africa’s Middle Class: Myths, realities and critical engagements, is authored by Henning Melber, Senior Research Associate at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden. Melber will also participate in the panel discussion on  social transformations in contemporary Africa with Professor Barney Pityana (former Vice Chancellor, University of South Africa); Professor Grace Khunou (Department of Sociology, University of Johannesburg); Max Boqwana (CEO, Thabo Mbeki Foundation) and Dr Jason Musyoka (Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria).

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Movement physiology research laboratory launch

When: Wednesday, 16 August 2017 - Wednesday, 16 August 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Exercise Physiology Lab, 6th Floor Wits Medical School,
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

David.Goble@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

David.Goble@wits.ac.za

The Movement Physiology Research Laboratory is relaunching its newly renovated laboratory.

Past, present and future research will be showcased and celebrated at the launch. The guest speaker is Stephen Cook, former Protea’s batsman, who will be speaking on his time in the national side and will give insight into the training regimes of players and how South Africa compares to other national sides in that respect.

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Postgraduate Recruitment Fair

When: Tuesday, 15 August 2017 - Tuesday, 15 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Science Stadium
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

rechelle.tsunke@wits.ac.za 

Learn more about what's on offer for postgraduates at Wits.

All current 3rd and 4th years, Honours, Masters and PhD students who are interested in registering for Honours, Masters and PhD degrees and Postdoctoral Fellowships in 2018 are invited to attend. 

The event is hosted by the Deputy Vice- Cahncellor for Research and Postgraduate Affairs, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi and the Director of Postgraduate Affairs, Professor Neil Coville.

 

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Is it time to free the apartheid archives

When: Thursday, 24 August 2017 - Thursday, 24 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

Gabriele.Mohale@wits.ac.za  / (011) 717-1940

The History Workshop and the Historical Papers Research Archive at Wits,  together with Section 27 and Pari will host a colloquium on apartheid archives.

Titled: Is it time to free the Apartheid era archives? Promoting Open and transparent public record keeping for a democratic South Africa, the colloquium aims to create public awareness about the urgent need for an open and transparent regulation of the records of the Apartheid era and to promote initiatives in the interest of sound public record keeping.

Archives and Democracy

Programme

09:00 – 09:15: Welcome Note

Professor Zeblon Vilakazi; Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Postgraduate Affairs)

09:15 – 10:00:  Apartheid Era Archives: Understanding the context ( Keynote Address)

Presenters: Ronnie Kasrils, ANC/MK Veteran and former Minister of Intelligence;  Yasmin Sooka, Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights

Facilitator: Professor Noor Nieftagodien, Head of the History Workshop at Wits

10:30 – 11:30: Archives and transparency: Why access matters

Presenters: Henne van Vuuren (Open Secrets) on Navigating the obstacles to access; Marjorie Jobson (Khulumani Support Group) on Human right to the truth and archives and Christine Reddell (CER & Access to Information Network) on the Shadow Report 2016

Facilitator: Maggie Davey 

11:30 – 13:00: State of the archives: How public is public record keeping?

Presentation by a representative from the National Archives, Joel Pearson (Public Affairs Research Institute) on Document wars in local municipality archives and Toerien van Wyk (South African National Archives) on Access to classified records through PAIA

Facilitator: Ivor Chipkin, Executive Director at PARI

14:00 – 15:30:  The law and open archives: Contributions from Germany and South Africa

Presenters: Gerd Rüdiger Stephan (Deputy Director of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and Head of the Archive section on The Stasi Act & Archives, Janet Cherry and Gabriele Mohale on the TRC recommendations relating to State archival records and reflections by a former researcher for the TRC, and Emma Webber (Victoria Mxenge Group of Advocates) on The limits of the Law: the use of PAIA in challenging access

Facilitator: Gabriele Mohale (Archivist at the Historical Papers Research Archive)

16:00 – 17:00: Panel Discussion – Agenda for openness: How do we liberate the archives?

Panelists: Hennie van Vuuren, author of of Apartheid, Guns and Money: A Tale of Profit Karabo Rajuili, The amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism; Dale McKinley, Right2Know and Ferial Haffajee, Huffington Post South Africa

Facilitator: Mark Heywood (Executive Director at Section 27)

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Segregation, security, and surveillance: lessons on “local” and “global” from a divided city

When: Wednesday, 16 August 2017 - Wednesday, 16 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

info.cityinstitute@wits.ac.za

The Wits City Institute hosts this discussion by Professor Jean Allman, a Wits City Institute Mellon Visiting Professor.

Allman is the J.H Hexter Professor in the Humanities and Director at the Centre for the Humanities, Washington University, and runs the Divided Cities programme in St Louis. Allman’s research and published work engages 19th and 20th Century African history, with a focus on gender, colonialism, nation, and the post-colonial state. She currently co-edits, with Allen Isaacman and Derek Peterson, the New African Histories book series at Ohio University Press.

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Unlocking non-traditional data for risk analytics

When: Thursday, 17 August 2017 - Thursday, 17 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Room 112, The Liberty Actuarial Auditorium ,1st floor, Mathematical Sciences Laboratory Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-6272

Rendani Mbuvha from the Wits Actuarial Science Department will present this Actuarial Sciences Seminar.

With recent advances in computing, data gathering and storage, more data has become available to the actuary than ever before. It is incumbent on the modern actuary to extract meaningful strategic value from such data.

This seminar aims to provide practical ways for incorporating non-traditional data such as text and images to enhance our understanding of actuarial and financial risks.

The seminar will begin by introducing foundational concepts and rationale behind machine learning pipelines. Details on how to extract meaningful features (rating factors) from text and images for use in predictive models will then be discussed. This will then be motivated by practical examples of using convolutional neural networks on dashcam images to detect distracted drivers and predicting stock market movements using GLMs trained on bag-of-words features.

 

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Poetry Reading: Caves

When: Wednesday, 16 August 2017 - Wednesday, 16 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Origins Centre Museum
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

origins.events@lists.wits.ac.za 

Italian poet and writer Gabriele Tinti will present the poetry reading, Caves, which is the result of his veneration for images.

He has composed a series of poems inspired by pre-historic art. The reading comes within the writer’s overall project focusing on the masterpieces of the ancient world and prehistoric art. Besides reciting his ekphrastic poems in English, Tinti will show some video of readings of his verses that actors did in some of the most famous Museums worldwide like MET, LACMA, Getty Museum. His poems have been performed by actors like Joe Mantegna, Michael Imperioli, Burt Young, Alessandro Haber, Robert Davi, Vincent Piazza and Franco Nero. His work focuses on the subject of death and suffering and is mainly composed in the form of lucid and epigrammatic poetry. The humanity sung in his writings is the dramatic life of boxers, suicides, defeated heroes and the disabled.

The event, organised by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Pretoria in collaboration with the Origins Centre and the University of the Witwatersrand, will also see the participation of South African actors Tony Kgoroge, renowned worldwide for his acting roles in Hotel Rwanda (2004), Invictus (2009), Blood Diamond (2006) and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013), and Renos Spanoudes, well-known actor on the local TV and theatre circuits.

 

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Mmusi Maimane on economic transformation

When: Thursday, 17 August 2017 - Thursday, 17 August 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits School of Governance
Start time:18:30
Enquiries:

Neil.Kasselman@governanceinnovation.org

RSVP:

Neil.Kasselman@governanceinnovation.org

The Wits School of Governance will host a public lecture by Mmusi Maimane, leader of the Democratic Alliance.

Maimane will talk speak to the development of a clear vision for the economic future of South Africa.

Professor Lorenzo Fioramonti will provide a commentary based on the research conducted for his book Wellbeing Economy: Success in a World Without Growth, and Professor David Everatt will moderate the event.

 

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Imperatives of the SDGs/2030 agenda and implications for the evaluation function for Africa

When: Friday, 18 August 2017 - Friday, 18 August 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Investec Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Mokgophana.Ramasobana@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Mokgophana.Ramasobana@wits.ac.za

The Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results Anglophone Africa will host a panel discussion as part of a two-week course in development evaluation.

The spirit of the macro development strategies (2030 Agenda for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union Agenda 2063) is “all hands on deck”- but are we setting ourselves up for failure by not addressing country-level strategies and responses with more than just rhetoric?

Panellists include: Dr Sukai Sukai Prom-Jackson (Inspector: Joint Inspection Unit of the United Nations System); Professor Zenda Ofir (Independent International Evaluator); Adelaide Sibanda (African Evaluation Association President); Dr Ian Goldman (Deputy Director General: Department of Monitoring and Evaluation).

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Trumpism and the state of American politics

When: Monday, 21 August 2017 - Monday, 21 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, Southwest Engineering Building
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

janecherrytree@gmail.com 

RSVP:

janecherrytree@gmail.com by 18 August 2017

The Sociology and International Relations Departments at Wits will host this democratic Marxism public lecture by Professor Vivek Chibber.

Trumpism is a neo-fascist populism articulated with racism, patriarchy and religious conservatism that is anti-state, pro-plutocracy and a chauvinistic nationalism wanting to make the US great again. What does this mean for America and the world?

Chibber is a Professor of Sociology at New York University. is the author of Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in India and in 2013 he published Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital which triggered a wide-ranging debate on social theory and the Global South.

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Why do we need wealth tax?

When: Monday, 21 August 2017 - Monday, 21 August 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, WBS
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za  or (011) 717-3617

RSVP:

Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za  or (011) 717-3617

The Wits Business School and the Wits School of governance will host this discussion with Judge Dennis Davis.

Slow economic growth, worsening unemployment figures and a persistent inequality gap beg the question: What role can our tax system play in addressing these challenges? Policy makers in a number of countries, including South Africa, are considering how wealth taxes can assist in addressing the unacceptable levels of inequality in our society.

The Davis Tax Committee, led by Judge Dennis Davis, has called on the public to make submissions on wealth taxes. Wits Business School (WBS) and the Wits School of Governance (WSG) will host a discussion with Judge Dennis Davis, serving Judge of the High Court in South Africa, Professor Imraan Valodia, the Dean of the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management and Pundy Pillay, Professor of Economics and Public Finance and Research Director at WSG, on the imperative to address inequality in South Africa and the role of taxes, especially wealth taxes, within the economy.

Hilary Joffe, editor-at-large at Business Day, will facilitate the discussion.

 

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A new movement landscape in South Africa? Repetition and innovation

When: Friday, 25 August 2017 - Friday, 25 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Gugulethu.Mabena1@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Gugulethu.Mabena1@wits.ac.za  by 22 August 2017

The Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at Wits will host this breakfast seminar by Professor Karl von Holdt and and Dr Prishani Naidoo.

This semester SWOP returns to old themes with fresh eyes. Is there something new emerging in the field of movements and popular politics, or are we repeating old patterns? Whiteness is associated with domination – so what does it mean when poor whites struggle for survival in a black shack settlement?

 

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Equity and access in health: Shared responsibilities

When: Tuesday, 12 September 2017 - Tuesday, 12 September 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
School of Public Health Auditorium
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Samkelo.Nsibande@wits.ac.za  / (011)717-2190

RSVP:

Samkelo.Nsibande@wits.ac.za  by 6 September 2017

The Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics at Wits hosts the annual Steve Biko Bioethics Lecture in commemoration of the anti-apartheid activist.

This year marks 40 years since the passing of Steve Biko.  Dr Gwen Ramokgopa, Gauteng Health MEC will present the lecture followed by a panel discussion. Panelists include: Professor Bernard van Rensburg (Psychiatry Faculty Member); Lucas Mogwerane (Family Committee Representative); Rubina Valodia (Chair of Wits Students’ Bioethics Society) and Professor Martin Veller (Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences).

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Guest Lecture on Economics Curriculum Reform

When: Tuesday, 22 August 2017 - Tuesday, 22 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
SEBS Seminar Suite, 1st floor, New Commerce Building
Start time:15:00
Enquiries:

zinhle.kubheka@wits.ac.za 

The School of Economic and Business Sciences will host this guest lecture by Professors Wendy Carlin and Sam Bowles. 

Wendy Carlin is a Professor of Economics at University College London (UCL) and Sam Bowles is a Professor of Economics at the Sante Fe Institute. Bowles was part of the team approached by Martin Luther King Jr. to write background papers for the 1968 Poor People's March in the USA.  Later, in the mid 1990’s Nelson Mandela invited Professor Bowles to be part of South Africa’s post-apartheid Labour Market Commission, which aimed at eradicating the legacy of apartheid in SA's labour markets.

Carlin and Bowles are spearheading an international project named CORE, which aims to improve the way that economics is taught, particularly at undergraduate level. Carlin has pithily described CORE as seeking to teach economics “as if the last three decades had happened”.

Ahmed Bawa, CEO, of Universities South Africa, the body that represents South Africa’s 26 public universities will deliver the opening remarks.

Dr Kenneth Creamer, a lecturer at the Wits School of Economic and Business Sciences, who was instrumental in arranging the visit by Carlin and Bowles, believes that “efforts at economics curriculum reform should be locally driven by staff and students, but such efforts will benefit greatly if they are also informed by global best practice.” 

“As we enrich our South African economics teaching with local data sets, South African-specific case studies and our context’s pressing policy questions, we should also ensure that South African students and academics take part in global discussions on the role and future of economics as a discipline. An improved economics curriculum will ensure that we train technically-competent economists who are also empowered to undertake better research and drive economic policy transformation to address growth and inequality issues in South Africa,” argues Creamer.

This lecture is co-hosted by the Wits School of Economic and Business Sciences (SEBS) and the SEBS Student Council.

More information on the global Economics Curriculum Reform initiative which is being led by  Carlin and Bowles is available via http://www.core-econ.org/




 

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Cures and side effects: feminist reform and law in India

When: Wednesday, 23 August 2017 - Wednesday, 23 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za

The Governing Intimacies Project at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) will host this seminar by Professor Srimati Basu.

This talk considers the promise of governance feminism to be a primary remedy to address gender inequality and gender violence. There was extensive legal reform of marriage and gendered violence in 1980’s India in the wake of prominent feminist advocacy, including lawyer-free Family Courts, the criminal prosecution of domestic violence, rape law reform, and the promotion of alternate dispute resolution as a mode of better gendered access.

But as these reforms became law and worked themselves into culture, they were adapted in ways not imagined as part of their feminist scope – daughters sign away inheritance shares, Family Courts proffer reconciliation as optimal solution, rape law secures marriage by evacuating consent as a criterion; domestic violence claims help with better economic settlements while rendering violence invisible. Conflicts also emerged between feminist groups around problems of framing vulnerability, harm and protection.

In this talk, Basu will trace some legal trajectories and ethnographic examples of incorporating feminist reform within the Indian State in the areas of marriage, property and violence, laying out persistent tensions as well as fundamental contradictions around meanings of gender and justice.

Basu is Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Anthropology at the University of Kentucky, working on law, marriage, and violence.

 

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Statistical modelling for practical problems

When: Thursday, 24 August 2017 - Thursday, 24 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Room 112, 1st Floor, The Liberty Actuarial Auditorium, Mathematical Sciences Laboratory Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

 

Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-6272

 

 

 

The School Of Statistics and Actuarial Science will host this seminar to be presented by Wits Emeritus Professor, Paul Fatti.

In this seminar,  Fatti will discuss the power of statistics for tackling practical problems over a wide range of fields, in which measurement and data play a key role and uncertainty is generally present. After defining what practical statistical research is, and is not, he will discuss some useful techniques to apply when approaching a problem for the first time. His talk will be illustrated using two contrasting problems from his personal experience, the first from the steel industry and the second concerning valuation models for property pricing.

 

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The reading seminar on political theology

When: Thursday, 24 August 2017 - Thursday, 24 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:9:30
Enquiries:

Lerato.Podile@wits.ac.za 

The next Transforming Humanities through Interdisciplinary Knowledge reading seminar will tackle political theology.

It is difficult to think about the political imagination, discourse and practice of our time without engaging a vocabulary that would seem to belong properly to the domain of religion.

Spirit, faith, devotion, sacrifice, prophecy, sin and redemption are all staple terms of political rhetoric even in states underwritten by steadfastly secular constitutions.

While some have noted a palpable ‘re-enchantment’ of a secularized world, others have argued that even the most ardently secular or ‘modernist’ political philosophies (such as democratic liberalism, socialism, communism) have always been constituted in relation to the very same religious precepts and institutions that they purport to distinguish themselves from. 

In short, the distinction between politics and religion has always been difficult to sustain, even as political movements or parties informed by explicitly religious ideologies seek to collapse them (one thinks, for example of the Islamic State, Boko Haram, the BJP in India, the National Front in France, the so-called Tea Party in the USA).

In Africa, the theology of politics reflects the distinctive institutional and ideological legacies of Islam and Christianity, with the latter more firmly bound up with the European colonial project and its aftermath. But these legacies are inextricably entangled with a multiplicity of other and older ways of imagining a transcendent, dynamic moral order, the powers that animate it, and the modes of ritual knowledge and practice that enable political subjects to act effectively within and upon it.  

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BLNK special screening

When: Tuesday, 29 August 2017 - Tuesday, 29 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WSoA, 2nd Floor, Apollonia Lecture Theatre
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Pervaiz.Khan@wits.ac.za 

The Wits School of Arts (WSoA) Film and TV Division presents the screening of BLNK to mark the 70th anniversary of the Indian independence.

Multi-award winning Garam Hawa was the first Indian film to deal openly with the effects of the partitioning of India and Pakistan which resulted in the displacement of millions.

Garam Hawa, initially banned, tells the moving story of a Muslim family in Agra during the period following partition. Factory owner Salim Mirza, brilliantly played by Balraj Sahni, choses to remain in India but struggles with the effects of his decision on him and those he loves.

The film was scored by the great Bengali classical musician Ustad Bahadur Khan. The screening will be followed by discussion with Professor Srila Roy (Sociology) & Pervaiz Khan (WSoA)

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Southern Centre for Inequality Studies seminar

When: Thursday, 14 September 2017 - Thursday, 14 September 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
CB248B, Robert Sobukwe Block
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Kim.Jurgensen@wits.ac.za

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies hosts a seminar with Professor Ravi Kanbur, on inequality, citizenship, migration and opportunity.

Kanbur is the T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs, International Professor of Applied Economics and Management, and Professor of Economics, Cornell University. The seminar will cover three interconnected issues.

The first is the role of development finance institutions, such as the World Bank for middle income countries - is there still a place for international financial aid? Secondly, what role does migration play in development for middle income countries, and should the borders of rich countries be more open to economic migrants than they currently are?

Finally, how does the discussion around the equality of opportunity within developing countries translate to equality of opportunity in a global perspective?

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Student Entrepreneurship Week

When: Monday, 28 August 2017 - Thursday, 31 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Tshimologong Precinct and the Transnet Matlafatso Centre
Start time:10:00
Enquiries:

Sibongile.Horo@wits.ac.za or www.witsew.co.za

Cost: Free

Themed iEntrepreneur, the week aims to raise awareness of entrepreneurship as a career.

Unemployment among the youth of South Africa has reached an ‘all time high’ and young people need to step out and make their own way in the economy. This is according to various stakeholders at Wits University involved in entrepreneurship.

In response to this imperative, Wits is pleased to announce the launch of Student Entrepreneurship Week (SEW) 2017 in order to raise awareness of entrepreneurship as a career. The project is an initiative of the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) to increase the focus on entrepreneurial education at universities to develop entrepreneurial skills and encourage entrepreneurship as a choice of career.

Running from 28 to 31 August, the programme includes 15 events focusing on all things entrepreneurial.

Framed as ‘iEntrepreneur’, the programme will focus on the following ‘I’s’: 

 

  • information – answering questions on where entrepreneurial support exists at Wits and elsewhere, start-up toolkits, compliance guidance and funding options;
  • ideas and innovations -  focusing on business ideas that are making waves at present; simple solutions that have been built into successful start-ups, and national initiatives and agencies that support innovation;
  • implementation and impact – how to make those ‘out there’ ideas concrete and gain maximum impact in the market.

SEW is driven by Wits Business School’s Centre for Entrepreneurship.

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Cancer a love story

When: Tuesday, 29 August 2017 - Tuesday, 29 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za

Lauren Segal will talk about her memoir where she writes about self, body and her encounters with the health system in the course of four bouts of cancer.

The Medical Humanities at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) will host a conversation with Lauren Segal on her book Cancer: A love story, where she writes about self, body and her encounters with the health system in the course of four bouts of cancer. Segal is a curator, historian and writer based in Johannesburg. She is author, most recently, of One Law, One Nation: The Making of the South African Constitution. The discussion will be chaired by Professor Shireen Hassim and the discussant will be Professor Catherine Burns.

 

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Violence and exclusion in schools

When: Wednesday, 30 August 2017 - Wednesday, 30 August 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiCDS, 13th Floor, University Corner
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

jamil.khan@wits.ac.za 

The Wits Centre for Diversity Studies (WiCDS) hosts this seminar on violence and exclusion in schools which has been highlighted as an acute societal problem.

Speakers include Wacango Kimani, Roy Gluckman, Katlego Letlonkane and Dr Finn Reygan.

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Protecting participants in health research: Riding the crest or being swept under?

When: Wednesday, 06 September 2017 - Wednesday, 06 September 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Marie Curie Lecture Theatre, Medical School Building
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Rechelle.Tsunke@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-1193

Professor Ames Dhai, Director of the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics, will present her inaugural lecture on protectionism for health research participants.

Protectionism is the notion that human beings should be protected from the risks, harms and wrongs that could result because of their participation in studies. An appraisal of health research in South Africa from the 1800s reveals three distinct waves of protectionism with the advent of the strongest being in 1996. Will we manage to uphold our Constitutional promise of protectionism and will it continue riding the crest of the wave as we grapple with several competing research claims two decades down the line?     

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SEBS Research Seminar

When: Wednesday, 13 September 2017 - Wednesday, 13 September 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Room247, 2nd floor, New Commerce Building
Start time:12:00
Enquiries:

Siyabonga.Molaba@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Siyabonga.Molaba@wits.ac.za

The School of Economic and Business Sciences (SEBS) will host this research seminar by Professor Massimo Motta from ICREA-Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

Exclusionary practices are contracts, pricing strategies, and more generally actions taken by dominant firms to deter new competitors from entering an industry, to oblige rivals to exit, to confine them to market niches, or to prevent them from expanding, and which ultimately cause consumer harm. This is certainly the most controversial area in competition policy. This seminar will introduce the recent advances in economic theory in this area, and will suggest principles and rules to guide competition enforcement by agencies and courts.

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Redressing structural and systemic bias in modern-day automated solutions

When: Thursday, 14 September 2017 - Thursday, 14 September 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:19:00
Enquiries:

Gerda Geyer at geyerg@saiee.org.za / (011) 487- 3003

RSVP:

Gerda Geyer at geyerg@saiee.org.za / (011) 487- 3003 by 11 September 2017

 

The 66th Bernard Price Memorial Lecture will be presented by Professor Fulufhelo Nelwamondo

He will present some of the challenges of embedded prejudice in machine learning algorithms and will cover some observed examples and the societal effects thereof. In addition, the lecture will cover ways of designing automatic algorithms that can detect bias of this form, and some transfer learning mechanisms that can correct problematic machine learning models.

 

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Celebrating International Open Access Week at Wits

When: Tuesday, 19 September 2017 - Tuesday, 19 September 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate House, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

 Denise.Nicholson@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Denise.Nicholson@wits.ac.za by 13 September 2017

The Wits Library, Research Office, and the Centre for Learning, Teaching and Development host the Open Access Seminar 2017.

Professor Tomas Lipinski, Dean of the School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA, will deliver the keynote address, titled: Open Access Author Agreements, Institutional Policies and the Legal In-Between.  Denise Nicholson, Wits Scholarly Communications Librarian, will present Tips on How to Avoid Predatory Publishing Practices;  Shunmuga Pillay, Scientific Research Systems Manager, Mathematical Sciences, Wits, and Caryn McNamara, Manager: DST-NRF CoE-MaSS & DST-CSIR NEPTTP will present Cloud Computing in the era of Open Access; and Paiki Muswazi, University Librarian, will give a brief overview of the Wits Draft Open Access Policy.  You are cordially invited to attend this seminar. Copies of the programme can be obtained from Denise.Nicholson@wits.ac.za.

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Book launch: The unresolved national question – left thought under apartheid

When: Thursday, 21 September 2017 - Thursday, 21 September 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za

 

RSVP:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za

 

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research co-hosts a discussion and launch of a book edited by Professor Edward Webster and Karin Pampallis.

The re-emergence of debates on the decolonisation of knowledge has revived interest in the National Question. Tensions that were suppressed and hidden in the past are now being openly debated. Despite this, the goal of one united nation living prosperously under a constitutional democracy remains elusive.

The book is authored by Webster, Alex Mashilo (SACP) and Professor Daryl Glaser (Political Studies, Wits).  Firoz Cachalia (School of Law, Wits) will be the discussant and the Professor Karl von Holdt (Society, Work and Development Institute) will chair the discussion.

 This event is co-hoted with the Department of Political Studies and Wits University Press. 

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Effective liquid-to-gas phase partitioning

When: Wednesday, 20 September 2017 - Wednesday, 20 September 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Michelle.Gallant@wits.ac.za

The Faculty of Science hosts the inaugural lecture of Professor Vincent Gray from the School of Molecular and Cell Biology.

Under dark anaerobic thermophilic conditions the maximum efficiency for acidogenic biohydrogen generation by a single or multi-species bacterial culture is constrained by thermodynamic conditions to four moles of hydrogens (H2) per mole of glucose. The Wits Biology laboratory has demonstrated that under certain operational conditions an anaerobic multi-species bacterial consortium in a fluidized bacterial granular bed bioreactor can generate more than four moles of hydrogen per mole of glucose. Partitioning of dissolved hydrogen between mobile solid, liquid and gaseous phases creates conditions which are thermodynamically favourable for the reduction of protons by syntrophic bacteria in the absence of methanogens.

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The Conversation Africa information and writing workshop

When: Wednesday, 20 September 2017 - Wednesday, 20 September 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House, Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

Anna.Veileroglou@wits.ac.za  

RSVP:

Anna.Veileroglou@wits.ac.za by 15 September 2017

The Conversation Africa (TCA) will hosts this workshop for academics to make their research accessible to the public as TCA academic-authors.

TCA is an independent source of news and views from the academic and research community delivered direct to the public.

To publish in TCA, a journalist-editor works with  academics to produce an article based on their research/expertise, that has “academic rigour, journalistic flair”.  Attend the workshop to find out how you can join more than 250 Wits academics already writing for TCA. 

Please note academic-authors must hold a PhD (or be close to completing one) and be associated with a University. Space is limited to 25 delegates.

 

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Law and society: Property and rights in land in South Africa

When: Wednesday, 27 September 2017 - Wednesday, 27 September 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Mayano@sjd.law.harvard.edu

The Student Programme in Law & Society will host Mazibuko Jara to present as seminar on law, culture, society, and justice.

Jara is Chairperson of Oxfam South Africa Board, Mazibuko is the Executive Director of Ntinga Ntaba kaNdoda, a community-owned rural development initiative in the Eastern Cape Province. He is also a Research Associate at the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Law and Society.

 

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Smart people, smart cities

When: Wednesday, 27 September 2017 - Wednesday, 27 September 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Professional Development Hub
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Judy.Backhouse@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Judy.Backhouse@wits.ac.za

The Information Systems for Smart Cities in Africa research project presents a public lecture by Professors Jason Cohen and Judy Backhouse.

The research project ran from 2014 to 2016 and investigated the information needs and preferences of residents of Johannesburg and how these needs mapped to the city’s information services. 

This public lecture concludes the project, presenting three of the key themes to emerge from the research. The research highlighted the need to move the Smart City discourse from technology-focused to resident-focused.

Key themes that emerged as specific to our position in South Africa and Africa included how smartness is understood, how smart cities can be inclusive and the importance of trust in developing the Smart City. As an example of an African Smart City solution, Obakeng Morapeli Matlhoko of Sowertech will showcase their Afta Robot smart taxi app and discuss the implementation challenges.

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Launch: The Lancet Commission report: Diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa

When: Wednesday, 27 September 2017 - Wednesday, 27 September 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Resource Centre, School of Public Health
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Ryan.Wagner@wits.ac.za

The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Commission recently published its report on Diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa: from clinical care to health policy.

Multiple factors are driving the increased risk of diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa specifically. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Commission recently published its report on Diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa: from clinical care to health policy. In the report, the Commission highlights the paucity of data in the region on the true burden of diabetes and its microvascular and macrovascular complications, and the high individual and social cost of diabetes and its complications.

The MRC/Wits Rural Public Health & Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt), School of Public Health will host the launch of the Commission’s report.

The event will include a keynote address from Professor Justine Davies, co-Lead Commissioner of the report, Honorary Professor in the MRC/Wits-Agincourt Unit, and Professor in Global Health, Kings College London, followed by a panel discussion, with reflections from leading South African diabetes researchers, clinicians and policymakers on the relevance of the report in the South African context.

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Developing future leaders

When: Wednesday, 04 October 2017 - Wednesday, 04 October 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
The Investec Auditorium, Business School, 2 St David's Place, Parktown
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

 

Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

 

RSVP:

 

Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

 

Matimba Mbungela, Chief Human Resources Officer at the Vodacom Group, will deliver this talk at the Wits Business School.

Many would argue that good leadership is key to our future, as a country and as a continent.  And that good business leaders, who are in tune with our changing environment, will play a critical role in steering our economy forward towards a stable future.
 
But how do we develop our future leaders?
 
To address this profoundly important issue, Mr Matimba Mbungela, Chief Human Resources Officer at the Vodacom Group, will deliver a presentation which will focus on:

  • Current trends in leadership development
  • Understanding what qualities future leaders will need
  • How we can prepare the next generation of leaders well enough, and fast enough

If you are a business leader, an HR practitioner, an executive coach or an ordinary, concerned African citizen, please join us for what promises to be a thought-provoking lecture.

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Big data and public health research

When: Wednesday, 04 October 2017 - Wednesday, 04 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Rechelle.Tsunke@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-1193

In her inaugural lecture, Professor Pamela Andanda will be tracing the fuzzy contours of data ownership and related intellectual property rights.

Andanda will shed light on big data in public health research.

Big data enables health care providers to monitor individuals and systems in real-time. However, the challenge is how to overcome the barriers to using such data in public health research.

This calls for an alternative normative framework capable of reconciling stakeholders’ competing interests while ensuring fair access with minimal legal and ethical risks.

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Complex relations of Marxism and feminism

When: Tuesday, 10 October 2017 - Tuesday, 10 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wiser Seminar Room, 6th floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

janecherrytree@gmail.com

RSVP:

janecherrytree@gmail.com

Hosted by the Departments of Sociology and International Relations and Wiser at Wits University.

Panellists:

  • Jacklyn Cock is Emerita Professor of Sociology and a Research Fellow at SWOP, Wits University.
  • Malehoko Tshoaedi is a senior lecturer at University of Pretoria and co-edited (with Andries Bezuidenhout) Labour Beyond Cosatu: Mapping the rupture in South Africa's labour landscape.
  • Srila Roy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, Wits University.
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Searching for the earliest tetrapods in Godwana

When: Thursday, 12 October 2017 - Thursday, 12 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House,
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

Professor Roger Smith from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits and the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town will present his inaugural lecture.

One of the important unresolved research questions relating to the evolution of life on land is: What were the earliest terrestrial vertebrates to inhabit Gondwana?

To answer this question, Smith and a multinational team of palaeontologists have spent several field seasons looking for 300 million year old fossil bones in the hyper-arid Huab river valley of western Namibia, and in the steaming jungles of north-east Brazil.

The lecture will illustrate how fieldwork was conducted in these very different locations, report on current progress in preparing and identifying the new finds, and finish with a discussion of the evolutionary significance of these previously unknown animal communities.

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The EU and South Africa in dialogue

When: Tuesday, 17 October 2017 - Tuesday, 17 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:13:15
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

Wits University in partnership with the delegation of the European Union to South Africa presents a dialogue themed Global Trade: path to shared prosperity.

The European Union's Commissioner for Trade, Cecilia Malmström, will deliver the keynote address and engage with students. The visit coincides with the one year of implementation of the SADC-EU Economic Partnership Agreement, the 10 years of EU-South Africa Strategic Partnership and the upcoming EU-Africa Summit taking place in Abidjan in November.

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HIV prevention: Today and Tomorrow

When: Monday, 16 October 2017 - Monday, 16 October 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
School of Public Health Resource Centre
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Nomonde.Malahlela@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Nomonde.Malahlela@wits.ac.za  by 14 October 2017

The Wits School of Public Health hosts this seminar talk by Professor Myron Cohen.

Cohen is a Yeargan-Bate Eminent Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, and Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina. He is the Director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases. In 2007, he was appointed Associate Vice-Chancellor for Global Health and has served as the Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases since 1988.

 

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The green economy and the National Development Plan

When: Monday, 16 October 2017 - Monday, 16 October 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits School of Governance
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Mpho.Montwedi@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Mpho.Montwedi@wits.ac.za

The Wits School of Governance at this important debate on moving towards a Green Economy in South Africa.

Speakers include:

  • Tasneem Essop (National Planning Commission and International World Wide Fund for Nature)
  • Professor Mark Swilling (Sustainability Institute and Centre for Complex Systems in Transition)
  • Ntombifuthi Ntuli (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research)
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The Metamorphosis of the Revolutionary Intellectual

When: Thursday, 19 October 2017 - Thursday, 19 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
School of Public Health Auditorium
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

The annual Harold Wolpe Memorial Lecture will be presented by Issa Shivji.

Shivji is Director of Kavazi la Mwalimu, the Nyerere Resource Centre, in Dar es Salaam.

In 1976 he published “Class Struggles in Tanzania” (Monthly Review Press), and from that time on he has been one of Tanzania’s foremost political theorists, writing about political economy, land law, the roles of intellectuals in Africa, and pan-Africanism. While still a second year student he published his long essay 'The Silent Class Struggle' in the student revolutionary journal called Cheche (the Spark).

In 1989 he authored the path breaking critical study “The Concept of Human Rights in Africa”. A long standing scholar at the University of Dar es Salaam, Professor Shivji has also worked as an Advocate in the Tanzanian courts, especially on land issues. He moved from teaching Constitutional Law at the University of Dar es Salaam to become the founding Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Professor of Pan-African Studies. Issa Shivji has also been a prominent member of the Council for Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), serving that organization in various capacities.

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Artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM) health matters in SADC

When: Wednesday, 18 October 2017 - Wednesday, 18 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
CSMI Seminar Room, 3rd Floor Chamber of Mines Building
Start time:15:30
Enquiries:

Pontsho.Ledwaba@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Pontsho.Ledwaba@wits.ac.za

The Centre for Sustainability in Mining and Industry will host Dr Limakatso Lebina from the Perinatal HIV Research Unit (PHRU) to present this seminar.

Her presentation is will be based on the work conducted as part of the TB in the Mining Sector in Southern Africa (TIMS) project.

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Restless life of magma chambers is key to generating giant ore deposits

When: Wednesday, 18 October 2017 - Wednesday, 18 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Rechelle.Tsunke@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-1193 

Professor Rais Latypov from the School of Geosciences in the Faculty of Science will present his inaugural lecture.

Abstract: Mafic-ultramafic intrusions are ‘fossilised’ magma chambers that host the lion's share of our planet’s endowment of industrially and environmentally crucial metals, including chromium, nickel and platinum-group elements. What makes them so exceptionally rich in these metals is a question that has occupied the minds of the world’s petrological elite for nearly a century. This lecture will reflect on this long-standing challenge using the three most prominent examples of ore-bearing intrusions on Earth. 

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Reframing Africa – Modernity, cinema and Africa

When: Saturday, 21 October 2017 - Sunday, 22 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits School of Arts
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

 

 Pervaiz.Khan@wits.ac.za

 

RSVP:

RSVP: Cynthia.Kros@wits.ac.za and Pervaiz.Khan@wits.ac.za

In May 1896 as the Scramble for Africa was reaching its zenith, the first film screening in southern Africa took place in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.

This workshop will explore cinematic representations and theories that focus on how filmmakers, scholars and critics have engaged, both in the historical past and the contemporary era with the complex histories and experiences of modernity in Africa. This workshop to be attended by international filmmakers is hosted by Wits History Workshop, Wits School of Arts and the Joburg Film Festival with support from the National Research Foundation. Free admission.

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The importance of finding expression for the soul in the workplace

When: Wednesday, 18 October 2017 - Wednesday, 18 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:13:15
Enquiries:

Cecilia.Smith@wits.ac.za

The Transformation and Employment Equity Office hosts this lunchtime presentation by Diane Schneider, Head of Talent & Transformation for Deloitte Africa.

Schneider has been with the professional services firm, Deloitte, for most of her career and is currently Head of Talent & Transformation, Deloitte Africa, and a member of the Deloitte Europe, Middle East & Africa Talent Council.

She considers her most important life’s work to be an agent for change in BEE and Transformation, a role she held in Deloitte for some years before assuming her current position. She is a founder member of the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants (ABASA) and is proud to have been the first recipient of an ABASA life-time achievement award.

Schneider is an executive coach and master NLP practitioner and devotes much of her life to searching for the best, most fulfilling and meaningful way to live

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Spatial technology: The hard side of soft science

When: Wednesday, 18 October 2017 - Wednesday, 18 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Room 0016, Bernard Price Building
Start time:13:15
Enquiries:

Stefania.Merlo@wits.ac.za 

The next Geospatial Sciences seminar will be presented by Dr Gina Wei-Smith from the Human Sciences Research Council.

The use of geographic information system (GIS) in social sciences is often limited to creating maps. Although this adds great understanding about phenomena like crime, poverty and education, there is much more to explore. This presentation will focus on the value and understanding that spatial statistics and modelling can add to socio-economic issues. Topical issues like unemployment, migration and poverty will be explored to identify for example spatial clusters and spatial groups in the data. This will illustrate the value-add of GIS technology to socio-economic challenges.

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Panel discussion and seminar on indigenous knowledge and science education

When: Thursday, 19 October 2017 - Thursday, 19 October 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
M255, Marang Block
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

Emmanuel.Mushayikwa@wits.ac.za / Deepak.Kar@wits.ac.za

The School of Physics will host Dr Debashree Dattaray (Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India) to present this seminar.

Dattaray is an Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature, and one of her areas of expertise is Indigenous Studies and Education. She will take part in a panel discussion on the Impact of Indigenous Knowledge Systems on Science with Dr Emmanuel Mushayikwa (Wits School of Education) and Dr Deepak Kar (Wits School of Physics) who will present a seminar, titled: Indigenous Communities of North East India.

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Advertising hate

When: Wednesday, 25 October 2017 - Wednesday, 25 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
13th Floor, University Corner
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

Jamil.Khan@wits.ac.za 

The Wits Centre for Diversity Studies (WiCDS) hosts a panel discussion on race and representation in media and advertising.

Panelists will present work from advertising, film and public relations to interrogate the way race is used in media and what needs to be done to build a more just, equal industry.

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Modeling complex pathological conditions: focusing on disorders of the brain

When: Tuesday, 24 October 2017 - Tuesday, 24 October 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Marie Curie Lecture Theatre
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Michelle.Gallant@wits.ac.za

Professor William Daniels from the School of Physiology will present his inaugural lecture on his body of research work into the human brain.

The brain, considered the most complex entity in the universe, has fascinated humankind for centuries and significant advances have been made in our understanding of brain’s structure and its functioning. However our current knowledge of how the brain really works, has huge gaps and therefore our comprehension of brain function, remains incomplete. In this lecuture, Daniels will share some of his exciting results obtained over the years focusing on the impact of early life stress, HIV-neurocognitive disorder and addiction.

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Biko’s combat breath in deep time

When: Thursday, 26 October 2017 - Thursday, 26 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Centre, Ground Floor, South West Engineering Building, Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:12:00
Enquiries:

michael.elliott@wits.ac.za 

The NRF / British Academy Research Chair in Political Theory hosts Tendayi Sithole (UNISA) to present this public lecture.

In this public lecture, Sithole seeks to examine the conception of breath as the existential imperative, the category of the political, and also as a mode of doing politics otherwise. Locating this examination with Steve Biko, Sithole aims to think breath not merely as respiratory politics, but as being in a chokehold where breath and death are inseparable. He will trace combat breath through Biko's conception of deep time and argue for a decolonial epistemic perspective as the moment of rupture.

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How many men does it take to run a country?

When: Wednesday, 25 October 2017 - Wednesday, 25 October 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Classroom F, Mwalimu House (Research Hub)
Start time:12:00
Enquiries:

 

Zibusiso.Manzini-Moyo@wits.ac.za



 

RSVP:

Zibusiso.Manzini-Moyo@wits.ac.za

 

Liv Tørres, Adjunct Professor in the Wits School of Governance and the Executive Director of the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo will present this lecture.

The broad democratic changes that happened in the early 1990s in many countries, including South Africa, generally became known with Samuel Huntington’s terminology as the “third wave of democratisation”.

Developments seemed set for a new path. Yet, 25 years later, we see democracy under pressure internationally and a new form of modern authoritarianism developing.

Despite international foundations being set on the ideals of liberal democracy, research by the Human Rights Foundation suggests that nearly four billion people in over 90 countries currently live under regimes that can be described as non-democratic. What happened with the third wave of democracy?

 

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Healing the exposed being: a South African Ngoma tradition

When: Tuesday, 31 October 2017 - Tuesday, 31 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za 

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research and Wits University Press will launch a new book, Healing the Exposed Being, by Professor Robert Thornton.

The launch will include a discussion between Thornton and respondents Sinethemba Makhanya and Jonathan Stadler. In Healing the Exposed Being, Thornton presents new vocabulary and ontology for understanding fundamental concepts of a regional version of the ‘Ngoma’ cult, found throughout the Bantu language-speaking areas in Africa. He provides a more integrated anthropological account of beliefs and practices that have survived from pre-colonial to postcolonial times, describing them in their own terms rather than presenting them as a reflex of modernity or reaction to colonialism, or as a consequence of neoliberalism or other social, political, economic or historical factors. Thornton brings this local anthology and its therapeutic applications into relation with global academic anthropology by exploring it through political, economic, interpretive and ecological environmentalist lenses.

 

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Wits and vaccines: The impact and potential of vaccines for the African region

When: Wednesday, 01 November 2017 - Wednesday, 01 November 2017
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Auditorium, School of Public Health, Parktown Education Campus
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Antonia.Appel@wits.ac.za

Professors Shabir Madhi and Helen Rees will present the 16th Prestigious Research Lecture hosted by the Faculty of Health Sciences.

The first part of the lecture will be presented by Madhi, Professor of Vaccinology, who will discuss the work undertaken by the MRC Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit (RMPRU) at Wits over the past 21 years. His talk will include how the RMPRU has become a leading research unit in the field of immunisation of pregnant women. Madhi is the director of the PMPRU and holds the Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation South African Research Initiative Chair in Vaccine Preventable Disease.

Rees’ talk will focus on the impact of HPV vaccines. She will explore what else could be offered as part of an adolescent vaccine platform, and will present on-going work on the development of new vaccines for other sexually transmitted diseases including herpes simplex vaccines, gonorrhoea and HI. Rees is Executive Director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI) where she is also a Personal Professor in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the Co-Director of the Wits African Local Initiative for Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE).

The Prestigious Research Lecture concludes with an introduction to the new ‘flagship programme’ awarded to the University in 2016 by the South African Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation to strengthen African leadership in vaccinology research and advocacy.

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The birth of multi-messenger astronomy

When: Tuesday, 31 October 2017 - Tuesday, 31 October 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
WSS3, Science Stadium
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

Sergio.Colafrancesco@wits.ac.za

Professors Sergio Colafrancesco, Andrew Chen, Nukri Komin, and Dr Justine Tarrant will present this seminar.

In 1916, Albert Einstein predicted that, based on his general theory of relativity, the close interaction of massive compact objects would create gravitational waves which propagate at the speed of light. Since that time, astronomers have dreamed of observing gravitational waves associated to electromagnetic radiation simultaneously from the sameevent. That dream was realized on 17 August 2017, with the detection of the event GW170817, a merger of two neutron stars observed both by gravitational wave detectors LIGO and VIRGO and by gamma-ray telescopes Fermi and INTEGRAL. The afterglow of the event GW170817 was then observed by numerous telescopes over the entire frequency range of the electromagnetic spectrum from 10^8 to 10^30 Hz, involving thousands of astronomers around the globe, and including astrophysicists at Wits. In this seminar, Colafrancesco, AChen, Komin, ande Tarrant will discuss the numerous groundbreaking results that emerge from this discovery, including the role of Wits researchers, and will define the birth of multi-messenger astronomy worldwide and at Wits, both historically and in the future.

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How can art help advance the work of scientists at Wits?

When: Wednesday, 01 November 2017 - Wednesday, 01 November 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
C6, Chemistry Building
Start time:11:15
Enquiries:

Christo.Doherty@wits.ac.za / Demetrius.Levendis@wits.ac.za

The value of art-science collaboration is becoming increasingly recognised in the top research centres around the world.

Scientists have been working productively with visual artists, musicians, performers, conceptual, and technology artists. What are the opportunities for such collaboration at a great African research university such as Wits? Professor Christo Doherty from The Wits School of Arts will present case studies of successful art-science collaborations as examples of international best practice. What has worked, and in what contexts, and disciplines? This will be a discussion about the ways in which scientific research at Wits can be amplified by collaborations with artists.

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End of life issues from an orthodox Jewish perspective, including some recent advances in this field

When: Tuesday, 07 November 2017 - Tuesday, 07 November 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
LT 1, Medical School
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

samkelo.nsibande@wits.ac.za 

The Steve Biko Cente for Bioethics at Wits will host Rabbi Dr Akiva Tatz to present this Faculty of Health Sciences’ lecture.

Tatz is a South African born physician, author and lecturer. He studied medicine at Wits with elective work at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, and spent a number of years concurrently practicing medicine and engaging in Talmudic study. He has written a number of books on the subjects of Jewish philosophy and Jewish Medical Ethics. He is the founder and Director of the Medical Ethics Forum which teaches and promotes knowledge of Jewish medical ethics internationally. He currently teaches at the Jewish Learning Exchange in London and internationally.

 

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Experimental wonderings in bioinformatics: Using high performance computing to unlock DNA’s secrets

When: Tuesday, 07 November 2017 - Tuesday, 07 November 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Rechelle.tsunke@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-1193

Professor Scott Hazelhurst from the School of Electrical and Information Engineering will deliver his inaugural lecture on bioinformatics.

Bioinformatics is a new discipline that has helped transform modern molecular biology and genetics. High performance computing and mathematical techniques allow mining huge amounts of DNA data to find answers to answer research problem. Work is usually collaborative and inter-disciplinary spanning from novel algorithm and tool development to applied problems including finding genes responsible for diseases, understanding population diversity and history,

This talk introduces the discipline through three collaborative projects that illustrate different aspects of the discipline: clustering DNA fragments, the design of a genotyping array suitable for African populations, and a gut microbiome project.

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Genetics and disease in a complex world

When: Wednesday, 08 November 2017 - Wednesday, 08 November 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Marie Curie Lecture Theatre, Faculty of Health Sciences
Start time:16:30
Enquiries:

Jocelyn.Gayenga@wits.ac.za

The Faculty of Health Sciences, the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience, and the AWI-Gen Collaborative Centre present this research symposium.

Click here for more information on the research symposium and here for guest speaker profiles. 

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Antimicrobial natural product research: lessons from the past, possibilities for the future

When: Tuesday, 21 November 2017 - Tuesday, 21 November 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Marie Curie Lecture Theatre, Medical School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Anna.Veileroglou@wits.ac.za  or (011) 717-1195

Professor Sandy van Vuuren will deliver her inaugural lecture.

Infectious diseases have been plaguing mankind since antiquity. Now more than ever before, we should be looking at alternatives to combat antimicrobial resistance. Natural products are one option, and Van Vuuren would like to share her personal journey into the research on indigenous knowledge and the scientific validation of natural products for the treatment of microbial infections. She will discuss African traditional uses and also delve into other natural products such as honey, propolis, endophytes and essential oils. The concept of synergy will be a strong focus and lessons learnt through this microcosm of antimicrobial research will possible yield possibilities for the future.  

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Book launch: Homophobic violence in armed conflict and political transition

When: Thursday, 16 November 2017 - Thursday, 16 November 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za  

RSVP:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za  

The Wits Institute for Economic and Social Research and GALA will host this launch of this book by José Fernando Serrano-Amaya.

Serrano-Amaya is a postdoctoral fellow of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has worked as a researcher, consultant and lecturer, and has extensive experience working for NGOs and public institutions in Colombia.

His book argues that homophobia plays a fundamental role in disputes for hegemony between antagonists during political transitions. Examining countries not often connected in the same research – Colombia and South Africa – the book asserts that homophobia, as a form of gender and sexual violence, contributes to the transformation of gender and sexual orders required by warfare and deployed by armed groups.

Discussants: Gabriel Hoosain Khan and Carrie Shelver

Moderator: Melanie Judge

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Understanding the burden of illness-related impoverishment to cost-effectively achieve the SDG

When: Friday, 10 November 2017 - Friday, 10 November 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Lecture room 1 & 2, Ground Floor, School of Public Health
Start time:8:15
Enquiries:

aarika.sing@wits.ac.za

The Wits School of Public Health, PRICELESS SA & CARTA will host this lecture by Stéphane Verguet.

Vergeuet is Assistant Professor of Global Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr Verguet’s multidisciplinary research focuses on health decision science and priority setting, particularly the development of mathematical and computational decision-making models to better design health policies. His research interests include health economics, cost-effectiveness analysis, equity, and health systems performance. Most recently, he has been working on the estimation of non-health benefits, particularly the poverty alleviation benefits, of health policies and interventions. Out-of-pocket medical payments can lead to catastrophic expenses and impoverishment in low-and middle-income countries. However, there has been no systematic examination of which specific diseases and conditions drive illness-related impoverishment. We present preliminary approaches for estimating illness-related impoverishment by cause. Such a breakdown can provide important elements for the promotion of equity and financial protection, and subsequent design of policy toward poverty reduction and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's).

 

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In conversation with Bonang Mohale

When: Thursday, 23 November 2017 - Thursday, 23 November 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Bert Wessels Lecture Theatre, Wits Business School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-3617

The Wits Business School will host an informal evening of conversation with Bonang Mohale, CEO of Business Leadership South Africa.

Mr Mohale, who originally studied to be a medical doctor, has had a distinguished career in building successful companies and in leadership roles at several major South African and multinational companies, including Shell South Africa, Otis Elevators, South African Airways, Sanlam Limited and Drake & Scull. He has been a vocal and active proponent of transformation since the 1980s, and has played a leadership role in the Black Management Forum (BMF) for over 33 years. Click here for Speaker Bio
 
Professor Imraan Valodia, Dean of the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management (CLM) at the Wits University will facilitate the evening.

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A celebration of plants at Origins

When: Tuesday, 21 November 2017 - Tuesday, 21 November 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Origins Centre
Start time:18:30
Enquiries:

bookings.origins@wits.ac.za 

Dr Chrissie Sievers, senior lecturer in Archaeobotany at Wits will present this lecture.

From poison to pleasure, the use of plants has permeated our lives since our earliest origins. In southern Africa there is a particularly rich heritage of indigenous knowledge about plant uses and the Origins Gardens form a living museum of plants which cover a wide range of these uses. This talk will celebrate the plants in the gardens, especially those represented in the 2018 Calendar designed by students of the Greenside Design Centre.

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The next economic crisis: Shallow catalysts and structural causation

When: Wednesday, 29 November 2017 - Wednesday, 29 November 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Michelle.Gallant@wits.ac.za

 

Professor Patrick Bond will present his inaugural lecture.

From America's new regime to the Zuma government (and many in between), it is tempting to attribute declining investor confidence, speculative bubbles and financial turbulence to state mal-governance.

But surface-level misdiagnoses often generate banal policy recommendations, usually centered on the most obvious 'neo-patrimonial' features. Instead, deeper considerations of political-economic, political-ecological, decolonial and feminist framings point toward different reasons and solutions for the multiple crises of contemporary capitalism, local to global.

 

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Don't shoot the messenger

When: Thursday, 16 November 2017 - Thursday, 16 November 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Great Hall
Start time:18:45
Enquiries:

hello@gijn.org 

The annual Carlos Cardoso Memorial Lecture will be presented by Beatrice Mtetwa, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer from Zimbabwe.

The annual Carlos Cardoso Memorial Lecture commemorates a Wits graduate and Mozambican journalist assassinated in the streets of Maputo in 2001 while investigating corruption at the country’s biggest bank and involving senior political figures. This year’s speaker, lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, is a prominent freedom of expression campaigner in Zimbabwe, a country where journalists have been frequently harassed and persecuted. Mtetwa has defended journalists at great personal risk. In 2005, she won the International Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Mtetwa is a Zimbabwean lawyer who has been internationally recognized for her defense of journalists and press freedom. She has litigated on human rights issues since 1990 with an emphasis on Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Media. As a result of her work she has been harassed by State agents through arrests, prosecution and physical assaults.

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Troubling Seasons of Hate

When: Tuesday, 05 December 2017 - Thursday, 07 December 2017
Where:
The Atrium, Wits Postgraduate Development Hub
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

jamil.khan@wits.ac.za

011 717 4779

RSVP:

Registration at http://www.troublinghate.com/

Troubling Seasons of Hate: an international conference

The Wits Centre for Diversity Studies presents this international conference with Lewis Gordon, Juan Nel, Jasbir Puar & Elelwani Ramugondo. For more information visit http://www.troublinghate.com

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Expanding and deepening financial markets across Africa

When: Tuesday, 28 November 2017 - Tuesday, 28 November 2017
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za / (011) 717-3617

The Wits Business School (WBS) will host this panel discussion to discuss what the chief concerns of investors when looking for options in African markets.

This panel discussion will also discuss which countries offer the strongest investment positions as well as how can economies improve market frameworks to meet yardsticks for investor access and sustainable growth.

Africa’s large and dynamic economies present above average opportunities for growth, yet investment prospects – for both international and local investors – are hampered by under-developed financial markets and unclear legal and regulatory frameworks.

Panelists include:

  • Nozipho Mbanjwa, senior anchor, CNBC Africa (moderator)
  • George Asante, Managing Principal, Head of Markets: Barclays Africa Group
  • Danae Kyriakopoulou, Chief Economist and Head of Research: the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum
  • Montfort Mlachila, Senior Resident Representative: International Monetary Fund

The discussion will draw on findings published in the Barclays Africa Group Financial Markets Index, and debate the maturity, openness and accessibility of 17 financial markets in Africa, highlighting the clearest growth prospects, per economy.

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My health, my right

When: Wednesday, 29 November 2017 - Wednesday, 29 November 2017
Where: Off campus
PRF Auditorium, NICD, 1 Modderfontein road, Sandringham
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Monicaf@nicd.ac.za  / 011 386 6462

RSVP:

Monicaf@nicd.ac.za  / 011 386 6462

In the lead-up to World AIDS Day, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the National Department of Health will host a panel discussion.

The discussion will focus on the right to health through the lens of policy makers, scientists, media, social and advocacy experts.

Panelists:

  • Professor  Lynn Morris: Research Professor at Wits and NICD’s Co- head for Centre for HIV and STIs
  • Professor  Caroline Tiemessen: Research Professor at Wits and head of the Cell Biology Research Laboratory within the Centre for HIV and STIs at NICD
  • Dr Yogan Pillay: Deputy Director-General at the National Department of Health responsible for HIV & AIDS, TB and Maternal, Child & Women’s Health
  • Mia Malan: Mail & Guardian’s health editor and the founding director of the newspaper’s health journalism centre, Bhekisisa
  • Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng: Medical doctor, activist, facilitator, speaker and columnist. She also serves as the Vice-Chairperson of the Sexual and Reproductive Coalition (SRJC)
  • Lebogang Brenda Motsumi: Young woman living with HIV, HIV and social activist. Programme assistant for Centre for communication impact. Board member of International Partnerships in Microbicides 
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The parental brain: New insights from brain imaging

When: Wednesday, 06 December 2017 - Wednesday, 06 December 2017
Where: Off campus
Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital, 6 Jubilee Road, Parktown
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

wendy.landau@wits.ac.za 

This National Research Foundation (NRF) Science for Society Lecture will be presented by Professor Morten Kringelbach of Aarhus and Oxford Universities.

The lecture is part of the Brain Matters Seminar series and will be co-hosted by the Department of Science & Technology (DST), the NRF, the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development, the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Institute (JIAS), the Wits Cortex Club, the Southern African Neuroscience Society, SAfm and the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital.

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Launch of Non-Communicable Diseases Research Division (NCDRD)

When: Thursday, 07 December 2017 - Thursday, 07 December 2017
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Resource Centre, Wits School of Public Health, 7 York Road, Parktown
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

Professor Shane Norris: Shane.norris@wits.ac.za 

A collaboration of Wits Faculty of Health Sciences specialists, epidemiologists, molecular biologists and the National Cancer Registry has formed the NCDRD.

South Africa, burdened with HIV and TB, is now facing a rapidly increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases – obesity, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and depression. Unfortunately, just as SA is bringing the HIV epidemic under control with an expanded ART programme and the life expectancy of citizens increasing, the burden of common cancers such as breast, prostate, lung and colorectal cancers is increasing. 

The Non-Communicable Diseases Research Division (NCDRD) aims to meet the challenges presented by non-communicable diseases. The NCDRD has established several hospital and community cohort studies and molecular genetic biomarker projects.  A key focus is on co-morbidities and health system strengthening by addressing barriers to early-stage patient presentation, diagnosis and optimum management of patients. 

"South Africa is facing growing prevalences of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and depression. We need an integrated approach of different clinical specialists with scientists to find ways to not only improve the screening and treatment of thesis conditions but also to prevent such diseases. Wits Health Consortium at the University of the Witwatersrand,  is launching a division dedicated to just this - tackling non-communicable diseases in South Africa," says Professor Shane Norris, Director of the MRC/Wits Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit 

The NCDRD is a multidisciplinary research division within the Wits Health Consortium, a wholly owned clinical research company of Wits University that fosters academic entrepreneurial research. 

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Bidvest Wits and Platinum Stars

When: Saturday, 16 December 2017 - Saturday, 16 December 2017
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Bidvest Stadium
Start time:20:15
Enquiries:

Silindile Sibiya on (011) 339 1112 or sil@bidvestwits.co.za

Catch this ABSA premiership match between Bidvest Wits and Platinum Stars.

This is the last Bidvest Wits match for 2017.

 

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