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Events

Welcome Day 2019

When: Sunday, 27 January 2019 - Sunday, 27 January 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Library Lawns
Start time:10:00
Enquiries:

https://www.wits.ac.za/orientation/

The University will be welcoming new first year students on Sunday 27 January. 

As a new Witsie, you and your parents/guardians are invited to celebrate the beginning of your journey with us. It is a momentous time in your life and Welcome Day will enable you to better understand your new home. You will get to meet the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Adam Habib, the senior executive team, as well as the Student Representative Council.

We also have a series of planned activations to ignite your Wits spirit on the day.

There are two sessions:

First Session: 

Humanities and Engineering and the Built Environment @ 10:00 to 11:30 

Second Session: 

Science, Health Sciences and Commerce, Law and Management @ 13:00 – 14:30

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Orientation Week 2019

When: Monday, 28 January 2019 - Monday, 28 January 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Across Wits campuses.
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Contact your Faculty for more information.

Orientation week runs from Monday, 28 January 2019 to Friday, 1 February 2019

Orientation Week follows from Welcome Day and is designed to help new first year students learn the values of the Wits community, discover the full array of what can be done as a Wits student and how to find support when needed.

Although there is much to learn, there are many student volunteers and staff members who are ready to offer advice and support throughout the transition to Wits. 

You are about to embark on one of the most exciting and enjoyable phases of your life. To ensure your journey is a success, Wits has developed an Orientation Programme that features a variety of workshops and activities that meet the needs of incoming students.  

The programme runs daily across all campuses. For more information, follow your faculty links from the Orientation website.

 

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Introduction to mental health in the workplace

When: Friday, 08 February 2019 - Friday, 08 February 2019
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Nursing Education Department, 4th Floor
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

Cost enquiries and registration: CANS.NursingEd@wits.ac.za

The Nursing Education Department presents a workshop on mental health in the workplace.

The purpose of this workshop is to create awareness and enhance knowledge on the importance of mental health and the prevention and management of mental illness in the workplace and in the academic setting.

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Zimbabwe: On an unexpected trajectory?

When: Friday, 08 February 2019 - Friday, 08 February 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits School of Governance, 2 St David’s Place, Parktown
Start time:9:30
Enquiries:

lerato.mtambanengwe@wits.ac.za

The Institute for Security Studies, Wits School of Governance and the Mandela Institute for Development Studies present this joint seminar.

In recent weeks, human rights violations by security forces, and an internet shut down have stunned Zimbabweans and international actors alike – reminiscent of the Mugabe era.

Should we have anticipated this trajectory, and what do we need to understand to better ensure and support meaningful change? What avenues are available for Zimbabweans, and the international community, in this “new” context?

This seminar brings together scholar-practitioners to reflect on the current scenario with a view to inform policy and action.

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Exhibition: Outbreak epidemics in a connected world

When: Tuesday, 12 February 2019 - Tuesday, 12 February 2019
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Adler Museum of Medicine, Foyer
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

011 717 2081 or Adler.museum@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

011 717 2081 or Adler.museum@wits.ac.za

This exhibition explores questions including why infectious diseases emerge where they do, what makes them spread so quickly, and where do we look next?

The exhibition includes a discussion with Cheryl Cohen, Wits Associate Professor in Epidemiology and Head of the Centre for Respiratory and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

The Adler Museum of Medicine in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Wits, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in the USA jointly support this exhibition.

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When the Upgrading of Informal Settlement Programme meets traditional authority areas

When: Tuesday, 12 February 2019 - Tuesday, 12 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

Thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za

The next seminar in the Faces of the City Seminar Series.

Taki Sithagu in the School of Architecture and Planning at Wits will present this paper.

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Music, Life, Spirit in Visual Anthropology: Photographic and Literary Intersections in Africa

When: Tuesday, 12 February 2019 - Tuesday, 12 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Anthropology Museum, Ground Floor, Robert Sobukwe Block
Start time:15:00
Enquiries:

Anthropology Museum

Exhibition hosted by the Wits Anthropology Department in the Anthropology Museum.

The exhibition: Music, Life, Spirit in Visual Anthropology: Photographic and Literary Intersections in Africa, by David B. Coplan and Oscar Gutierrez, will be launched today.

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Brits in a mess. What to make of Brexit

When: Tuesday, 19 February 2019 - Tuesday, 19 February 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Bert Wessels Lecture Theatre 2 , Wits Business School, 2 St David's Place, Parktown
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Thembeka.hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

So far, ‘Brexit’ has not gone smoothly for Prime Minister Theresa May.

So far, ‘Brexit’ has not gone smoothly for Prime Minister Theresa May. As parliamentarians and lawmakers debate endlessly on the ‘divorce deal’, Britain seems to be spiralling into deeper chaos. And, with the deadline of 29 March looming and a ‘no deal Brexit’ still a possibility, Britain is facing massive uncertainty.

To cut through the noise and to make sense of it all, Wits Business School is pleased to welcome back Visiting Professor Lord Peter Hain, who will deliver a lecture on what Brexit, as it currently stands, means for Britain, Ireland, the EU and Britain’s other trade partners.

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Water Management: Social and Technological Perspectives

When: Thursday, 28 February 2019 - Thursday, 28 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.tadi@wits.ac.za

Professor Thokozani Majozi in the School of Metallurgical and Chemical Engineering launches his book.

Majozi will also deliver a lecture on his research work for the book.

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The politics of corruption: from Zuma to Ramaphosa... And after?

When: Friday, 15 February 2019 - Friday, 15 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Hofmeyr House, next to Jubilee Hall of Residence
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Gugulethu.Mabena1@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Gugulethu.Mabena1@wits.ac.za

The Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at Wits will host their first breakfast seminar for 2019.

Professor Karl von Holdt will present the seminar. The prevailing public narrative about corruption tends to present it as a matter of moral failure on the part of a number of individuals (and perhaps an organisation) and legal failure on the part of state institutions. The presentation will attempt to reframe 'corruption' as an important element in processes of class formation in post-apartheid South Africa, and 'looting' as a form of primitive accumulation on the part of a nascent elite. These practices are embedded in moral orders through which they are rendered legitimate and justified in the South African context. The presentation will explore the question whether this constitutes an alternative accumulation model to that presented by globalised 'neoliberalism', and discuss also the necessity for Ramaphosa to establish a stable elite coalition within the ANC, and likewise the challenges that make this an unlikely prospect. Finally, the prospects for an alternative counter-movement for embedded development will be considered.

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Book launch: Dress as social relations: an interpretation of bushman dress

When: Tuesday, 19 February 2019 - Tuesday, 19 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Origins Centre
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

info.witspress@wits.ac.za 

RSVP:

info.witspress@wits.ac.za by 18 February 2019

Wits University Press and the Origins Centre will host the launch of the book, Dress as Social Relations: An interpretation of Bushman dress by Vibeke Viestad.

Join the author and Wits archaeologist, Amanda Esterhuysen at the launch for a discussion on debunking the myth of the naked Bushman and how this offers a unique way of looking at the world from a different perspective.

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Learning from Chinese philosophy

When: Tuesday, 26 February 2019 - Tuesday, 26 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
CB 8 (Central Block), Robert Sobukwe Building
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Kagiso.Makoe@wits.ac.za

The Centre for Indian Studies in Africa (CISA) will host this lecture as part of the Thinking from the Global South Distinguished Lectures 2019.

This lecture gives a brief overview of changing European attitudes toward Chinese philosophy, and also provides several examples of the profound and distinct philosophical debates that existed in China on issues such as consequentialism, human nature, ethical egoism, relativism, and skepticism.

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Trends in 20th Century Chinese philosophy in historical context

When: Thursday, 28 February 2019 - Thursday, 28 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
CB 8 (Central Block) Robert Sobukwe Building
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

 Kagiso.Makoe@wits.ac.za

The Centre for Indian Studies in Africa (CISA) will host this lecture.

Chinese intellectuals provided four major responses to the crisis posed by Western imperialism in the 20th Century. The New Culture and Marxist movements both advocated the abolition of traditional Chinese thought and institutions. New Confucians agreed that China needs to learn democracy and science from the West. Finally, some Chinese thinkers have tried to synthesise Marxism and Confucianism.

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Through the eyes of an archaeologist

When: Thursday, 28 February 2019 - Saturday, 27 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Origins Centre
Start time:10:00
Enquiries:

bookings.origins@wits.ac.za

The Origins Centre Museum will host this exhibition.

Celebrating the archaeological work of Professor Revil Mason, this exhibition recognises and celebrates the African deep past, and the role that African ancestors played in the making of modern South African society. As a history of archaeology at Wits; it is both a celebration of a life’s work and an opportunity to see history through the eyes of an archaeologist. Beautiful archaeological artefacts will be on display and you are invited to immerse yourself in the archaeological world through interactive exhibits.

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Climate change, land and inequality

When: Wednesday, 13 February 2019 - Wednesday, 13 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
SCIS Seminar Room, Room 39, Commerce, Law and Management Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

 arabo.ewinyu@wits.ac.za

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies will host this discussion on the recent global land degradation and restoration assessment.

Professor Barend Erasmus will be in discussion with Dr. Vishwas Satgar and members of the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Center and the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign.

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Quality health care in South Africa: ethics, responsibility, accountability

When: Thursday, 14 March 2019 - Thursday, 14 March 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Public Health Auditorium, School of Public Health Building
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Samkelo.Nsibande@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Samkelo.Nsibande@wits.ac.za

The Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics in the Faculty of Health Sciences hosts the 2019 Ethics Alive Imbizo.

Laetitia Rispel, DST/ NRF Chair and Professor of Public Health, Centre for Health Policy, Wits School of Public Health will deliver the keynote address. Mark Heywood, Executive Director of Section 27 will be the respondent. Panellists include:

  • Siyanda Giba – Chairperson, Wits Students’ Bioethics Society
  • Russel Rensburg – Programme Manager, Rural Health Advocacy Project
  • Dr Rajesh Patel –Head of Benefit and Risk, Board of Healthcare Funders
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Articulation and a theorisation of educational change: Reflections on Harold Wolpe’s work on SA

When: Wednesday, 06 March 2019 - Wednesday, 06 March 2019
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Tommy Motswai seminar room, 1st floor, Thembalethu Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Cynthia.Mangena@wits.ac.za / 011 7173076

RSVP:

Cynthia.Mangena@wits.ac.za / 011 7173076

The Centre for Researching Education and Labour (REAL) hosts this public seminar, which Prof, Elaine Unterhalter from University College London will present.

The seminar will address key elements in how Harold Wolpe understood educational change, some reasons for the emphases he developed, and what insight these perceptions offer for looking at the broad area of scholarships in education and international development, as well as the subfield of work on gender and education.

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Urban autonomy in South African intergovernmental relations jurisprudence

When: Tuesday, 26 February 2019 - Tuesday, 26 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

 Thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za  

RSVP:

Thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za  

Are cities making the most of their legal powers? Marius Pieterse from the School of Law will deliver the next Faces of the City seminar.

As cities around the world increasingly assert themselves against national or regional governments, and as it becomes clear that effective urban governance is essential for achievement of goals expressed, for instance, by SDG 11 and the New Urban Agenda, the scope of the formal powers of urban local government is increasingly contentious. This is so especially in resource strapped and politically divided contexts, where turf wars over control of the urban form and function are increasingly commonplace. While urban autonomy and independence depends on various factors, the law – importantly – shapes them. This seminar is based on a paper that analyses the judgments of South African courts in intergovernmental disputes involving local government, in an effort to ascertain the legal parameters of urban autonomy and the scope for independent urban governance, in South African constitutional law.

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Statistical foundations for policy-making and implementation

When: Thursday, 21 February 2019 - Thursday, 21 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Edith Mkhabela on 011 717-6272 or at Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Edith Mkhabela on 011 717-6272 or at Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za

Ashwell Jenneker, Deputy Director-General: Marketing, Communication and Publishing at Statistics South Africa will present this seminar.

How do the data produced by Stats SA (South Africa’s National Statistical Office) relate to real world policy and evidence based evaluations? This presentation will highlight the key links and important numbers shaping South Africa’s economic and social landscape, discuss the perils of avoiding empirical evidence, and explore the foundations that support the statistics that Stats SA produces.

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Screening and Discussion: Zulu Love Letter

When: Monday, 25 February 2019 - Monday, 25 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering
Start time:12:00
Enquiries:

adebayosakiru8@gmail.com

The Faculty of Humanities will host the screening of the film, Zulu Love Matter, which will be followed by a discussion.

Opening remarks will be delivered by Prof. Bhekizizwe Peterson from Wits.

Discussants include:

  • Grace Musila, Associate Professor in African Literature
  • Hugo Canham, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology
  • Dylan Valley, Associate Lecturer in Television Studies
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Film Screening: Movies, Memories, Magic

When: Wednesday, 20 February 2019 - Wednesday, 20 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Studio 2, Film and Television, B2, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

dylan.valley@wits.ac.za

 

The Film and TV Division in the Wits School of Arts host a special screening of the film, Movies, Memories, Magic by Dr Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram.

He is a lecturer in the World Cinema at Queen Mary, University of London, Programming Adviser and Associate Director of the UK Asian Film Festival – London, and a BBC Academy Expert Voice in Cultural Studies and VisualMovies, Memories, Magic uses multiple perspectives to capture the British Asian experience in relation to cinema. It paints a vibrant picture of how classics such as Mother India and Sholay were screened in renowned cinemas – from the alleyways of Brick Lane to the bustling streets of Southall. The documentary is a testament to how the movies help form a distinct cultural identity rooted in both British and South Asian culture. Devasundaram, who is visiting Johannesburg to attend the Urban Lives Workshop, will lead a Q&A conversation after the screening.

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Insights on the current political and economic situation in Zimbabwe

When: Wednesday, 13 March 2019 - Wednesday, 13 March 2019
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 will host a public lecture by Professor Arthur Mutambara, a Zimbabwean politician, academic and author.

Mutambara, a former Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, will draw on the second book in his trilogy, The Path to Power, in which he describes his experiences of the build up to the disputed 2008 elections and the chaotic aftermath.

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A genealogy of the decolonial turn

When: Thursday, 07 March 2019 - Thursday, 07 March 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

danai.mupotsa@wits.ac.za 

The Faculty of Humanities at Wits and the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) will host this public lecture.

ASSAf Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Professor Nelson Maldonado-Torres will deliver this lecture. Maldonado-Torres traces a genealogy of ‘The Decolonial Turn,’ in a set of ongoing reflections that bear the intention of decoloniality in the global south. This conversation is not one that views the project of decoloniality particularly spoken at a universities and the epistemological baggage of projects of transformation as ‘inclusion’, but seeks a language of transformation that directly confronts ongoing material, symbolic and epistemic dispossessions.

 

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Beyond the past and present: the hard search for a solidarity economy in pathway in Keiskammahoek

When: Thursday, 28 February 2019 - Thursday, 28 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Room 248, Robert Sobukwe Block
Start time:16:30
Enquiries:

janecherrytree@gmail.com

The School of Social Sciences and the Co-operative and Policy Alternative Centre will host this talk.

South Africa has millions of land hungry rural dwellers who are engaged in multiple, largely survivalist activities in which agricultural production has been a small component, while increasingly concentrated and globalised capitalist agriculture based on the principle of return on capital employs only a few hundred thousand farm workers who themselves are no longer peasants.

 What is the place of food sovereignty, seed sovereignty and the solidarity economy as responses to this reality? Drawing on the work of Ntinga Ntaba kaNdoda, Mazibuko Jara will present this Emancipatory Futures Studies Practitioner Talk organised by the School of Social Sciences and the Co-operative and Policy Alternative Centre.

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Former homeland areas and unemployment in South Africa

When: Wednesday, 27 February 2019 - Wednesday, 27 February 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Room 247, New Commerce Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

tholoana.phoshodi@wits.ac.za 

Prudence Magejo from the School of Economic and Business Sciences will deliver a talk based on a paper titled Former Homeland Areas and Unemployment in SA.

This study examines differences in unemployment rates between former and non-former homeland areas in South Africa. It is well known that Apartheid spatial policies severely underdeveloped former homeland areas. However, there is little evidence on the status of previously marginalised communities after their re-incorporation into the republic 25 years ago and government’s concerted efforts to redress past injustices. This study seeks to examine Apartheid’s spatial policy ‘scarring effects’ in terms of unemployment in former homeland areas. The study uses cartographic data and the 2011 Census community profiles.

Prudence Magejo is an Associate Lecturer at the School of Economic and Business Sciences. 

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The movement of culture amongst suburban youth

When: Wednesday, 06 March 2019 - Wednesday, 06 March 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Main Gallery, Wits Art Museum
Start time:15:00
Enquiries:

Bobsimonphiri@gmail.com

RSVP:

Bobsimonphiri@gmail.com

The Development and Leadership Unit hosts world-renowned painter Nelson Makamo for an insightful discussion on his work.

The discussion will be based on the theme Cross Cultural Influences Across Amongst South Africa's Youth. One of Makamo’s painting was recently featured on the cover of TIME’s Optimists Issue and his work forms part of a few collections such as those of fashion mogul Georgio Armani, musician Annie Lennox, TELKOM, Hanzehof Zutphense KunstCollectis.

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A Baptism by Fire: Lessons learnt from a first foray into the world of research

When: Thursday, 07 March 2019 - Thursday, 07 March 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
The Liberty Actuarial Auditorium, Room 112, 1st Floor, Mathematical Sciences Laboratory
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

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

Yaseer Khan will present this seminar that will share some of the insights gleaned from his experience with the honours research project.

The talk will feature an overview of the project itself, entitled ‘An Exploration of Penalised Logistic Regression Models in the Context of Dread Disease Risks, accompanied by commentary on the challenges faced as a novice researcher and some practical guidelines for overcoming them.

Khan was awarded the top mark in his year.

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Global frameworks, local realities

When: Thursday, 14 March 2019 - Thursday, 14 March 2019
Where: John Moffat LT
Braamfontein Campus East
Dorothy Suskind Auditorium (A1), Ground Floor, John Moffat Building
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Taki.Sithagu@wits.ac.za

The School of Architecture and Planning and the Wits-TUB Urban Lab Project hosts a panel discussion to celebrate the launch of the new Masters degree.

Panellists include:

  • Dr Geci Karuri-Sebina (Associate, South African Cities Network)
  • Thabo Maisela (Acting Executive Director of Housing, City Of Jhb)
  • Professor Dan Inkoom (Kwame Nkurumah University, Ghana)

The new Masters in Urban Studies is in the field of Urban Management.

 

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Psychoanalytic reflections in context

When: Friday, 15 March 2019 - Friday, 15 March 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Auditorium, Emthonjeni Centre
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

Carol.Long@wits.ac.za

Cost: R400 (students R75)

The Department of Psychology will host this symposium that explores psychoanalytic reflections and applications within the research and clinical context in SA.

Inspired by the PhD in Psychology (including publications), a programme which offers PhD study to psychoanalytically oriented clinicians, the symposium showcases some of the innovative clinical research conducted at PhD level in this programme. Supervisors on the programme will also present their work.

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Easy to replace? Decent work deficits and organising experiences of petrol attendants in Tshwane

When: Friday, 15 March 2019 - Friday, 15 March 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Hofmeyr House
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Gugulethu.Mabena1@wits.ac.za

The Society, Work and Development Institute will host Carmen Ludwig to present this breakfast seminar.

Although the retail fuel sector in South Africa is fast growing and highly labour intensive, little is known about filling stations as work places and the daily work experiences of petrol attendants. Together with the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), a research and organising project was conducted on decent work deficits at filling stations in Tshwane, workers` broader socio-economic situation, on union organisation and strike participation. The spread of workers across many, smaller workplaces and an overall hostile environment present challenges to union organisation. The presentation and comments by Numsa representatives will reflect on results of the project and on the ways in which a decent work questionnaire could serve as a useful tool for

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The decolonial significance of translation

When: Tuesday, 19 March 2019 - Tuesday, 19 March 2019
Where: Off campus
CISA, 36 Jorissen Street, Braamfontein
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Kagiso.Makoe@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Kagiso.Makoe@wits.ac.za

The Centre for Indian Studies (CISA), will host this lecture by Souleyman Bachir Diagne from Columbia University.

In this lecture Diagne will discuss the decolonial significance of the simple act of translation, of “putting in touch” languages (Antoine Berman), in an ethical gesture of creating between them reciprocity and equivalence even in the fundamentally asymmetrical space of colonialism. He will first examine the role played, against the colonial order, and against the colonial “science of the others”, by European poets and artists who “put in touch” the language of their aesthetic quest and that of African artistic forms. I will then discuss the decolonial import of the literature born from the translation of African orature (considering the example of francophone West Africa) into European languages. 

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The question of mercy: Reflections on African American literature from Phillis Wheatley to Toni Morr

When: Tuesday, 19 March 2019 - Tuesday, 19 March 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Nakito.Sendege@wits.ac.za

The African Centre for the Study of the US will host this lecture by Professor Farah Jasmine Griffin from Columbia University, New York.

The lecture will focus on an exploration of the 18th Century prodigy poet Phillis Wheatley and Toni Morrison’s novel A Mercy (2008) to meditate upon the meaning of mercy. In the United States, a nation founded on principles of human freedom and the reality of chattel slavery, who is most in need of mercy? Who grants it? What is the role of mercy in the pursuit of justice and freedom?  

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Skills development for human development

When: Wednesday, 27 March 2019 - Wednesday, 27 March 2019
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Tommy Motswai Seminar Room, 1st floor, Thembalethu Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Cynthia.Mangena@wits.ac.za or 011 717-3076

RSVP:

Cynthia.Mangena@wits.ac.za or 011 717-3076

The Centre for Researching Education and Labour will host Professor Simon McGrath from the University of Nottingham to present this seminar.

The seminar will focus on understanding current theories and policies on skills development, and make suggestions for how we can develop a richer and socially just theory of skills development.

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Book launch: Written under the skin: blood and intergenerational memory in South Africa

When: Tuesday, 23 April 2019 - Tuesday, 23 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

Katlego.Disemelo@wits.ac.za

The African Literature department, together with the Media Studies department at Wits will host the launch of Dr Carli Coetzee’s (Oxford University) new book.

Coetzee’s monograph, Written Under the Skin: Blood and Intergenerational Memory in South Africa explores how a younger generation is disputing and debating the terms through which to understand contemporary South Africa, as well as for interpreting the legacies of the past that remain under the visible layer of skin. In this book, Coetzee uses the image of history-rich blood under the skin to explore approaches to intergenerational memory in the time of the #Fallists.

 

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Elections on the African continent

When: Wednesday, 27 March 2019 - Thursday, 28 March 2019
Where: South West Engineering Building
Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Room 10, Humanities Graduate Centre
Start time:9:30
Enquiries:

 Gwinyai.Taruvinga@wits.ac.za

The Humanities Graduate Centre at Wits will host this roundtable discussion.

  • Thokozani Chilenga Butao – Associate Lecturer, Wits University, Political Studies Department (Moderator)
  • Terry Tselane – Executive Chairman – Institute of Election Management Services in Africa (IEMSA)
  • Prof Annie Chikwanha – Associate Professor Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Johannesburg
  • Muneinazvo Kujeke – Peace and Security Expert at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS)
  • Jamie Mighti – Wits Law Graduate, International Debating & Public Speaking Champion, Political Analyst
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One billion litres of water per year: Putting communities at the centre of development

When: Tuesday, 02 April 2019 - Tuesday, 02 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

alexhalligey@gmail.com

 

Jennifer van den Bussche from Sticky Situations will present this seminar as part of the Faces of the City seminar series.

Since its founding in 2009, WASSUP (Water, Amenities, Sanitation Services, Upgrading Program) Diepsloot, a community-based organization, in collaboration with Sticky Situations, a Johannesburg based organisation, has worked against extraordinary odds to improve water and sanitation services in Extension 1, Diepsloot. For over ten years, WASSUP has been repairing and maintaining communal toilet facilities in Extension 1. Working with limited resources, the co-operative has not only developed a sustainable and accountable repair and maintenance model, it has also developed a water tracking system that has helped to generate important data around water use and huge potential cost savings for the City of Johannesburg. WASSUP’s processes and practices provide scope for innovative best practice. The methodology developed is an easily adoptable model that can be applied at scale to existing City infrastructure.  On the 28th March a report about the work and research undertaken by WASSUP will be launched in Diepsloot, wrapping up 10 years of community development, 5 years of data capturing, and a final push to local/national government to embed this type of program into existing systems – the findings are clear: it cost R20million to maintain the status quo, or R1.3million to fix it and stop the water loss. This session will present the work undertaken by WASSUP, highlighting and reinforcing the important findings and the pressing need for both governmental and private support so as to continue expanding the essential programme both within Diepsloot and to other parts of Johannesburg more broadly.

Jennifer van den Bussche is the founder and director of Sticky Situations, a Johannesburg-based collaborative organisation with a special focus on participatory and community development. A project manager with more than twenty-five years’ experience, she has strong facilitation skills complemented by a background in construction and architecture and extensive experience in community development, and uses these skills to create successful outcomes to a range of projects, including public art, public space and sanitation upgrades and multimedia exhibitions. van den Bussche studied architecture and completed a master’s degree in international and community development at Deakin University, Melbourne, and is also a research affiliate of the Earth Institute at Columbia University’s Centre for Sustainable Urban Design (CSUD), New York.

 

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Space and dialogism

When: Thursday, 04 April 2019 - Thursday, 04 April 2019
Where: South West Engineering Building
Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Kagiso.Makoe@wits.ac.za

Centre for Indian Studies invites you to this lecture as part of the 3rd Thinking from the Global South Distinguished Lectures.

Archives typically do not mention contiguous literary subjects working in different traditions and languages, promoting a view of separate life-worlds despite noticing "curious" similarities. A spatial approach that actively looks for the "multiplicity of stories and trajectories" (Massey) and is attentive to the dialogism of utterances (Bakhtin), by contrast, can go a long way into explaining the utterances themselves and who they are in silent dialogue with. This lecture will present two case studies from North India: the "silent dialogue" between Sufis and Sants (devotional poet saints), and an anthology of modern writing on the city of Allahabad.

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Brulpadda - an example of the exploration risk/reward business and its potential impact

When: Thursday, 04 April 2019 - Thursday, 04 April 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Bert Wessels Lecture Theatre 1, Wits Business School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

The Wits Business School is pleased will host a special public lecture by energy expert Ebbie Haan on the impact of this discovery.

Global energy giant Total and partners have announced a major natural gas and condensate find off the south coast of South Africa. Named Brulpadda (Afrikaans for bullfrog), this substantial find “could be around one billion barrels of hydrocarbon resources, gas and condensate light oil,” says Total.

Ebbie Haan has 35 years’ experience in the energy sector: he worked for 26 years with Royal Dutch Shell on assignments in The Netherlands, Oman, USA, Gabon, Algeria and Malaysia, before joining Sasol in South Africa to run their global upstream business for six years. He now lives in The Hague, The Netherlands.

He will address the following questions:

  • What are the characteristics and key risks in oil and gas exploration and development?
  • What might the impact of significant oil and gas discoveries be on South Africa’s energy balance?
  • What are the likely scenarios and timeline for potential development?
  • Could this be a game changer for the South African economy? 

Professor Rod Crompton, Head of the African Energy Leadership Centre at WBS, will facilitate the discussion. 

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Archives vs practices

When: Tuesday, 02 April 2019 - Tuesday, 02 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Kagiso.Makoe@wits.ac.za

Centre for Indian Studies will host this lecture as part of the 3rd Thinking from the Global South Distinguished Lectures

Despite evidence of widespread and persistent multilingual literary tastes, aesthetics, and practices, literary archives in South Asia have been largely monolingual or selectively bilingual, and have erased all but traces of their subjects' more diffuse multilingualism. This is true of pre-colonial archives, even before new ideas of language, community, and indigeneity under colonialism turned whole languages and traditions into aliens. Rather, in South Asia as elsewhere, attention to the multiple layers of informal as well as formal literary education, and to textual and contextual clues in the archives, help us reconstruct a richer and more connected picture of multilingual literary culture.

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International Law, Pan Africanism, and the African Diaspora: Insights and Reflections

When: Wednesday, 03 April 2019 - Wednesday, 03 April 2019
Where: Solomon Mahlangu House
Braamfontein Campus East
Council Chamber, 11 Floor
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Nakito.Sendege@wits.ac.za

The African Centre for the Study of the United States will host Ansel Brown, Clinical Assistant Professor of Political Science to present this lecture.

Brown is based at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) where his research areas include international law and regional cooperation. Among other things, he is an advocate and proponent of affordable education and economic development in African American communities. Professor Brown is also passionate about promoting Pan-Africanism in the African diaspora. 

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Natural language processing and machine learning approaches for parsing pathology reports

When: Thursday, 04 April 2019 - Thursday, 04 April 2019
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

Gciniwe Dlamini from IBM Research will present this seminar.

Unstructured medical notes, such as pathology reports and medical discharge summaries, contain a lot of information about patients. This information can be mined for potentially actionable insights to improve the care of patients and to improve health systems in general. However, information extraction from these medical texts is a challenge, which has sparked interest from both the natural language processing (NLP) and medical informatics communities. Subsequently, statistical modelling and machine learning approaches are increasingly being used in conjunction with NLP methods to extract relevant content from medical texts effectively and efficiently. In IBM’s recent work, the utility of machine learning in this setting was demonstrated through a case study where machine learning classifiers were built for the automatic labelling of free-text, breast cancer pathology reports, according to their International Classification of Diseases for Oncology (ICD-O) topographical codes across nine classes for breast cancer.

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Death and dying: personal reflections on the right to access assisted dying/ euthanasia

When: Wednesday, 10 April 2019 - Wednesday, 10 April 2019
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Len Miller, 9th Floor, Wits Medical School
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Samkelo.Nsibande@wits.ac.za

The Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics hosts Dr Sue Walter to present this Faculty Lecture.

Two years ago, Dr Sue Walter was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a bone cancer that has ultimately forced her to stop practicing medicine. The cause that she has now taken up is to fight for the rights of people who are undergoing extreme irremediable suffering to have access to assisted dying or euthanasia, should they choose to do so. The court case is expected to be heard during the second half of this year in the Johannesburg High Court.

Dr Walter is a psychologist and medical doctor who graduated from Wits. She also previously worked as a Palliative Care Specialist. She established a palliative care unit in the private sector with the hope of exposing more HPs to the discipline. Dr Walter also established a Foundation called the 11 Angels which helps people that don’t have finances to receive palliative care.

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Studying while black

When: Wednesday, 10 April 2019 - Wednesday, 10 April 2019
Where: Wits Art Museum
Braamfontein Campus East
13th Floor
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

Kudzaiishe.Vanyoro@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Kudzaiishe.Vanyoro@wits.ac.za

This seminar will be based on the book, Studying While Black, an intimate portrait of the many ways in which students in South Africa experience university.

The seminar will be based on the book, Studying While Black, an intimate portrait of the many ways in which students in South Africa experience university, and the centrality of race and geography in their quest for education and ultimately emancipation. This #WiCDSWednesday will feature a screening of the documentary Ready or Not: Black students’ experiences of South African Universities and dialogue on the book Studying While Black with some of the authors. Speakers include:

  • Professor Sharlene Swartz
  • William Mpofu
  • Alude Mahali
  • Professor Relebohile Moletsane
  • Rajohane Matshedisho
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Reflecting on the insurgence of construction mafia in construction projects

When: Thursday, 11 April 2019 - Thursday, 11 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Ronnie.Siphika@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

 Ronnie.Siphika@wits.ac.za  

The School of Construction Economics and Management hosts this panel discussion.

This discussion brings together stakeholders from academia, business, and government to reflect on key issues and factors contributing to current developments in the South African construction industry. Various industry associations have expressed concern and investors are pulling out of big construction projects, while some engineers consider taking their skills elsewhere as armed gangs violently disrupt construction projects. The violence and intimidation has led to some major projects in the Eastern and Western Cape being abandoned.

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The Origins of Early Sapiens Behaviour – Mother Africa Welcome Home Exhibition

When: Wednesday, 17 April 2019 - Sunday, 30 June 2019
Where: Off campus
Iziko South African Museum, 25 Queen Victoria Street, Gardens, Cape Town
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

http://www.iziko.org.za/

The Origins of Early Sapiens Behaviour Exhibition is a showcase of a culmination of some 30 years of archaeological research in the southern Cape.

Undertaken by Professor Christopher Henshilwood, Dr Karen van Niekerk, Professor Sarah Wurz and their research teams at Blombos Cave, Klipdrift Shelter and Klasies River, The Origins of Early Sapiens Behaviour – Mother Africa Welcome Home Exhibition has been curated by award-winning documentary filmmaker Craig Foster and the Curator at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at University of the Witwatersrand, Petro Keene. The exhibition is designed to explore key aspects of archaeological research and is linked to the SapienCE/Wits research programme that focuses on early human origins and innovations in southern Africa.

The exhibition was first showcased late in 2018 at the Spier Wine Farm in Stellenbosch, near Cape Town. Since then it has been expanded and updated to include finds from the Klasies River site.

The Origins of Early Sapiens Behaviour – Mother Africa Welcome Home Exhibition. © Craig Foster

About the exhibition and research

In 2018 the SFF Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE), University of Bergen in Norway, and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg South Africa collaborated in this first-of-its-kind exhibition to showcase the discovery of our early modern human origins and the multitude of innovations that originated in southern Africa.

It is an extraordinary multimedia presentation comprising 16 unique display panels that include six videos by renowned documentary filmmaker Craig Foster. The exhibition expertly brings to life the extraordinary rich archaeological record of three unique South African archaeological sites - Blombos Cave, Klasies River and Klipdrift Shelter - while taking the visitor on a multi-sensory journey of discovery of our common ancestry.

The daily life of early Homo sapiens has been re-created on film and the artefacts and objects they made and used have been meticulously  replicated and displayed to illustrate what life for humans was like between 120 000 to 50 000 years ago. The videos illustrate the remarkable scientific work of the SapienCE/Wits archaeologists who assisted in the reconstruction of scenes that depict the daily activities of our early human ancestors on this archaeologically rich stretch of the southern African coastline.

Three archaeological sites are brought to life

The exhibition features the unique archaeological discoveries that scientists have made over the course of some 30 years at three of their core archaeological sites:  Blombos Cave, Klipdrift Shelter and Klasies River, all situated on the southern Cape coast of South Africa. The sites were occupied by early Homo sapiens (humans like us) between 120 000 and 50 000 years ago, a key period in the evolution of modern human behaviour. Archaeological deposits found in the sites have been meticulously dated using the latest available technology.

Of the many exciting finds displayed and a highlight of the exhibition is the ochre-processing toolkit excavated from the 100 000 years old levels at Blombos Cave near Still Bay in the Western Cape.

This remarkable discovery, found almost perfectly intact, provides the earliest evidence for the manufacture of a red ochre-rich paint that was mixed and stored in the first known containers - abalone shells. The mixture contains ground red ochre, seal fat and ground bone, charcoal and a liquid. It is the same recipe used in ancient Egypt 2000 years ago.

The people living in Blombos Cave made beads out of tiny estuarine shells and strung them in various ways to be worn, possibly, as necklaces or pendants. They also engraved abstract designs on more than fourteen pieces of ochre, some 100 000 years old, and made the earliest known drawing that dates to 73 000 years - an abstract design made with an ochre pencil on a stone flake. This design recently captured the world’s imagination when it was named ‘the world’s first ‘Hashtag’. These engravings and the drawing are regarded as the first evidence for art.

Aesthetically beautiful, bifacially (meaning having two sides) worked stone spearheads, made from specially heated stone and then pressure flaked using a technique thought to have evolved in Europe 20 000 years ago, add to the repertoire of technologically and symbolically advanced material culture that these early humans produced. 

The exhibition also showcases finds from Klipdrift Shelter that were dated at around 66 000 – 59 000 years ago, and include engraved eggshell fragments and engraved ostrich egg water flasks as well as replicas of finely crafted stone tools. Small flakes, essentially tiny pieces of stone, were shaped to form crescents, or half-moons and these were attached to wooden shafts with glue (made from plant resins and ochre) to make arrows. The wood shafts of the arrows and the bows have not preserved, but the wear patterns on the stone flakes tell us the whole story. This southern African evidence, that is also found at Klasies River, is the oldest for bows and arrows found anywhere and ranges from 70 000 – 55 000 years. Klasies River has also offered up some of the oldest human remains in southern Africa, evident from bones found from people living in the cave 120 000 years ago.

We are all one

The ‘We are all One' message features strongly throughout the exhibition, pointing to the clear and current genetic evidence that all Homo sapiens - people like us -  have their origins in Africa and is revolutionary in our understanding that all people on earth share a common ancestry. Regardless of where in the world we live, Africa is our original home. Our ancestors evolved here and by examining our DNA, scientists tell us we are all African and only moved to Asia and then the rest of the world 70 000 years ago.

The decades of archaeological discoveries at these three very rare and unique caves allow us to enter a time machine to relive parts of the extraordinary lives of our ancestors, people who were anatomically modern, intelligent humans and like us in so many ways. A ‘people's history' is richly portrayed via multimedia to educate visitors of all ages about their own past and encourage a sense of pride in us knowing that we all come from Africa.

 

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Acts of miscegenation: the imagination of B R Ambedkar

When: Tuesday, 09 April 2019 - Tuesday, 09 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
CB 8, Robert Sobukwe Building
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

kagiso.makoe@wits.ac.za

Feminist and independent scholar, V. Geetha will present this Thinking from the Global South Distinguished Lecture.

B. R. Ambedkar, radical democrat and state builder, in his critique of caste and untouchability, his unique sense of the modern moment in history and his reflections on the good and just society and polity, transcends his location within Indic as much as Anglo American traditions. How might we characterise these instances of concept-making? What do they tell us about the relationship between vernacular experiences and their English expressions? What acts of miscegnation helped to birth these concepts? Geetha address these questions in the context of a momentous event in modern Indian history: Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism, along with lakhs of his followers in 1956.

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Indian feminism and its uncertain genealogies

When: Friday, 12 April 2019 - Friday, 12 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
CB 8, Robert Sobukwe Building
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

kagiso.makoe@wits.ac.za

The Centre for Indian Studies at Wits will host this seminar by V. Geetha.

For more than two decades Indian feminists have grappled with questions to do with a fractured feminist sisterhood, but through a conceptual lens that we have borrowed from the American context. We thus express our misgivings in terms of ‘intersectional feminism’, and even as we address questions arising from within recognisably Indian realities, of caste, ethnicity and region, we mostly reference conceptual work produced in a context that is quite distinct from ours. This mismatch is not unproductive, but it does not help us understand how, over the decades, we have engaged with ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’ – this history is yet to be mapped out or narrated in ways that capture the idealism of our politics of sisterhood, the manner in which we engaged with questions to do with ‘difference’ and our founded oversights.

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You have money, you enjoy life: The politics and perplexities of consumerist cultures in Africa

When: Wednesday, 17 April 2019 - Wednesday, 17 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Mehita.Iqani@wits.ac.za 

Simidele Dosekun, lecturer in media and cultural studies at the University of Sussex will present seminar on consumption.

This is the 8th seminar in the Mellon 30th Anniversary Seminar Series, Mapping African Futures. The seminar maps the logics of various cases of consumerism in Africa, and of the ready concerns if not relative moral panics that these cases engender. Motivated by an ongoing tension in her own research between asserting the fact and un-exceptionality of Africans’ ardent participation in the world of things without lapsing into celebration or relinquishing critique, this seminar reflects on how consumption in Africa ‘makes sense’ but also perplexes, and reflects on how we can problematise it without taking a moralised or disciplinary view of what it is that Africans should be doing or desiring instead.

The seminar will be chaired by Associate Professor Mehita Iqani.

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Grave matters: Dispossession and the desecration of ancestral graves by mining corporations

When: Friday, 03 May 2019 - Friday, 03 May 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Hofmeyr House, next to Jubilee Hall
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Gugulethu.Mabena1@wits.ac.za

The Society, Work and Politics Institute will host this breakfast seminar by Dineo Skosana.

Dispossession is characteristically associated with the period of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa. Consequently, not much consideration is given to how the previously marginalised continue to be dispossessed in their everyday lives by coal mining activities in the current political dispensation. The presentation will attempt to reframe dispossession as a perpetual post-apartheid experience in African communities. In this presentation, dispossession does not only encompass events of deprivation and loss of land and property but also covers loss of the incorporeal. Therefore, the relocation of African ancestral graves in Tweefontein (Ogies) is discussed as an aspect of dispossession. The politics of grave exhumations and relocation illustrates how communities not only lose the material; land, and tombs, but also lose their intangible possessions; identity, heritage and belonging as a result of mining.

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Yebo Gogga Yebo Amablomo: Fact, Fiction, Truth and Myth?

When: Tuesday, 07 May 2019 - Sunday, 12 May 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Oppenheimer Life Sciences Building
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

School Bookings: 083 376 1734 | General Enquiries: (011) 717-6467

Everyone is welcome to this exciting event that celebrates life on earth, the marvels of science and past life.

It is not always easy to know. There are well-known ‘facts’ that turn out to be false and there are facts that seem so unlikely few people would believe them. This year, some of the myths about the life that shares our world will be exposed and some of the fabulous and fantastic facts will be revealed.

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Animals in the philosophy of the Islamic world

When: Wednesday, 17 April 2019 - Wednesday, 17 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Kagiso.Makoe@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Kagiso.Makoe@wits.ac.za

The Centre for Indian Studies will host Peter Adamson to present this seminar.

It is commonly supposed that philosophers only recently began to take animal welfare seriously, in the wake of utilitarianism and Darwinism. In this lecture, it will be shown that this is not true: authors of the Islamic world like al-Razi, the Brethren of Purity, Avicenna, and Ibn Tufayl made remarkable contributions to the history of animal ethics and psychology. Reacting to themes from the Quran, Aristotle, and the medical tradition, they argued explicitly for benevolence towards animals and also for acknowledging the sophisticated cognitive abilities of animals. They thus put into question the traditional stark opposition made by philosophers between humans as rational beings, and animals as irrational creatures who do not fall within the scope of moral concern.

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Estimating intergenerational income mobility on two samples: Sensitivity to model selection

When: Wednesday, 17 April 2019 - Wednesday, 17 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Room 247, New Commerce Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

sebs@wits.ac.za 

The School for Economic and Business Sciences will host Patrizio Piraino from the University of Cape Town.

Much of the international evidence on intergenerational income mobility is based on sub-optimal data. This is especially true for low-income and emerging countries. In particular, a considerable number of studies make use of two-sample techniques to impute parental incomes. Piraino will propose a machine learning method that may improve the reliability and comparability of such estimates. Our approach minimises the out-of-sample prediction error in the parental income imputation. This provides an objective criterion for choosing across different specifications of the prediction equation.

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Optimism in troubled times: revolution, tragedy and possibility in Caribbean history

When: Friday, 19 April 2019 - Friday, 19 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Kagiso.Makoe@wits.ac.za

Brain Meeks from Brown University, will present this Thinking from the Global South Distinguished Lecture.

Despite the defeats of the popular movements for revolutionary and radical change in the Anglophone Caribbean, Meeks retains a general optimism as to the possibilities of learning from them and of charting new paths for the future. Others, like David Scott, on the contrary and consistent with perspectives on ‘the tragic’ developed in his recent work, have been far more cautious and pessimistic. What then is the foundation for radical optimism or its converse, a tendency towards emphasizing pessimism and tragedy? In the lecture he will use Scott’s work, particularly in Conscripts of Modernity and Omens of Adversity and read them alongside C.L.R. James’s The Black Jacobins and V.S. Naipaul’s Guerrillas among other texts, in order to rethink the foundations for a politics of radical optimism in an era of political defeat and epistemic uncertainty.

 

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Is Caribbean thought a useful category? Thinking the Caribbean as a distinctive space

When: Monday, 22 April 2019 - Monday, 22 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
CB 8, Robert Sobukwe Building
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Kagiso.Makoe@wits.ac.za

The Centre for Indian Studies will host Brain Meeks from Brown University to present this lecture.

What does it mean to speak of people like Stuart Hall as a Caribbean thinker? He was, of course, born in Jamaica and went to high school there, but the rest of his life and formation was in the United Kingdom, at Oxford, in the new left and at Birmingham and later the Open University, where he led the forging of modern cultural studies. Despite this cosmopolitan trajectory, (indeed, in part, because of it) his work was distinctively Caribbean and deserves to be honoured as such. Referencing Hall’s work along with that of Sylvia Wynter and Kamau Brathwaite, this talk tries try to think through the unanswered question of the distinctiveness of Caribbean thought and argue as to whether it deserves its own space, amidst the panoply of late colonial and early post-colonial radical thinking.

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Foreign policy forum: International law in retreat? Symptoms and consequences of great power rivalry

When: Thursday, 25 April 2019 - Thursday, 25 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Club
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

Malte.Brosig@wits.ac.za

 

The Department of International Relations at Wits will host this roundtable discussion.

The Foreign Policy Forum: Regional Powers in Global Politics accompanies South Africa's membership in the UN Security Council during 2019-2020. It consists of a series of six roundtables each dedicated to a particular theme. The overarching topic is the role of regional powers in global affairs which is characterised by a return of great power politics and erosion of multilateralism. This roundtable will discuss the current demise in international law and the return of great power competition.

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A Wits School of Governance conversation with Masana Ndinga-Kanga

When: Thursday, 02 May 2019 - Thursday, 02 May 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Auditorium 1, Albert Wessels Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Events.WSG@wits.ac.za

The Wits School of Governance will host this conversation.

Triple Jeopardy, a multimedia project, presents a snapshot into the lived experiences of the black middle class in South Africa, unravelling the current framing of the group as an identity driven by consumerism and disconnect from the country’s political landscape. Through film and research, the project is a practical exploration of the privileges and burdens of this class identity, including an exploration of ‘black tax’. The project unpacks the gender, race and class dynamics within the group, and the ways in which young people (women, in particular) navigate these in a context where intra-group inequality is one of the highest in the world. The conversation will begin with a screening of the Triple Jeopardy documentary followed by a presentation of a research report of 100 respondents, and a panel discussion. Masana Ndinga-Kanga, a Senior Atlantic Fellow conducted the research which was supported by the Atlantic Fellowship on Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics.

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The economic manifesto analysis: What are you voting for?

When: Wednesday, 17 April 2019 - Wednesday, 17 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Great Hall
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

 Kamal Ramburuth-Hurt

0829725818

kamalramhurt@gmail.com

 

Rethinking Economics for Africa (REFA) will host this debate between key policy makers of the three largest political parties as well as two economists.

Panelists include:

  • David Masondo (ANC)
  • Ghaleb Cachallia (DA)
  • Gumani Tshimola (EFF)
  • Duma Gqubule (Independent Economist)
  • Fionna Tregenna (Professor of Economics)

REFA Wits sees this as an important part of strengthening our democracy by informing voters and creating spaces for the development of ideas that will take our country forward.

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Wits Farmers' Market

When: Friday, 26 April 2019 - Friday, 26 April 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Opposite Sanctuary building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

karuna.singh@wits.ac.za 

Come buy naturally grown vegetables from small scale urban farmers.

The Wits Sovereignty Food Centre invites staff and students to come buy fresh produce at the monthly Wits Farmers' Market. 

Staff and students should bring their own shopping bags and also small change.

 

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2019 Africa Day Celebrations

When: Thursday, 02 May 2019 - Thursday, 02 May 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
16:45 – 19:45 (Humanities Graduate Centre, Southwest Engineering Building, Braamfontein Campus East) and 18:15 – 21:00 (Wits Art Museum)
Start time:16:45
Enquiries:

Andile.Khumalo@wits.ac.za 

The Wits Faculty of Humanities celebrates the resilience of Africa in her struggles against colonialism and apartheid ahead of Africa Day on 25 May 2019.

As it recognises the countless contributions and sacrifices made by women in attaining African Freedom, the Faculty celebrates Africa’s transformative journey towards gender equality as illuminated by woman leadership in the African Union. On African Day, the Wits Faculty of Humanities embraces the AU’s agenda on Gender Equality and Women Development by dedicating this celebration to African women.

This year’s Africa Day theme centres on the question “Are women part of the equation in making Africa work?”. The keynote address will be delivered by Professor Lulama Makhubela, currently a Research Associate at the Gordon Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria, followed by a panel discussion moderated by Dr Haseenah Ebrahim, Senior Lecturer, Wits University.

Panellists include:

  • Nontsikelelo Sisulu-Singapi 
  • Dr Danai Mupotsa
  • Tando Mandela
  • Siphokazi Ben – Mazwi
  • Nomfundo Xaluva

At the Wits Art Museum (WAM), three DJs: Ms G, Charlie Leonard and Bro Slovo; will play their choice of historical and contemporary African music. The celebrations will conclude with a Jazz Concert featuring Andre Petersen.

The Africa Day celebrations at Wits take place ahead of the annual May 25th activities, which commemorate the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on 25 May 1963. The OAU was later renamed the African Union.

For the full Africa Day Programme please visit www.wits.ac.za/africaday

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A new-new crowd? Digital infrastructure and the political

When: Monday, 06 May 2019 - Monday, 06 May 2019
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 this seminar by Prof Ravi Sundaram from the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

Contemporary digital infrastructures are widely seen as re-assembling older models of the public and political speech. Political contingency is now shaped by systems of curation and protocol; it is increasingly clear that we need to revisit the idea of the collective as a coda of the political. Anxieties about excitable mass crowds and democracy were once prominent in early 20th Century debates. The blurring of street crowds and online agglomerations has been seen in many recent right wing populist mobilisations, generating new questions for media and social theory. Using material from ongoing research in India. Sundaram will discuss the post-digital crowd as a political imaginary, a threat and a potential. 

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Faculty of Health Sciences Teaching and Learning Symposium

When: Tuesday, 14 May 2019 - Tuesday, 14 May 2019
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Marie Curie Lecture Theatre
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Shirra.Moch@wits.ac.za

The Faculty of Health Sciences will host this symposium with guest scholar, Professor Steven Durning, from the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, USA.

Durning is a Professor of Medicine and pathology at the Uniformed Services University (USU) and the Director of Graduate Programs in Health Professions Education. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts, 20 book chapters, and has edited five books. He serves on a number of national and international organisations and is the Deputy Editor for Research for Academic Medicine.

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Hispanic film festival: Session 3 - Argentina

When: Thursday, 09 May 2019 - Thursday, 09 May 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Centre, Southwest Engineering Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

david.ruizguzman@wits.ac.za

The Centre for Mexican Studies hosts this film festival.

The film festival aims to promote the language and Latin American and Hispanic culture. This session the invited country is Argentina and the film will be Toutblanc, with the acclaimed actress Maricel Álvarez.

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The Kenyan TJRC: An outsider’s view from the inside

When: Thursday, 09 May 2019 - Thursday, 09 May 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:16:30
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) will hold a discussion about a book by Ronald Slye who will be in conversation with Westen Shilaho.

Slye has written an insider’s account, candidly assessing both the challenges and failures of the Kenyan TJRC as well as its successes. From 2009 to 2013 he was one of three international commissioners on the Kenyan Commission. In this book he provides new details about the conflicts of interest of the Commission’s chair and the Commission’s efforts to address them; the interference by the President to have references to his family’s land grabbing removed; the innovations the Commission undertook to increase participation by women and to capture violations of and recommendations for protecting socio-economic rights. His candid assessment of the Kenyan TJRC leads to a number of recommendations and insights with respect to truth commissions and transitional justice initiatives generally.

Shilaho is SARChI Chair African Diplomacy & Foreign Policy, University of Johannesburg). 

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How the twin peaks model impacts your finances

When: Thursday, 09 May 2019 - Thursday, 09 May 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Solomon Mahlangu House Basement 5, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Micheal.Mathonsi@students.wits.ac.za

A panel discussion with leaders in the financial sector.

Isaac Ramputa, CEO of Financial Sector Transformation Council; Nadia Starr, CEO of Insurance SETA, Tembisa Marele, Head of Communications at Financial Sector Conduct Authority; and Tendani Mathobo, Senior Specialist at Financial Sector Conduct Authority, will discuss the twin peaks model in the context of how young people can gain access to the sector and how the legislation empowers them. The InSETA will give insight on the role of financial sector related SETA's as well as programmes it is planning to roll out in the near future.

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Shakespeare and blackface

When: Monday, 13 May 2019 - Monday, 13 May 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, Southwest Engineering Building
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Nakito.Sendege@wits.ac.za

The African Centre for the Study of the United States and the English Department at Wits University will host a talk by Professor Ayanna Thompson.

In this lecture Thompson will discuss the intersection between the history of Shakespearean performance in the US and the birth of blackface minstrelsy.

She is the 2018-19 president of the Shakespeare Association of America. Her books include Teaching Shakespeare with Purpose: A Student-Centred Approach (2016); Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America (2011); Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance (2010); Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage (2008); and Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance (2006).

Professor Ayanna Thompson is Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies (ACMRS) at Arizona State University.

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Foreign policy forum: Leaders or laggards: the role of the elective ten in the UN Security Council

When: Wednesday, 15 May 2019 - Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:15:00
Enquiries:

Malte.Brosig@wits.ac.za 

The Department of International Relations at Wits will host this round table discussion.

At the centre of the discussion is the question how larger regional powers can shape and influence the UNSC agenda given the privileged position of the P5? Why do seemingly powerful actors often display reluctance in their foreign policy and what role should regional powers play in times of recurring great power rivalry?

The discussion will focus on the role of the non-permanent members to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) known as Elective 10 (E10). 

 Register 

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Whiteness in Brazil and the challenge of a decolonial education

When: Thursday, 16 May 2019 - Thursday, 16 May 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Media Room, SH3004, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:13:15
Enquiries:

Katlego.Disemelo@wits.ac.za / 011 717 4194

The Department of Media Studies in the School of Literature, Languages, and Media at Wits will host this seminar.

The seminar aims to offer a discussion about racial relations in Brazil and also about the specificities of the critical studies of whiteness, regarding the importance of policies and affirmative actions on the education field. Paola Prandini, a Brazilian PhD visitor student at Wits will present this seminar alongside Ana Helena Passos, a Brazilian postdoctoral researcher. Prandini is from the Communication Sciences Post Graduation Program at University of São Paulo. She is also a journalist and an anti-racist activist in Brazil, for the last 15 years, working as a co-founder of Afroeducação, a social business focused on racial equality in Brazilian schools. Passos is also an anti-racist activist in Brazil, working as a professor and a former lawyer engaged in Human Rights policies in her country.

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Kewpie, daughter of District Six

When: Thursday, 16 May 2019 - Wednesday, 31 July 2019
Where: Off campus
Market Photo Workshop, 138 Lillian Ngoyi St (old Bree St), Newtown, Johannesburg. Suggested Dress Code: Legendary
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Nobantu.Nqolobe@wits.ac.za

The GALA Archives will host this exhibition.

The Kewpie collection, held at the GALA Archives, is the personal photographic collection of Kewpie (1941-2012), whose given name was Eugene Fritz. Kewpie was part of a queer community in District Six, who at the time were known amongst themselves and by the wider community as ‘moffies’. From what we know, Kewpie’s gender identity was fluid, and she did not strictly identify as either male or female. Kewpie was born in 1941, grew up in District Six and became a hairdresser, training at Salon André in Hanover Street before eventually opening her own salon, Salon Kewpie, in Kensington. By night, Kewpie was a celebrated attendee at ‘moffie’ balls, and she would often perform on stage to packed audiences at District Six’s Ambassador Club.

The photographs and accompanying material explore Kewpie’s life and drag culture in District Six, introducing a new audience to a fascinating period of LGBTIQ+ social history and deepening historical understanding of the diverse District Six community. In addition, the collection offers an insight into photography and self-representation in a specific time and place in history. The exhibition depicts the full and complex lives of Kewpie and friends, showing both the carefully crafted public personas of the drag queens and also their private ‘off-duty’ lives.

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UpToSPAED Conference

When: Thursday, 20 June 2019 - Monday, 24 June 2019
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Wits School of Public Health
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

www.witsuptospaed.co.za/ claire@eoafrica.co.za/

The Wits Paediatric Fund will host the 7th UpToSPAED Conference.

This popular annual conference helps to raise funds, which contribute to critical shortages not covered by hospital budgets e.g equipment, counselling, refurbishing clinic areas etc. for the three main paediatric teaching hospitals in Johannesburg namely, Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital and Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital.

The conference will boast of range of international and local speakers who will discuss:

  • Next generation sequencing – to the exome and beyond (Dr Zané Lombard)
  • The CRISPR twins – what’s all the fuss about? (Ms Bonnie Venter)
  • Dialysing small children – little guys, big trouble (Dr Cecil Levy)
  • Gene therapy – for common single gene disorders (Professor Janet Poole)
  • Ethical issues surrounding the treatment of non-SA citizens in state hospitals (Dr Harriet Etheredge)
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Building a skillset for an actuarial career

When: Thursday, 16 May 2019 - Thursday, 16 May 2019
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

Ranti Mothapo from Moruba Consultants and Actuaries will present this actuarial sciences seminar.

This seminar will discuss a possible focussed approach to developing skills necessary for a flourishing actuarial career. Typical actuarial syllabi, qualifications as well as work involvement are located in the context of Bloom’s taxonomy of critical thinking skills as well as Edgar Dale’s cone of experiences.

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Indaba on Global Injustice in Sport

When: Friday, 17 May 2019 - Friday, 17 May 2019
Where: Off campus
Sunnyside Park Hotel, Parktown
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

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

RSVP:

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

The injustices, prejudice and discrimination on a global level in relation to the IAAF regulations and the CAS findings on the challenge by Caster Semenya.

The South African Medical Association (SAMA), the SA National Bioethics Committee(NBC) (UNESCO) and  the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics (SCBC) are hosting an Indaba on the injustices, prejudice and discrimination on a global level in relation to the IAAF regulations, the CAS findings on the challenge by Caster Semenya and the latest rebuttal from the IAAF of the WMA call to physicians not to implement the Federation’s regulations. One of the possible outcomes could be a call to a relevant body to commission an independent review of the studies that the IAAF based its regulations on. The body could be determined at the Indaba.

Delegates attending the Indaba include country level stakeholders, activists, health care practitioners and civil society.

Click here to download programme.

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The African year of refugees, returnees and displaced persons

When: Friday, 24 May 2019 - Friday, 24 May 2019
Where: Senate Room
Braamfontein Campus East
2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:14:45
Enquiries:

thulisile.mbatha@wits.ac.za

 

Professor Gilbert Rochon, Co-Chair of the Higher Education Initiative of the New York-based African Renaissance and Diaspora Network will present this seminar.

 The African Centre for the Study of the US in collaboration with the African Renaissance and Diaspora Network and the United Nations Senior Africans Group will host this lecture by Professor Gilbert Rochon, Co-Chair of the Higher Education Initiative of the New York-based African Renaissance & Diaspora Network. Rochon is also former President, Tuskegee University, Alabama, USA and Adjunct Professor at Tulane and Xavier Universities, Louisiana, USA.

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How to prepare your business for the 2020s in Africa

When: Wednesday, 05 June 2019 - Wednesday, 05 June 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
The Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Thembeka.Hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za

The Wits Business School will host a public lecture by Winfred Oppong-Amoako a sought-after business adviser, executive coach and author.

Oppong-Amoako will address, among other topics:

  • What lessons can we learn from doing business in Africa in the last decade?
  • Is your business cut out for the 2020s in Africa?
  • How can your business gain the competitive edge in the 2020s?

 

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Capacity-building initiative in gender-based analysis in vector-borne diseases and climate change

When: Wednesday, 29 May 2019 - Wednesday, 29 May 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
The Wits Club
Start time:11:30
Enquiries:

Teurai.Rwafa@wits.ac.za by 24 May 2019

The Wits School of Public Health will launch a capacity strengthening initiative on Gender-Based Analysis (GBA) in Vector-Borne Diseases and Climate Change.

The initiative addresses the design and implementation of gender-sensitive health policies, projects and research. It teaches how gender norms, roles and relations influence the susceptibility of men, women and non-binary individuals to different health conditions. A component of the content is how gender-related aspects influence people’s responses and coping mechanisms to climate change and vector-borne diseases. This a collaboration with the School of Public Health at the University of Ghana and  the World Health Organization’s TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases.

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The role of big business in promoting democracy

When: Thursday, 30 May 2019 - Thursday, 30 May 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Lerato.Mtambanengwe@wits.ac.za

The Wits School of Governance, Business Leadership South Africa and Business Report will host this public dialogue.

This dialogue will seek to understand how can big business promote and support the institutions of democracy to drive an inclusive socio-economic agenda in SA.

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Curating knowledge of, and policies for, smart cities and climate change

When: Tuesday, 28 May 2019 - Tuesday, 28 May 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

alexhalligey@gmail.com

 

Richard Tomlinson, a Visiting Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at Wits will present this seminar.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union, the persistence of a now frayed, but still pervasive, neoliberal urban policy environment, and the evolution of ICT and big data have made possible the multi-institutional curation of knowledge for cities; with the notion of “best practice” still evident.  The contribution of this paper lies more in understanding the creation and role of institutions and the evolution of ICT and big data in knowledge curation than actual policy outcomes.  Knowledge of, and policies for, climate change and smart cities are traced, decade by decade, from the 1980s to the 2010s. Illustrative of many influences, the paper combines the World Bank revisioning itself as a knowledge bank, the creation of C40 with a view to setting the global climate change agenda for large cities, Saskia Sassen’s writing on global cities going global, with this similarly being the case for Michael Hood’s writing on New Public Management, Bloomberg Philanthropies launching the ‘Harvard + Bloomberg + 240 Cities’ initiative, the launch of the iPhone, with the use of smart phones both generating unstructured big data and apps based on that data, Amazon’s launching the EC2 cloud computing platform launch, and Barcelona positioning itself as the centre for global smart city research and practice. 

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Making sense of the noise: trends shaping 2019 and beyond

When: Tuesday, 25 June 2019 - Tuesday, 25 June 2019
Where: Wits Club
Braamfontein Campus West
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

 

Purvi.Purohit@wits.ac.za

 

 

The Wits Alumni Relations will host this networking event and discussion with guest speaker Abdullah Verachia

Verachia is a thought leader on competitiveness and the interplay between strategy and disruptive innovation. His talk explores the political, socio-economic, technological, digital and business trends that will shift our future.

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Transforming settlements through design

When: Wednesday, 29 May 2019 - Wednesday, 29 May 2019
Where: John Moffat LT
Braamfontein Campus East
A1 Auditorium
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

marisa.sauls@wits.ac.za 

The 2019 Roelof S. Uytenbogaardt Urban Design Institute of South Africa (UDISA) Memorial Lecture will be presented by Piet Louw and Dave Dewar.

The two have worked widely in southern and eastern Africa on a wide range of issues relating to urban, rural and regional development and their work has received numerous international and national awards. One of their central strengths is that they bring a consistency of approach and a wide range of skills across scales to bear on planning and urban design challenges. The lecture will be followed by an exhibition that will run until 7 June 2019. 

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Development and change in the global city region

When: Tuesday, 04 June 2019 - Tuesday, 04 June 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, First Floor, John Moffat Building
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

alexhalligey@gmail.com

 

Michael Sachs, Adjunct Professor at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at Wits will present this seminar.

The seminar will summarise key macro trends in the society and economy of the Gauteng City-Region since the dawn of democracy, drawing extensively on the work of Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO). It reflects a synthesis report prepared for policy-makers, which is organised around the following themes:

  • People, economy and resources
  • Public services, society and inequality
  • Spatial development and settlement patterns
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Transforming classroom experiences for the helping professions

When: Wednesday, 19 June 2019 - Friday, 21 June 2019
Where: Off campus
Emoyeni Conference Centre, 15 Jubilee Road, Parktown
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

Che.Kelly@wits.ac.za

The School of Human and Community Development will host a symposium on transforming classroom experiences.

The symposium is open to academics, researchers and clinicians within the helping professions who have redesigned their teaching practice to accommodate the need for transformation and decolonisation. Click here to register.

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The rise of dinosaurs in southern Africa

When: Thursday, 25 July 2019 - Thursday, 25 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Michelle.Gallant@wits.c.za

The Faculty of Science hosts the inaugural lecture of Professor Jonah Choiniere from the Evolutionary Studies Institute.

Two hundred million years ago, a mass extinction event upheaved Earth’s ecosystems, causing the demise of nearly 75% of its species. Dinosaurs flourished in the wake of this event, becoming the dominant land-dwelling vertebrates for the next 135 million years. Southern Africa’s rich fossil deposits make it the best place in the world for studying this extinction and its aftermath. Choiniere will share the results of seven years of fieldwork and fossil study in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho, giving an emerging picture on the dawn of the dinosaur era.

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State of the newsroom 2018

When: Wednesday, 19 June 2019 - Wednesday, 19 June 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Club
Start time:10:00
Enquiries:

tshepo.tshabalala@wits.ac.za 

Wits Journalism invites you to the launch of State of the Newsroom 2018.

The latest edition of the annual State of the Newsroom Report, under the theme Structured/unstructured, will feature insights on topics including the crisis at the SABC and what happens to journalists when they lose their jobs? The launch will include a panel debate on the future of journalism titled Journalism is dead. Long Live Journalism. Over the last year, we have seen continuing staff reductions in major newsrooms and a decline in original reporting. We have also seen the launch of two digital only titles and a new 24-hour TV news channel. But new sustainable business models for journalism in digital media remain elusive. There are so many exciting possibilities but so little evidence of a bright future. So where should we be looking for the new paths that could lead to a healthy future for journalism and journalists? What could and what should a new media look like?

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Writing decolonisation: Seven keywords

When: Thursday, 27 June 2019 - Thursday, 27 June 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

Professor Pamila Gupta presents her inaugural lecture, which traces the trajectories of Gupta’s anthropological scholarship over the past 15 years.

It starts in Goa (India), moves to Southern and East Africa (Mozambique, Angola, South Africa, and Zanzibar), and returns to Goa. The framing device will be that of “keywords” as a vocabulary of culture and society (following Raymond Williams, 1976) in order to reflect shifting research interests and writings on decolonisation.

 

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Entrepreneurship in the township economy

When: Thursday, 20 June 2019 - Thursday, 20 June 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

thembeka.hlatshwayo@wits.ac.za 

 

To commemorate ‘Youth Month’, the Wits Business School will host a panel discussion on the township economy with four inspirational and experience.

Panellists include: 

  • Lwanga Cengimbo - founder of Lwanga Productions and Hustlepreneur
  • Tiisetso Maloma - entrepreneur, researcher, publisher and author of The Anxious Entrepreneur and Township Biz Fastrack
  • Bulelani Balabala - founder of Township Entrepreneurs Alliance (TEA) and CEO of IAF brands, a township-based award winning branding and print manufacturing company 
  • Leah Manenzhe – acting CEO of the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller (GEP)

The conversation will be facilitated by Pearl Maphumulo - Managing Director of The Business Development Agency, and recently named as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in South Africa by Ghanaian’s Avance Media.

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Book launch: Race, class and the post-apartheid democratic state

When: Wednesday, 03 July 2019 - Wednesday, 03 July 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Bert Wessel’s Auditorium
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Events.WSG@wits.ac.za

The University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, the Wits School of Governance and the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies will be launching this book.

The book launch is in honour of Harold Wolpe. Revisiting Harold Wolpe in the Ramaphosa Era: Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State, provides an overdue critical re-engagement with the analytical approach exemplified by the work of Harold Wolpe, who was a key theorist within the liberation movement.

Contributors of the book will be in a panel discussion.

Panellists include:

  • Professor Gavin Williams (Oxford University)
  • Professor Vishnu Padayachee (Wits University)
  • Dr Ben Scully (Wits University), Professor Eddie Webster (Wits University)
  • Professor Robert Van Niekerk (Wits University, Co-Editor)

Moderator: Dr Basanyi Baloyi (Oxfam, South Africa)

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Paediatric surgery at Wits: embracing the new millennium

When: Thursday, 18 July 2019 - Thursday, 18 July 2019
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Marie Curie Lecture Theatre, Medical School
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

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

Professor Jerome Loveland from the School of Clinical Science presents his inaugural lecture.

The Department of Paediatric Surgery has made a significant contribution to the development of paediatric surgery in South Africa, this through the development and training of numerous paediatric surgeons who have made their mark both nationally and throughout the world. The Department at Wits has become a major focus of teaching and training for South African paediatric surgeons, as well as for international trainees from both Africa and abroad. More recently, the Department has focused on enhancing its clinical research outputs, as well as developing specific clinical sub-specialties within paediatric surgery. This lecture traces the Wits Paediatric Surgery’s origins from the infancy of surgery in Johannesburg in the 1880s, to a unit with a now well-established clinical and research reputation both within South Africa and abroad.

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5th Es’kia Mphahlele Postgraduate Colloquium and Arts Forum

When: Wednesday, 03 July 2019 - Wednesday, 03 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

Shireen.Rubenstein@wits.ac.za 

The Es’kia Colloquium is in memory of Es’kia Mphahlele, celebrated writer who had a life-long dedication to advancing cultural and educational projects.

Busisiwe Mahlangu, writer and poet will be the keynote speaker at the colloquium. Enjoy a performance, Home is Where the Music Is, with Music by DJ Rangoato Hlasane. The performance starts at 18:00 after the colloquium.

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5th Nest Colloquium and Winter School

When: Thursday, 04 July 2019 - Saturday, 06 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

Shireen.Rubenstein@wits.ac.za 

The colloquium invites participants to linger on narrative’s capacity for renewal and engage with the questions it provokes.

The fifth NEST (Narrative Enquiry for Social Transformation) Colloquium and Winter School is themed Narrative Renewal amidst the Provocations of Memory, Hurt and Healing. The colloquium invites participants to linger on narrative’s capacity for renewal and engage with the questions it provokes, in the current socio-political milieu, but also, for our understandings of historical dimensions of narrative’s power of renewal as well as future projections, modes of reimagining and reconstituting selves and communities from spaces of “woundedness” and hurt.

Speakers include:

  • Hugo Canham (Wits University)
  • Neo Sinoxolo Musangi (independent feminist queer thinker and artist)
  • Kopano Ratele (University of South Africa and the South African Medical Research Council)
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Philanthropy and disaster management planning: The aftermath of the cyclones

When: Friday, 19 July 2019 - Friday, 19 July 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

Belinda.Mogotsi@wits.ac.za

The African Centre in Philanthropy and Social Investment at the Wits Business School will host this dialogue.

Regional leaders, NGOs, philanthropists, corporates, researchers, entrepreneurs and innovators alike to participate in a dialogue where discussions will be held about natural disaster impacts like cyclones Idai and Kenneth. How should African people and corporates be addressing the inevitable rise in disasters? What was done during cyclone Idai and Kenneth? What was not? How can we be part of the change in re building the affected African countries?

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Epidemiology at the heart of population health science

When: Tuesday, 09 July 2019 - Tuesday, 09 July 2019
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Resource Centre, Wit School of Public Health
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

information@heroza.org

Dr Sandro Galea, Dean of Boston University School of Public Health will present this public lecture. Galea is an emergency physician, epidemiologist and author.

He is the Robert A. Knox Professor and former Chair of Epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Prior to his academic career in public health, Galea practiced emergency medicine in Canada and served in Somalia with Doctors Without Borders. He was named one of TIME magazine’s epidemiology innovators in 2006 and Thomas Reuters listed him as one of the “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” for the social sciences in 2015. He is past-president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and an elected member of the American Epidemiological Society. This lecture is held in collaboration with HE²RO and the Wits School of Public Health

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Is a knot a knot? That is the question!

When: Tuesday, 30 July 2019 - Tuesday, 30 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

Professor Eunice Mphako-Banda will present her inaugural lecture.

We go deeper into knots – those fascinating geometrical objects which are very simple to visualise, yet remarkably hard to analyse. Simply considering a piece of string, tying a knot and gluing the two loose ends of the string together forms a knotted loop. Such a knotted loop is called a knot in mathematics. Knot theory delves into answering the question of deciding whether two knotted loops made of flexible, but impenetrable material can be transformed by means of continuous modifications into knotted loops having the same shape. Further, one may ask whether an arbitrary knot is a knot. To answer such questions, knot invariants are employed. Two knot invariants; the number of components and the pathwidth of a knot will be discussed. Further, the mathematics behind these invariants, the Tutte polynomial will be presented.

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Book launch: Transforming research methods in the social sciences

When: Wednesday, 10 July 2019 - Wednesday, 10 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
The Auditorium, Future Africa, Hillcrest Campus, University of Pretoria
Start time:16:15
Enquiries:

Maham.Hasan@up.ac.za

Wits University Press will host the launch of this book edited by Sumaya Laher, Angelo Fynn and Sherianne Kramer.

Can research methods be transformed and transformative? Researchers answering this question engage in a complex context in South Africa. The book confronts the reality of methodologically poor and conceptually flawed research with case studies that provide guidance to researchers to develop transformative research. Join Sumaya Laher (co-editor of the book and Professor at Wits Psychology department) with guest speakers, Professor Garth Stevens (Dean, Humanities at Wits and president elect of the Psychological Society of South Africa); chapter author, Peace Kiguwa (Associate Professor in the Wits Psychology Department) and chapter author, Professor Brendon Barnes (Head of Department, UJ Psychology Department). The book launch is part of the Unsettling Paradigms Conference programme (Plenary 2) taking place at the University of Pretoria and will be followed by a cocktail event and a play by Mike van Graan.

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Making markets work for Africa: A study of the challenges, reflections on the possibilities

When: Tuesday, 23 July 2019 - Tuesday, 23 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Chalsty Auditorium, School of Law
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Asma.Ooni@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Asma.Ooni@wits.ac.za

Professors Eleanor Fox and Walter Derenberg from New York University School of Law will deliver a lecture as part of a book launch.

The Wits School of Law will host the launch of the book, Making Markets Work for Africa: Markets, Development and Competition Law in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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Media Networking Cocktail event

When: Friday, 12 July 2019 - Friday, 12 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Atrium, Humanities Graduate Centre, Southwest Engineering Building
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

bongiwe.tutu@wits.ac.za or Lara Rall at lrall@wwf.org.za

The Media Mingle presents the opportunity for local and international media and practitioners to exchange on avenues for future collaborations.

The Media Mingle follows the Wildlife Poaching and Trafficking Journalism Training Workshop, which is engaging 16 Journalists from countries in Southern Africa including; Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland and South Africa, to be equipped in upholding a key role in informing the public about their environment and communities. 

The Wildlife Poaching and Trafficking Journalism Training Workshop and the Media Mingle, is hosted by the Africa-China Reporting Project, at the Wits Journalism Department, in partnership with WWF South Africa, the VukaNow Programme and USAID.

 

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Mandela Day Toiletry and Food Drive Challenge

When: Thursday, 18 July 2019 - Thursday, 18 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Library Lawns
Start time:12:00
Enquiries:

Veshnee.Reddy@wits.ac.za / Lizette.Norris@wits.ac.za

Engage your competitive, giving spirit and donate non-perishable food and toiletries to the Wits Food Bank for Mandela Day 2019.

Mandela Day poster 2019

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Disaster Management in Africa

When: Friday, 19 July 2019 - Friday, 19 July 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits Business School
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

belinda.mogotsi@wits.ac.za 

The Graca Machel Trust, the Mandela Institute for Development Studies and Wits Business School hosts this public dialogue.

The dialogue will focus on issues emanating from the recent devastation wrought by Cyclones Idai and Kenneth and the perennial flooding in Southern African countries.
 
The keynote address will be given by activist and humanitarian Mrs Graca Machel.
 
There will be two panels:

  • PANEL ONE: Disaster preparedness levels and impacts of natural disasters
  • PANEL TWO: Action plan and agenda setting for various organisations, what should we be doing?

Moderator: Broadcast Journalist Bongani Bingwa.
 
Participants in the dialogue will include key stakeholders in disaster management, including the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP), the Wits Global Change Institute, BUSA/Brytes Insurance, the World Food Programme, the Food, Agriculture & Natural Resources Analysis Network (FANRPAN), the Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative (REPSSI), the Department of Defence as well as other activists and social entrepreneurs. This dialogue is also hosted in partnership with the African Centre on Philanthropy and Social Investment.
 

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Artificial intelligence in actuarial science

When: Thursday, 18 July 2019 - Thursday, 18 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
The Liberty Actuarial Auditorium, Room 112, 1st floor, Mathematical Sciences Laboratory Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Edith Mkhabela on 011 717 6272 or at Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za

Ronald Richman, Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries will present this seminar.

Deep learning techniques have begun to appear in the actuarial literature, and have produced promising results in several areas of actuarial practice, from pricing and reserving for non-life insurance to forecasting mortality rates and analysing telematics data. Building on a recent introductory paper, this talk aims to review the state of the art in applying deep learning techniques within actuarial science and, in doing so, highlight the potential that these techniques hold for solving actuarial problems.

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Book launch: Confronting Inequality: The South African Crisis

When: Wednesday, 24 July 2019 - Wednesday, 24 July 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), North Lodge
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

 Nthabi.Mofokeng@wits.ac.za

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) and the Institute for African Alternatives host the launch of this book.

Contributors to the edited volume include former president Kgalema Motlanthe, Professor Thuli Madonsela, Professor Ben Turok, Dr Neva Makgetla, Professor Murray Leibbrandt, Professor Ivan Turok, Dr Pali Lehohla, David Francis, Andrew Mcgregor, Kaylan Massie, Zunaid Moola, Rocco Zizzamia and Dr Simone Schotte.

Professor Edward Webster from the SCIS will be in conversation with the editor, Michael Nassan Smith, and Dr Neva Makgetla, one of the authors.

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Grounded Marxism, race and class: Being black in South Africa

When: Monday, 29 July 2019 - Monday, 29 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Social Sciences Seminar Room, RS248, Robert Sobukwe Block
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

Nthabi.Mofokeng@wits.ac.za

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) will host this seminar to be presented by Dr Mosa Phadi from Stellenbosch University Museum.

Phadi is also the Chair in Studies of Historical Trauma and Transformation, Stellenbosch University. Moshibudi Motimele, PhD candidate, TH!NK Fellow, University of Witwatersrand will be the discussant. The discussion will be chaired by Edward Webster, Distinguished Research Professor at SCIS.

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Landscapes’ South African art song concert

When: Wednesday, 07 August 2019 - Wednesday, 07 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Artrium Southwest Engineering Building
Start time:18:30
Enquiries:

leouijvr@gmail.com 

Soprano LeOui Rendsburg and pianist Paul Ferreira perform an evening of art songs.

The songs use image-driven poetry recreating the sounds, smells and textures of the South African landscape. The programme consists of Arnold van Wyk’s Van Liefde en Verlatenheid, Pieter de Villiers’ Sewe Boerneefliedjies, Hendrik Hofmeyr’s brand new Wintersprokie and also features a work by the up and coming South African composer Conrad Asman, recent winner of the SAMRO composition competition. Rendsburg has recently returned from the USA and has been chosen for this year’s Voices of South Africa Opera Singing Competition.

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Book Launch: Civilising grass: The art of the lawn on the South African highveld

When: Wednesday, 24 July 2019 - Wednesday, 24 July 2019
Where: Off campus
Love Books, The Bamboo Lifestyle Centre, 53 Rustenburg Road, Melville
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

info.witspress@wits.ac.za       

Author, Dr Jonathan Cane will be in conversation with Professor Pamila Gupta from the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research at the book launch.

Professor Noëleen Murray, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Chair in Critical Architecture and Urbanism, in collaboration with Wits University Press and Love Books, hosts the book launch of Civilising Grass: The Art of the Lawn on the South African Highveld by Jonathan CaneThe book is a product of the Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship held by Dr Cane at the Wits City Institute from 2017-2018. Dr Jonathan Cane will be in conversation with Professor Pamila Gupta from the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER).

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Machine learning in practice: A primer on missing data

When: Thursday, 25 July 2019 - Thursday, 25 July 2019
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

 

James Allingham, Deep Learning Consultant at Wolfram, will present this seminar.

In the real world, datasets are often messy – it is common for values to be missing or corrupt. Examples include empty cells in spreadsheets, unanswered survey questions, or readings from faulty sensors. Unfortunately, despite the frequent occurrence of such defects, software engineers tend not to develop algorithms that are robust to missing values. As a result, many standard algorithms fail on such datasets. This talk will briefly discuss the theory of missing data and discuss practical approaches for dealing with missingness in real-world machine learning.

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Enhancing food system resilience

When: Wednesday, 31 July 2019 - Wednesday, 31 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:11:00
Enquiries:

Heidi.Robertson@wits.ac.za or 011 717-6080

The Global Change Institute will host a seminar by Dr John Ingram from the University of Oxford.

Food system activities will continue to significantly impact natural resources, and that environmental and socioeconomic shocks and stresses are increasing. How then can the resilience of our food systems be enhanced in the face of these stresses and shocks?

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The Annual South African Urogynaecology Association Congress

When: Thursday, 08 August 2019 - Saturday, 10 August 2019
Where: Off campus
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

carina@londocor.co.za

The Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital hosts this congress.

The congress creates a unique opportunity for urogynaecologists and general gynaecologists to come to Johannesburg and share ideas, to teach skills and improve knowledge. The congress aims to bring inspired people together to ensure that African gynaecologists remain at the cutting edge of urogynaecology surgery including minimally invasive therapies to our patients, the women of Africa. ProgrammeClick here to register.


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Women’s day lecture and demonstration on medieval stained glass painting techniques

When: Friday, 09 August 2019 - Friday, 09 August 2019
Where: Off campus
Grasfontein Ontwerp Glass Studio, 4 Tana Close, 2 Twelfth Street, Linden, Johannesburg
Start time:10:00
Enquiries:

Ariane.Jansevanrensburg@wits.ac.za

Associate Professor Ariane Janse van Rensburg of the School of Architecture and Planning will present this lecture.

She will demonstrate the techniques used to make Notre Dame’s famous windows and address the question of why they survived the fire, at a studio open day. There will also be a workshop for those who would like to try painting their own vitrail, for which there is a materials cost.

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Africa, economics and development

When: Friday, 23 August 2019 - Friday, 23 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Rechelle Tsunke on 011 717-1193 or at Rechelle.Tsunke@wits.ac.za 

Professor Manoel Bittencourt from the School of Economics and Business Sciences at Wits presents his inaugural lecture.

In this lecture, Bittencourt will talk about African contemporaneous development. He will also talk about the role of pre-colonial institutions, and the slave trade, and the scramble for Africa, and also about the colonial institutions themselves. To understand African contemporaneous development - and ultimately to influence policy - we must have African historical development in mind. For that, new datasets, new methods and modern economics can really help. He will show how the literature on African economic development has evolved since the 1990s and how his teaching and research take the latest scientific developments into account.

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Hispanic film festival: Chile

When: Monday, 26 August 2019 - Monday, 26 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, Southwest Engineering Building
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

david.ruizguzman@wits.ac.za 

This film festival screen Spanish spoken films to promote the language and Latin American and Hispanic culture.

This session the invited country is Chile and the film will be: Calzones Rotos, based on the acclaimed homonymous book by Jaime Hagel Echenique. The Ambassador of Chile in South Africa, diplomat members and Chilean community members will be at the screening.

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Governance, Data, and the Politics of Migration and Health

When: Thursday, 01 August 2019 - Thursday, 01 August 2019
Where: Wits Club
Braamfontein Campus West
Start time:9:15
Enquiries:

Deborah.minors@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

RSVP essential: rechelle.tsunke@wits.ac.za

Cost: Free

PUBLIC SYMPOSIUM AND LAUNCH Governance, Data, and the Politics of Migration and Health: Implications for universal health coverage in southern Africa

This one-day event brings together government, civil society and academia to explore opportunities for improving responses to migration and health in southern Africa. The South African launch of the UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health report follows the symposium.

SYMPOSIUM-LAUNCH PROGRAMME: THURSDAY, 1 AUGUST 2019, WITS CLUB

9.00 – 9.15

Welcome

Discussion 1: Migration, health and universal health care in Southern Africa

Chair: Dr Shakira Choonara, Researcher and Activist 

9.15 – 9.35

Universal health coverage in Southern Africa: linking regional and global policy processes on migration and health 

Dr Ranieri Guerra, Assistant Director-General

WHO Lead for UN high level meeting on UHC, World Health Organization

9.35 – 10.55

Migration and Health: a public health priority for Southern Africa

 

Associate Prof. Jo Vearey, Director, ACMS, Wits & MHADRI

10.15 – 10.25 

Reflection

Prof Laetitia Rispel, DST/ NRF SARCHi Research Chair on the Health Workforce for Equity and Quality, Wits and President of the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA)

10.25 – 11.00

Discussion in small groups and plenary

11.00 – 11.30

Tea

Discussion 2:  Data, methods and ethics

Exploring ways of researching migration and health, associated ethical and methodological challenges, and ways of overcoming these

Facilitator: Dr Sasha Frade, Lecturer, Demography and Population Studies, Wits

11.30 – 11.50

The role of data in the context of the SDGs and Global Compact for Migration with reference to health considerations

Mr Diego Iturralde, Chief Director: Demography, Statistics SA

11.50 – 12.10

Internal migration dynamics in Southern Africa: Evidence on migration and health from different data sources

Associate Prof. Mark Collinson and Dr Carren Ginsburg, Wits

12.10 – 12.30

Reflecting on social research on migration and health

Assoc Prof Lorena Nunez, Sociology, Wits

12.30 – 12.40

Reflection: linking to data gaps in a global context

Dr Kolitha Wickramage, Global Migration Health Research Coordinator, International Organization for Migration (IOM) and MHADRI Secretariat

12.40 -  13.00

Discussion

13.00 – 142.00

Lunch

Discussion 3: The politics and practice of migration and health research – a facilitated discussion reflecting on the current political context, who is ‘left behind’ in research on migration and health, methods, ethics, representation, and international partnerships

Facilitator: Karabo Kgoleng, Writer and Media Broadcaster

14.00 – 15.00

  • Dr B Camminga,  Postdoctoral Research Fellow, ACMS, Wits
  • Sharon Ekambaram, Programme Manager, Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme, Lawyers for Human Rights
  • Karabo Kgoleng, Writer and Media Broadcaster
  • Prof Loren Landau, SARCHi Research Chair on Mobility and the Politics of Difference, ACMS, Wits
  • Dr Duduzile Ndlovu, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, ACMS, Wits
  • Thifulufheli Sinthumule, Director of Consortium for Refugees & Migrants in South Africa (CoRMSA)
  • Dr Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon, Lecturer, Anthropology, Wits

15.00 – 15.20

Discussion

15.20 - 15.30

Close

15.30 – 16.00

Tea/break

 

LAUNCH OF THE UCL-LANCET COMMISSION ON MIGRATION AND HEALTH, 16.00 – 17.45

 

Launch of UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health followed by a reception. Informal supper and drinks will be served.

16.00 – 16.10

Welcome and opening

Prof. Adam Habib, Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Wits

Implications of Lancet Commission findings for South and Southern Africa

Chair: Prof. Steve Tollman, Director, MRC/Wits Rural Health and Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt) and Commissioner, UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health

16.10 –  16.20

Leadership: ensuring South Africa’s role as a global leader in migration health 

Dr Ranieri Guerra, Assistant Director-General

WHO Lead for UN high level meeting on UHC

World Health Organization 

16.20 – 16.30

What are the main messages from the          UCL-Lancet Commission?

Dr Miriam Orcutt, Coordinator, UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health and Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Global Health, University College London

 

16.30- 16.55

Reflections

 

  • Dr Davide Mosca, Institute for Global Health, University College London and Commissioner, UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health
  • Dr Joseph Pitso, Senior Programme Officer: Gender, Gender Unit Health, Southern African Development Community (SADC)
  • Liesbeth Schockaert, Médicens sans Frontierès (MSF) Southern Africa
  • Kit Leung, Technical Advisor: Migration and Health, International Organization for Migration (IOM) Southern Africa

16.55 - 17.15

Discussion


A way forward for migration and health in South Africa: effective partnerships through research and leadership

Chair: Dr Shakira Choonara, Researcher and Activist

17.15 - 17.25

Partnerships

Reflecting on global partnerships for action on migration and health in South and Southern Africa

Prof. Nyovani Madise, Director of R&D Policy & Head, Malawi office, African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) and Commissioner, UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health 

17.25 - 17.35

Looking ahead: Migration, Health and R&D in South and Southern Africa

Associate Prof. Jo Vearey, Director, African Centre for Migration and Society, Wits

17.35 - 17.45

 Closing reflections

Prof. Adam Habib, Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Wits

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The governance of health data in South Africa

When: Tuesday, 30 July 2019 - Tuesday, 30 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
PRF Auditorium, NICD, 1 Modderfontein Road, Sandringham
Start time:12:00
Enquiries:

gayles@nicd.ac.za

Dr Ciara Staunton, Senior Lecturer in Law at Middlesex University and a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Biomedicine, EURAC, Italy will present this seminar.

Recent years have seen the strengthening of data protection regulations and legislation across the world. These regulations seek to safeguard the rights of data subjects while promoting the movement of data. South Africa is no different and it has introduced its first comprehensive legislative framework on data protection: the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) No 4 of 2013. Due to come into force in 2020, it will change the governance and regulation of data in SA, including health data. This presentation will provide an overview of POPIA and outline the duties and responsibilities of the different parties that use health data under the new legislative framework.

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Public symposium and launch: Governance, data, and the politics of migration and health

When: Thursday, 01 August 2019 - Thursday, 01 August 2019
Where: Wits Club
Braamfontein Campus West
Start time:9:15
Enquiries:

Rechelle.Tsunke@wits.ac.za

This event brings together government, civil society and academia to explore opportunities for improving responses to migration and health in southern Africa.

The symposium includes facilitated panel discussions on topics including: Migration, health and universal health coverage in southern Africa; Data, methods and ethics; the politics and practice of migration and health research reflecting on the current political context and who is ‘left behind’ in research on migration and health. The South African launch of the 2018 UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health report concludes the symposium. Click here for the full programme.

This symposium and launch is hosted by Wits University (the ARUA Centre of Excellence in Migration and MobilityACMSWits Demography and Population Studies, Wits School of Public Health, and Agincourt) in partnership with University College LondonThe LancetMHADRISeaM, and MAHP, with media partner, The Conversation Africa.

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Decolonising copyright, building our creative and information economy

When: Wednesday, 07 August 2019 - Wednesday, 07 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House,
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

recreateza@gmail.com 

RSVP:

recreateza@gmail.com by 5 August before 15:00

The Wits Library will host this seminar as part of Copyright Week 2019.

Various panel discussions will be held in partnership with organised by Recreate ZA, in partnership with the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, the Wits Library and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research. More information.

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4IR:Phel: 4IR:Philosophical, ethical, legal dimensions

When: Tuesday, 03 September 2019 - Thursday, 05 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Science Stadium
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

Melissa Moodley at (011) 717 4598 or Melissa.Moodley@wits.ac.za

Wits Enterprise will host this conference.

The conference aims to bring together scholars from a range of disciplines to discuss the philosophical, ethical, and legal questions raised by the onset of the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and its emerging technologies. These technologies are wide ranging, such as the various narrow artificial intelligence technologies, have a long history while others, such as the techniques for big data, have made a more recent appearance. Similarly, the philosophical, ethical, and legal questions to which these technologies give rise are, in some cases, long standing and recent technologies have led to a novel reconsideration of them. In other cases, the questions are wholly new. The conference will provide an opportunity for those with a research interest in the philosophical, ethical, or legal dimensions of these technologies to come together for a rigorous and engaged discussion.

 

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M&E is making a significant contribution to meeting development challenges

When: Thursday, 15 August 2019 - Thursday, 15 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Classroom D, Wits School of Governance, Parktown Management Campus
Start time:11:30
Enquiries:

Talitha.Hlaka@wits.ac.za / 011 717 3387

CLEAR-AA will host this high-level debate.

The team in support of the topic includes CLEAR-AA Director Dugan Fraser and Tumi Mogoroko from the Parliament of South Africa, while the team against the topic includes Sean Phillips from Twende Mbele and Bheki Moyo from Wits Business School.

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Perspectives on the long-term outcomes proposed in Clear-AA’s theory of change

When: Thursday, 15 August 2019 - Thursday, 15 August 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Classroom B, Wits School of Governance
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

Talitha.Hlaka@wits.ac.za / 011 717 3387

Join CLEAR-AA for this café discussion.

Points of discussion include using evidence for decision making, strengthening management systems and programme designs, and amplifying the voices of citizens and increasing their urgency.

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Alternatives to capitalism seminar series

When: Wednesday, 31 July 2019 - Wednesday, 31 July 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Fine Art Postgraduate Project Space, 7th Floor, University Corner
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Gugulethu.mabena1@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Gugulethu.mabena1@wits.ac.za

Dr Helena Chavez, visiting artist and scholar, from the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) will present this seminar.

She will be in a discussion on aesthetics and politics in Mexico between 2012 and 2018. Dr Chavez will speak about an exhibition that she has curated, #NoMeCansare (I will not get tired).This seminar is hosted by The Society, Work and Politics Institute (SWOP), in collaboration with the Centre for Mexican Studies at Wits, Wits School of Arts and Wits Fine Art.

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Book launch:Rebels and Rage

When: Tuesday, 06 August 2019 - Tuesday, 06 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd floor, Solomon Mahlangu House, Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za  

Jonathan Ball Publishers and Wits University will host the launch of Professor Adam Habib’s new book, Rebels and Rage.

Professor Habib will be in discussion with media personality, Redi Tlabi.

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Exploring experiences of home (lessness) in South African urban geographies spaces

When: Wednesday, 07 August 2019 - Wednesday, 07 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiCDS, 13th Floor University Corner
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

kudzaiishe.vanyoro@wits.ac.za 

The Wits Centre for Diversity Studies (WiCDS) will host this seminar.

Speakers include Professor Sarah Charlton (Wits School of Architecture and Planning, and CUBES), Meliodas Wrath (Deejay) and Mary Gillett-de Klerk (Secretary, Johannesburg Homelessness Network).

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Women's Day Talk: How to be financially savvy

When: Thursday, 08 August 2019 - Thursday, 08 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

Empower yourself this Women’s Day with tools, tips and techniques to be financially savvy with Izette Greyling from Financial Fitness.

Entry to the lecture is a pack of sanitary towels that will be donated to students.

 

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The spatial modelling of the spread of infectious diseases in South Africa: A justification of a spa

When: Thursday, 08 August 2019 - Thursday, 08 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Room 112, 1st floor, The Liberty Actuarial Auditorium, Mathematical Sciences Laboratory Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Edith Mkhabela on 011 717 6272 / Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za

Raeesa Docrat from the School of Statistics and Actuarial Science will present this seminar.

The spread of infectious diseases is a world-wide problem that has a greater and more damning impact on low-income countries. Mathematical modelling is a useful tool to better understand these diseases and to plan prevention and interventions. This presentation investigates the spatial autocorrelation of the reported TB cases in South Africa in an attempt to justify the inclusion of a spatial component in a model for the spread of infectious diseases.

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11th Drama for Life Conference and Festival

When: Thursday, 08 August 2019 - Saturday, 17 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Wits Theatre
Start time:9:01
Enquiries:

011 717-4726 / Zanele.Bhengu@wits.ac.za

The 11th Drama for Life Conference and Festival will host the biggest binational investment in children's culture .

The 11th Drama for Life Conference and Festival in partnership with the NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development, Wits School of Public Health and the Embassy of Sweden. The Conference and Festival  will focus on children, South Africa's latest research findings focusing on children and child development, the role of theatre in child development and the art of theatre for children. Distinguished scholars include: Gcina Mhlope (award winning storyteller, cultural heritage expert, author), Dr Sue Jennings (drama therapy global pioneer, author, academic), Dr Carol Beck-Carter (childhood expert and educator, author, academic Newcastle University, Australia), Professor Ulrika Dahl (Director of Gender Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden), Dr Kennedy Chinyowa (researcher), Selloane Mokuku (performer, lecture, author). 

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Wits Entrepreneurship Week

When: Monday, 12 August 2019 - Friday, 16 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Library Lawns
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

grp.ccdu@wits.ac.za

Celebrate the Wits entrepreneurial and innovative culture and be a part of the on-campus celebration of innovators and job creators who launch start-ups.

Wits Entrepreneurship Week is a platform for connecting with a vibrant ecosystem of entrepreneurs, customers, investors, researchers, policymakers and other start-up champions in the country. Celebrate the Wits entrepreneurial and innovative culture and be a part of the on-campus celebration of innovators and job creators who launch start-ups and bring ideas to life.  View programme and experienced self-made business speakers. All welcome. Please book via the Counselling and Careers Development Unit’s website.

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Engineering education under the microscope: Changing lenses to get power, knowledge, and the curricu

When: Wednesday, 14 August 2019 - Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Tommy Motswai Seminar Room, Thembalethu Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

 Cynthia.Mangena@wits.ac.za

Mike Klassen, a PhD-candidate in Higher Education at the University of Toronto will present this seminar.

The talk traces research on power and the control of engineering education, which started from a political view of which interest groups call the shots, and shifted to a sociological view of how the “official” curriculum is filtered through a layered process of recontextualisation. The talk will present preliminary analysis of ongoing interviews with engineering academics and professional body leaders in the UK, Singapore, Australia and South Africa to show how Bernstein’s pedagogic device offers theoretical tools that help unravel complex internal debates about engineering accreditation and the position of knowledge in the curriculum. This seminar is hosted by the Centre for Researching Education and Labour.

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CALS Women's Month Discussion

When: Wednesday, 14 August 2019 - Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Club
Start time:11:00
Enquiries:

lee-ann.bruce@wits.ac.za 

Along with the International Commission of Jurists, the Centre of Applied Legal Studies (CALS) will host a discussion on women's socio-economic rights.

The discussion will focus on gendered economic and social violence in South Africa. The event will include a keynote address delivered by Justice Yvonne Mokgoro and a panel discussion featuring Nomzamo Zondo of SERI, Nonhle Mbuthuma from the Amadiba Crisis Committee, as well as Amelia Rawhani and Tumelo Matlwa from CALS.

 

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African migration and inequality in Germany, South Africa and India

When: Monday, 19 August 2019 - Monday, 19 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Social Science Seminar Room, RS248, Robert Sobukwe Block
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

Nthabi.Mofokeng@wits.ac.za

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies will host this seminar by Dr Faisal Garba, Department of Sociology at the University of Cape Town.

Discussant:  Professor Pragna Rugunanan from Department of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg

Chairperson: Dr Hibist Kassa, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies 

Garba is also affiliated to the Institut Fuer Soziologie, Albert Ludwigs Universitaet, Freiburg, Germany.

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Can electoral reform deepen democracy and increase accountability in South African government?

When: Wednesday, 14 August 2019 - Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, Southwest Engineering Building
Start time:18:30
Enquiries:

Daryl.Glaser@wits.ac.za

The Department of Political Studies and the New Nation Movement are co-hosting a dialogue on electoral reform.

The national electoral system looms large in complaints about poor governance in South Africa.  For many critics, South Africa’s system of closed party-list proportional representation is responsible for overmighty party bosses, the absence of local representation, the insulation of MPs from public accountability and the exclusion of non-party independents. On the other hand, proportional representation arguably has advantages in terms of basic democratic fairness and inclusivity. Some critics of the current system seem inclined to ditch proportional representation in favour of representation exclusively via single-member geographic constituencies. Most electoral reformers favour a model that retains overall proportionality but incorporates either single-member or smaller multi-member constituencies. Mixed models may offer the best of both worlds. But as the experience of local government reminds us, mixed systems are not a panacea either. So what, if anything, can work? How much difference do electoral systems make?

One of the co-hosts, the New Nation movement, is arguing the case for electoral reform in an impending court case. The Department of Political Studies has agreed to join it in co-hosting a dialogue on electoral reform. The meeting will feature a discussion by a panel of activists and experts (TBC), followed by questions and answers.

Panelists include: Daryl Glaser (Wits Professor); Linda Gobodo (Civil society activist); Makhosi Khoza (Former MP); Omry Makgoale (Political analyst); Bulelani Mkhohliswa (New Nation Movement); Pansy Tlakula (Former IEC Chair).

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Just urban imaginaries colloquium

When: Thursday, 15 August 2019 - Friday, 16 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
John Moffat Building
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

Margot.Rubin@wits.ac.za 

The colloquium offers an inclusive and diverse set of presentations from NGO's, academics and community activists.

The Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP), both research entities in the School of Architecture and Planning at Wits will host this two day colloquium.  The colloquium offers an inclusive and diverse set of presentations with speakers from NGOs, such as Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre, and the Socio-Economic Rights Institute, community activists and initiatives, Slovo Park, and the Makers Valley, as well as, academics and officials. These reflections are also drawn from a range of cities including Tshwane, Cape Town, eThekwini, and Johannesburg.

The colloquium is looking at questions of Spatial and Social Justice is a crucial academic and practical pre-occupation for city governments and urban scholars alike and much has been written and discussed about what these notions may mean. However while there has been much focus on forms of exclusion in cities, less explored or understood are the ways in which different forms of inclusion are being materially constructed and created in city spaces – sometimes through conscious design, sometimes more spontaneously. There is much to explore and understand about these examples, in neighbourhoods across a variety of contexts, relevant for how to foster and accelerate the urban transformation that is essential to a more socially cohesive urban future but which is currently eluding South African cities. From a theoretical perspective there is a need to engage with the various conceptions of inclusion in a transitioning contemporary South Africa, the urban visions that are driving these and as well as their potential impacts on the city’s form and on society.

 

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Voyages of a crystal magician

When: Thursday, 22 August 2019 - Thursday, 22 August 2019
Where:
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

Professor Andreas Lemmerer will present his inaugural lecture.

In this lecture, he will give an overview of his travels all over the world and the crystallography he did there. In particular, a recurring theme of his work has been in the self-assembly of molecules and ions, be they organic or inorganic, into an arrangement that could be predicted. Furthermore, these arrangements have the potential to change in solid-state phase transitions that can be monitored via single crystal diffraction and powder X-ray diffraction as a function of temperature.

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Marikana and its aftermath: The disruptive power of labour

When: Friday, 23 August 2019 - Friday, 23 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Hofmeyr House, next to Jubilee Hall
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Gugulethu.Mabena1@wits.ac.za 

RSVP:

Gugulethu.Mabena1@wits.ac.za by Tuesday, 20 August 2019 for catering purposes

Naadira Munshi, project coordinator in the Southern Africa office of Public Services International will present this SWOP breakfast seminar.

The 2014 platinum strike was the longest post-apartheid strike in South Africa, lasting five long months and bringing the platinum industry to a historic standstill.  This seminar focuses on the trade union leading the strike, Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU). It looks at the modes of organising employed by the union, and how AMCU responded to the heightened political tension and criticism from mining companies and the state. The seminar discusses how the strike consolidated mineworkers' support for AMCU as the leading trade union on the platinum belt.

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Wits Choirs' in concert with UJ Choir

When: Friday, 16 August 2019 - Friday, 16 August 2019
Where: Great Hall
Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:19:00
Enquiries:

Gwendoline.Hoogenhout@wits.ac.za 

Cost: R60 and R40 (discount)

Wits Choir and Young Wits Choir under the direction of Dalene Hoogenhout will host our neighbours, the UJ Choir for a celebration of choral music.

This will be the first time in more than a decade that these choirs will share a stage.  All three choirs will showcase their brand of choral music. It will be a joy to choristers and audience members alike. It is an event that choir alumni and fans will not want to miss. Tickets are available on www.webtickets.co.za   

 

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Fak'ugesi Festival 2019

When: Friday, 30 August 2019 - Sunday, 08 September 2019
Where: Off campus
Wits Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct, Braamfontein.
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

http://fakugesi.co.za/

Cost: See http://fakugesi.co.za/ for bookings

The Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival returns to Johannesburg to explore and celebrate technology and creativity by Africans for Africa.

Fak'ugesi Festival 2019 | http://fakugesi.co.za/

The 2019 festival has cast its central theme as Own Your Forcewhich invites digital makers in Africa to stake their claim on their talent, industry and creative economy.

Wits University’s Tshimologong Innovation Precinct, in collaboration with partners in the Braamfontein area will be at the heart of festivities with a programme promising to yet again transform Johannesburg into a celebration of technology, creativity and innovation from across the African continent.

EVENT INFORMATION:

Now in its sixth successful year, Fak’ugesi returns in 2019 after programme directors took a break from annual programming, producing a smaller program last year to focus on the festival’s vision and development.  Dr Tegan Bristow, Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival director says attendees can expect a fresh and energised line-up that explores screen-based digital creativity in gaming, virtual reality, mixed reality cinema and animation – with special focus on cross-sector collaboration in the region for Southern and East Africa, addressing blockchain, artificial intelligence, protection of intellectual and creative property and much more.

“Fak’ugesi acts as a platform that brings together diverse digital and technology sectors to collaborate and share skills in digital media and technology innovation. This year’s theme ‘OWN YOUR FORCE’ centres on an African vision of the future of digital creativity by asking; who owns our digital value chain? How do we protect our creative and cultural equity in the digital world? How do we value our contributions to digital culture in an African economy? Where are the threats and the opportunities for culture and technology in Africa in a world driven by market interests?”

A highlight in this year’s Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival programme is a conference developed in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut’s Creative Entrepreneurship Project, which will bring attention to the challenges of creative and digital entrepreneurship within the 4th Industrial Revolution in Africa. In preparation, Goethe will host a forum of select contributions on 4 July 2019 at Goethe Johannesburg (see www.fakugesi.co.za for more).

Another highlight of the 2019 programme is the annual and much-loved Fak’ugesi Digital Africa Residency, which will bring together aspiring young digital artists from the SADC region. This year the project expands as young Swiss artists collaborate with their SADC counterparts. Working with Pro Helvetia and the ANT Fund for Development and Co-operation (SDC), the residency serves to highlight and develop incredible young digital talent in Southern Africa and boost their careers as important digital creatives.

Along with supporting young up-and-coming digital arts via the annual Residency, Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival will be hosting a large contingent of African Digital makers to both present and attend. In 2019 Fak’ugesi Festival will be working with the British Council Southern African Arts to bring up to 15 digital artists and story tellers from across the continent in the ColabNowNow project, a shared encounter with Fak’ugesi Festival’s sister festival Maputo Fast Forward in Mozambique. Additionally, in partnership with the Tshimologong Precinct, Fak’ugesi Festival will also host the recent Digital Lab Africa competition winners who hail from Ghana, Mali, Zimbabwe, Kenya and South Africa to represent five creative digital start-ups in Gaming, Animation, VR, Web Creation and Digital Media.

After its launch in 2018, the Fak’ugesi Arcade program will run in full force this year with an emphasis on gaming in Sub-Saharan Africa. “Fak’ugesi Arcade is a project within Fak’ugesi Festival, a partnership with the Wits Digital Arts Department and various gaming industry partners that acts to present new work both from the region and internationally and develop a critical agenda for the development of the gaming industry in Southern Africa,” says Bristow. Fak’ugesi Arcade will feature a special cross-sector game-jam (scriptwriting, music, UX and Animation in gaming) and workshops to build collaboration between sectors. The Fak’ugesi Arcade team will also shine a light on indigenous and urban games, which will include a participatory performance in a WhatsApp chatbot by Dutch artist’s Natalie Dixon and Klasien van de Zandschulp titled “OutSpace”.

Among the array of exciting exhibitions at this year’s festival will be the Fak’ugesi Digital Africa Residency Exhibition, work by Swiss Artists Andrea Gysin and Sidi Vanetti, a VR exhibition, an Animation screening in collaboration with AnimationSA, a Games Arcade and an online residency with Floating Reverie.

The Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival is the only one of its kind in Africa and the only digital arts focused festival in Sub Saharan Africa. It has risen to prominence as a platform through which many young digital makers have launched their careers and developed skills in digital media and technology innovation.
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American entrepreneurs of color: Lessons and strategies for expansion

When: Wednesday, 21 August 2019 - Wednesday, 21 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

thulisile.mbatha@wits.ac.za 

The African Centre for the Study of the US will host Rory Verrett, founder and managing partner of Protégé Search, to present this talk.

Protégé Search is a retained executive search and leadership advisory firm focused on diversity and public affairs. He previously served as a leader in the diversity and public affairs practices of two global executive search firms (Spencer Stuart and Russell Reynolds Associates), as the head of talent management and Vice President of public affairs at the National Football League, and as CEO of a boutique public affairs consultancy. Verrett has 20 years of experience mentoring, advising, and recruiting high performing executives from diverse backgrounds for leading companies, trade associations, and academic and nonprofit organisations.

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Book launch: Radio soundings - South Africa and the black modern

When: Monday, 26 August 2019 - Monday, 26 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za

Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) will host the launch of Professor Liz Gunner’s book.

Gunner will be discussing her book with Dina Ligaga (Media Studies, Wits). The discussion will be chaired by Professor Hlonipha Mokoena from WiSER.

The radio in Africa has shaped culture by allowing listeners to negotiate modern identities and sometimes fast-changing lifestyles. Through the medium of voice and mediated sound, listeners on the station – known as Radio Bantu, then Radio Zulu, and finally Ukhozi FM – shaped new understandings of the self, family and social roles. Through particular genres such as radio drama, fuelled by the skills of radio actors and listeners, an array of debates, choices and mistakes were unpacked daily for decades. This was the unseen literature of the auditory, the drama of the airwaves, which at its height shaped the lives of millions of listeners in urban and rural places in South Africa. Radio became a conduit for many talents squeezed aside by apartheid repression.

Radio Soundings is a fascinating study that shows how, throughout its history, Zulu radio has made a major impact on community, everyday life and South African popular culture, voicing a range of subjectivities, which gave its listeners a place in the modern world. 

Liz Gunner is visiting Research Professor in the School of Languages, University of Johannesburg. Her most recent books include the co-edited Radio in Africa: Publics, cultures, communities (2011) and Power, Marginality and African Oral Literature (with Graham Furniss) (2008).

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The importance of a health technology assessment for the implementation of the NHI in South Africa

When: Tuesday, 27 August 2019 - Tuesday, 27 August 2019
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Floor, Staff Room, School of Public Health
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

 Gugu.Moyo@wits.ac.za

The SA MRC/Wits Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science (PRICELESS) hosts this talk by Prof. Andrew Briggs, University of Glasgow.

The available budget for health care is limited. The National Health Insurance (NHI) as a funding mechanism is going to have to select what it covers and what it does not. In order to make these choices, there needs to be a fair, evidence-based and transparent process. In many countries this process is called Health Technology Assessment (HTA – and the assessment includes all health interventions, not just technology or curative ones). HTA is performed in many countries (the UK, Thailand). Prof. Andrew Briggs (University of Glasgow), is a world expert in this field and his lecture will cover what the importance is of an HTA process for the implementation of the NHI in South Africa.

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Book launch: Our words, Our worlds - writing on black South African women poets, 2000-2018

When: Tuesday, 27 August 2019 - Tuesday, 27 August 2019
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), the Governing Intimacies project and UKZN Press will host this book launch.

Our Words, Our Worlds: Writing on Black South African Women Poets, 2000-2018 is a multi-genre anthology answers the question: what did the literary landscape look like in South Africa at the start of the twenty-first century? It documents a slice of this landscape by bringing together the writings of over twenty contributors through literary critique, personal essays and interviews. The book tells the story of the seismic shift that transformed national culture through poetry and is the first of its kind to explore the history and impact of poetry by Black women, in their own voices. It straddles disciplines: literary theory, feminism, history of the book and politics – thus decolonising literary culture.

The collective contributions are a testimony to the power of creativity and centrality of poetry in a changing society. This book is an assertion of Black women’s intellectual prowess and – as Gabeba Baderoon puts it – black women’s visions of ‘a world made whole by their presence’.    

Makhosazana Xaba (Research Associate at WiSER and a Governing Intimacies Project Fellow ) will be discussion with Nedine Moonsamy (Senior Lecturer, English Literature at the University of Pretoria and Editorial Assistant Nordic Journal of African Studies) and Moshibudi Motemele (Sessional lecturer and PhD candidate at the University of the Witwatersrand with a Master’s degree in Political Studies). Books will be on sale, at a Special Launch prize of R250

The event will be chaired by Sinethemba Makanya (WiSER Medical Humanities Doctoral Fellow).

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Transitional justice in Palestine

When: Wednesday, 28 August 2019 - Wednesday, 28 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Chalsty Seminar Room, School of Law
Start time:13:15
Enquiries:

Asma.Ooni@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Asma.Ooni@wits.ac.za

Professor Mia Swart, Visiting Professor, School of Law will present this talk.

The talk will focus on the political division between Fatah and Hamas as the principle obstacle to intra-Palestinian reconciliation. The lack of trust between the two factions is rooted in the 2007 division, or fitna. This separation occurred when Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip after a period of violent clashes between Hamas and Fatah security forces. In the decade since the 2007 division, Fatah and Hamas have signed several reconciliation agreements, but the will to carry out the agreements often withered before the ink was dry. Despite several meaningful attempts, calls for reconciliation on both sides have mostly been rhetorical. Deep mistrust has caused each attempt at reconciliation to falter, and tensions between the two key Palestinian political parties continue to this day.

 

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Nobel Prize committee procedures: The politics of prestige

When: Tuesday, 03 September 2019 - Tuesday, 03 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Michelle.Gallant@wits.ac.za

Writer, human rights activist and member of the Swedish Academy, Per Wästberg will present the 2019 Nadine Gordimer Lecture.

Wästberg is also the Chairperson of the Nobel Prize Literature Committee. His association with South Africa began in 1959 when he visited (then) Rhodesia on a fellowship. When he was expelled from the country for his anti-colonial stance, he fled to South Africa, to the home of Nadine Gordimer, and so began a long friendship. He was banned by the South African government in 1960, but visited the region frequently, establishing lasting friendships with writers and activists, including Es’kia Mphahlele, Mongane Wally Serote, Oliver Tambo, Jack Mapanje and Yvonne Vera. Wästberg has written novels, poetry and works of non-fiction. He was a President of PEN International and established the Swedish branch of Amnesty International. Through his work with the International Aid and Defence Fund he came into contact with key anti-apartheid activists, helping to channel funds in support of lawyers defending political prisoners. In 2008 was awarded the Order of the Companions of Oliver Tambo in Silver.

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Symposium in honour of Justice Edwin Cameron

When: Wednesday, 04 September 2019 - Wednesday, 04 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Chalsty Auditorium, Wits School of Law
Start time:10:30
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

The Wits School of Law will host a symposium in honour of Justice Edward Cameron.

After 25 years as a judge, Justice Edwin Cameron is retiring from the constitutional court of South Africa. The Wits School of Law is marking the occasion with a symposium in his honour. As well as reflecting on Cameron’s legal impact, panels will interrogate LGBTQIA+ and AIDS activism, critical jurisprudence and transformation within public interest law.

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Whose evidence matters? African practitioners critique evidence informed decision-making practice

When: Friday, 06 September 2019 - Friday, 06 September 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Mokgophana.Ramasobana@wits.ac.za

CLEAR AA at Wits will host this seminar.

The field of evidence-based decision-making (EBDM) is broadening and therefore a growing need to establish what credible and usable evidence is. It is important to ask who defines evidence and whose evidence counts. This seminar is an opportunity to explore alternative African EBDM narratives that may contrast with the linear knowledge systems and norms championed by the global EBDM field, and for African practitioners to share their lived experiences and Insights. Participants of the DETPA programme, who come from a range of countries, organisations and sectors, will present at the seminar. The panel consists of professionals from Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia responsible for building national evaluation systems, or in positions of influence in terms of policy, planning and evaluation.

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Steve Biko and the reach for a better healthcare system for all

When: Thursday, 12 September 2019 - Thursday, 12 September 2019
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Marie Curie Lecture Theatre, Wits Medical School
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Samkelo.Nsibande@wits.ac.za

Dr Bandile Masuku, MEC Health, Gauteng will present the annual Steve Biko Bioethics Lecture.

Dr Bandile Masuku is the Member of Executive Committee (MEC) for Health, Gauteng Province. He holds a Master of Medicine (MMed) degree in Obstetrics & Gynaecology from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBCHB) and Bachelor of Sciences (BSc) from the Medical University of Southern Africa (MEDUNSA), now Sefako Makgatho University of Health Sciences (SMU). He was a postgraduate student at the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics. Dr Masuku has spent most of his youth and adult life as a student andyouth activist and leader.

He was the Head of the Clinical Unit in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Thelle Mogoerane Regional Hospital, before being seconded as Advisor to the Head of Department of Health in Gauteng in 2018. He was a board member of the Office of Health Standards Compliance, a member of the Council on Higher Education as well as on the Film and Publications Board Advisory Panel. He is currently a Chairperson of the University Council at the Tshwane University of Technology.

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Dialogue on inclusion and inequality in the digital economy

When: Tuesday, 17 September 2019 - Tuesday, 17 September 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, North Lodge
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Nthabi.Mofokeng@wits.ac.za 

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies and South Africa in the Digital Age hosts this discussion on inclusion and inequality in the digital economy.

The discussion will examine the challenges and opportunities presented by the digital age for questions of inclusion, exclusion and inequality. The evening will feature presentations by experts on both the digital economy and inequality, followed by discussion and debate.

More information: www.wits.ac.za/scis/ or SADA on https://www.genesis-analytics.com/sada

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Haemophilia: A crippling lifelong inherited royal disease – leaping from prevention to cure

When: Thursday, 19 September 2019 - Thursday, 19 September 2019
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Marie Curie Auditorium, Medical School Building
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

David Sepeke Sekgwele on 011 717 2081 or at Adler.Museum@wits.ac.za

Professor Johnny Mahlangu will present the 2019 AJ Orenstein Memorial Lecture.

Many royal families in Europe were affected by an inherited bleeding disorder later known as haemophilia. All died before treatment was discovered. Today, with innovative medical technology, haemophilia has a well characterized clinical, genetic and epidemiological profile. This lecture will take the audiences through the most recent scientific development in the quest for treatment, prevention and ultimately cure of haemophilia.

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Riding the 2019 national election prediction rollercoaster

When: Thursday, 22 August 2019 - Thursday, 22 August 2019
Where:
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za /011 717 6272

Professor Pravesh Debba from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) will present this seminar.

The CSIR election night predictions are now a recognised feature of South African elections. This year, perhaps more than in past elections, the media widely reported the CSIR’s predictions alongside the recorded counts from the IEC and spokespeople for the CSIR were seen and heard on a number of television and radio shows. In this presentation we will share some of the insights regarding the “ups” and “downs” of delivering on-site, real-time, scientific outputs on a topic of national public interest. The presentation will include an overview of the statistical methodology behind the predictions; the considerations behind the construction of the clusters; and will also touch on the assumptions underlying the methodology. The prediction results from the 2019 elections will be presented as well as post-election analysis results that look at voter turnout and general trends or shifts in voting behaviour that occurred during the 2019 general elections. Furthermore some election analysis results from the not so predictable world of social media will be presented.

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EIE Industrial Open Day 2019

When: Thursday, 29 August 2019 - Thursday, 29 August 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Chamber of Mines Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

011 717 7204

Annual Industrial Open Day promises engineering solutions for tomorrow

The School of Electrical and Information Engineering will host its annual Industrial Open Day to showcase exciting laboratory projects completed by fourth year students in this year. As part of the curriculum, electrical and information engineering students pair up to use all the engineering skills and knowledge they have gained as undergraduates to design and build projects that provide solutions to everyday life challenges. Read more about previous years' projects.

EIE Industrial Open Day

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The time of the commons and the subject of the South

When: Wednesday, 18 September 2019 - Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room 2nd floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

 

Professor Eric Worby from the Department of Anthropology will present this Senate Lecture.

Infused with nostalgia, fired by hope, the idea of ‘the commons’ has served to index a diffuse social intimacy unimpeded by private property - a way of organising social and material life that has been lost to modernity but that may yet underpin the imagination of a radically redefined future. The rhetorical invocation of ‘the commons’ has fueled a very wide range of political gestures and movements.  It has also animated a good deal of social thought concerned with locating the subject of the Global South – formerly figured as the ‘Native’ of colonial anthropological discourse – in historical or developmental time.  In this lecture, Worby will critically trace the intertwined political and intellectual career of ‘the commons’ concept in relation to temporality and the subject, drawing upon his own research over more than three decades in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and South Africa.

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Is the NHI Bill good or bad for your health?

When: Wednesday, 11 September 2019 - Wednesday, 11 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Auditorium, Chalsty Teaching and Conference Centre, School of Law
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

011 717 8468 / www.wits.ac.za/mandelainstitute/events

RSVP:

mandela.institute@wits.ac.za by 6 September 2019

The Mandela Institute at Wits hosts a panel discussion to shed light on the debate over the recently published National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill.

Panelists include:

  • Dr Anban Pillay: Deputy Director-General in the National Department of Health
  • Dr Nicholas Crisp: Consultant in Minister of Health Office, responsible for establishing the NHI Fund Office
  • Neil Kirby: Director, Werksmans Attorneys and head of its Health Care Practice
  • Adila Hassim: Advocate, Johannesburg Bar and co-founder of Section 27 

Chair: Professor Imraan Valodia, Dean of the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management

 

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Book launch: Governance and the postcolony: Views from Africa

When: Wednesday, 28 August 2019 - Wednesday, 28 August 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Wits School of Governance, Donald Gordon Auditorium
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Lerato.Mtambanengwe@wits.ac.za

The Wits School of Governance will launch the book, Governance and the Postcolony: Views from Africa.

Offering a set of multidisciplinary analyses of governance in different sectors (crisis management, water, food security, universities), and in different locales, including the African Union and specific regional contexts, from West Africa, Zambia, to South Africa, this book is an important addition to the growing debates on ‘how to govern’.

Guest Speaker: Joel Netshitenzhe, Executive Director of the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA). Other speakers: Professor David Everatt (Head of the Wits School of Governance), Dr Darlene Miller, Dr Chelete Monyane and Dr Caryn Abrahams (all from Wits School of Governance).

 

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Marking 50 years of SASO: Black consciousness, then and now

When: Thursday, 19 September 2019 - Thursday, 19 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Seminar Room, Ground floor, South West Engineering Building
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Antonette.Gouws@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Antonette.Gouws@wits.ac.za

The year 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the South African Student Organisation (SASO).

The History Workshop, in partnership with UJ's Centre for Education Rights and Transformation will host an open discussion in commemoration of this seminal moment in South African social and political history.

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SA HIV-1 protease: Biochemistry, biophysics, structural biology and attractive drug target

When: Tuesday, 17 September 2019 - Tuesday, 17 September 2019
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 Yasien Sayed from the School of Molecular Cell Biology will present his inaugural lecture.

HIV-1 subtype C is responsible for the majority of HIV infections in southern Africa, the epicentre of the global HIV pandemic. The HIV-1 protease is an attractive drug target because it is among the three viral enzymes involved in viral replication and maturation. The development of drug resistance, however, remains one of the most significant challenges in the fight for sustained viral suppression within HIV-1-infected patients on antiretroviral therapy. In order to understand drug resistance and to enhance the efficacy of future drug molecules, an in depth study of the biochemistry, biophysics and structural biology of the viral protease and its related drugs is required.

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Book launch: Parcel of death: The biography of Onkgopotse Abram Tiro

When: Thursday, 12 September 2019 - Thursday, 12 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Seminar Room, Ground floor, South West Engineering Building, Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:18:30
Enquiries:

Antonette.Gouws@wits.ac.za

The History Workshop will host the launch of the book, Parcel of Death: The Biography of Onkgopotse Abram Tiro by Gaongalelwe Tiro.

The book recounts the little-told life story of Onkgopotse Abram Tiro, the first South African freedom fighter to be pursued by the apartheid regime beyond the country's borders in order to be assassinated by means of a parcel bomb.

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The ecology of the glorious grasslands of Africa

When: Wednesday, 11 September 2019 - Wednesday, 11 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Michelle.Gallant@wits.ac.za

Professor Sally Archibald, School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences will present her inaugural lecture.

Tropical grassy ecosystems are fascinating to scientists and important for human wellbeing. Seemingly-academic discussions around dynamics and feedbacks in these ecosystems can have huge implications for how they are managed, whether they can help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and what sorts of landscapes African people will inhabit in the next century. Interactions between fire, herbivores, trees, grasses and people play out on a canvas of climate variability and geological antiquity. Sally Archibald will summarise some of the important science debates she has engaged in during her research career and what they mean for how we value and conserve African landscapes. 

Professor Archibald works on understanding the dynamics of savanna ecosystems in the context of global change. Her work integrates field ecological data, remote sensing, modelling, and biogeochemistry. Her research on global fire regimes has highlighted misunderstandings about the role of humans in altering fire regimes, and has provided new tools for managing fire in conservation areas to promote biodiversity.  

She is currently involved in collaborative research projects on grass functional traits, inter-continental savanna comparisons, and the origins of wet-dry seasonality in Africa. This research has provided insights into drivers of resilience in tropical grasslands. Archibald is on the steering committee of several scientific programs including iLEAPS, the Miombo Network, and SASSCAL. She works closely with the CSIR where she worked for 10 years before joining Wits.

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Discussion with renowned Emeritus Professor Ben Fine

When: Thursday, 12 September 2019 - Thursday, 12 September 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium
Start time:11:00
Enquiries:

Lerato.Mtambanengwe@wits.ac.za

The Wits School of Governance (WSG) hosts Emeritus Professor Ben Fine for this discussion.

The recently retired eminent professor from University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies will reflect on his experience of 50 years’ of scholarship and teaching as an academic economist, including his engagement with South Africa in the era of the anti-apartheid struggle and in the post-apartheid era. This discussion will be followed by a plaque unveiling at the Parktown Management Campus Library, acknowledging Professor Fine’s generous donation of his entire scholarly book collection (600 books plus major journal collections) to Wits University, through the WSG.     

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The role of statisticians in harnessing the 4th Industrial Revolution

When: Thursday, 12 September 2019 - Thursday, 12 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Room 112, The Liberty Actuarial Auditorium, 1st floor , Mathematical Sciences Laboratory Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Edith Mkhabela on 011 717 6272 / Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za

Dr Mark Nasila from First National Bank will present this seminar.

The 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) is characterised by the fusion of technologies between cyber, physical, digital, and biological spheres. This revolution represents a fundamental change in the way we live, work and relate to one another. It is a new chapter in human development, enabled by these advances that have raised expectations from society for businesses to provide increasingly enhanced, customised offerings to help meet the needs of individuals and organisations as they evolve over time. Despite so much investment into making sure organisations are data driven, Forbes reports that only 12% of executives surveyed say they are executing a company-wide data strategy centred at what companies offer. In his talk, Nasila will discuss the roles of statisticians in helping organisations harness the 4th Industrial Revolution, specifically around transforming their data strategies [Omni -Channel to Ubiquitous data strategies], using 4IR technological advancements (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Block-chain, Internet of Things) to strategically align their value proposition to society domains such as: education, security and justice, health, hunger, and crisis response.

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Book launch: Black academic voices: The South African experience

When: Wednesday, 18 September 2019 - Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Club
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

Cecilia.Smith@wits.ac.za

The Transformation and Employment Equity Office (TEEO) will be hosting the launch of the book, Black academic voices: The South African experience.

PANELISTS                       

  • Professor Grace Khunou – University of Johannesburg
  • Professor Grace Musila - University of the Witwatersrand
  • Professor Kezia Batisai  -  University of Johannesburg
  • Dr Motlalepule Nathane – University of the Witwatersrand
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The Chartered Accountant as an entrepreneur

When: Wednesday, 18 September 2019 - Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Professional Development Hub
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

Zhan-pere.Weinmann@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Zhan-pere.Weinmann@wits.ac.za

The Wits School of Accountancy will host Brian Joffe, Chartered Accountant and entrepreneur to present this seminar

This seminar will explore the skills, training and character traits required by chartered accountants to be successful entrepreneurs within the fourth industrial revolution space. An esteemed panel of experts will provide additional valuable insight. 

Other speakers include:

Andile Khumalo – A former investment banker with Investec Corporate Finance, member of the Takeover Regulations Panelformer, Managing Director of POWER 98.7, Managing Director of POWER 98.7

Mmaboshai Chauke – (Wits Alumni) – Former partner at Deloitte, Actress, Executive Producer and Freelance Actress at Viva Pictures (Pty) Ltd and Pop Up Media (Pty) Ltd, executive at the Small Enterprise Foundation

The seminar will be streamed live via https://youtu.be/RFNVBqU70zk

 

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The governance of global trade in the evolving new world order

When: Thursday, 26 September 2019 - Thursday, 26 September 2019
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 Milford Soko from the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management Administration will present his inaugural lecture.

This lecture will examine the governance of world trade in the emerging new global order, characterised among others by the rise of ‘Trumpism’ in the United States, the advent of Brexit, the rise of right-wing populism in Europe as well as the collapse of the multilateral, rules-based trade regime. It will argue that that politics and ideology have a significant impact on the structure of global trade and on how policymakers approach governance.  

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Einstein couldn’t knit: The making of a physicienne

When: Thursday, 03 October 2019 - Thursday, 03 October 2019
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 Diane Grayson from the School of Physics will present her inaugural lecture.

A what? A physicienne is a female physicist. There aren’t many of them. As a child, Grayson had the good fortune to have supportive parents and to benefit from exciting Physics curricula, designed at the height of the space race by high-flying physicists from prestigious universities. By the time she was exposed to messages that “Physics is not for girls” it was too late and was already hooked. In this talk, she will share some of what she learnt through research and practice over the past 30 years about how to help diverse students experience the wonder, the beauty and the powerful ways of thinking of Physics.

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Connectivity

When: Monday, 16 September 2019 - Monday, 16 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Great Hall
Start time:19:00
Enquiries:

Gerda Geyer on 011 487 3003/4 / geyerg@saiee.org.za

 

RSVP:

Gerda Geyer on 011 487 3003/4 / geyerg@saiee.org.za

Robert (Bob) Metcalfe, Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas in Austin, will present the 68th Bernard Price Memorial Lecture.

The single most important new fact about the human condition is that we are all connected. In just 50 short years we have managed to connect half of the people on earth, some four billion individuals. Broadband connectivity is the fundamental enabler for today’s digital world. Irrespective of the type of physical medium that is used to provide such connectivity, whether this be cable, fibre or wireless, Ethernet is the basic protocol that is used to deliver such connectivity and consequently has become the prime enabler of the Internet, which today is 50 years old having being conceived in 1969 as a network of university mainframe computers. In simple terms Ethernet provides the rules that dictates how network devices or nodes format and transmit data packets between one another.

Invented by the presenter on May 22nd 1973 Ethernet has become the fundamental building block for Digital Transformation. This lecture will provide insight into the history behind the development and evolution of Ethernet to where it stands today, as well as discuss how Ethernet will support the future connectivity requirements needed to drive emerging technologies such as those emanating from the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

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#ANATOMY100 - Wits School of Anatomical Sciences exhibition at Maropeng

When: Monday, 23 September 2019 - Saturday, 05 October 2019
Where: Off campus
Maropeng Visitor Centre at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

Brendon.billings@wits.ac.za or kimberleightommy@gmail.com

 

 

RSVP:

Brendon.billings@wits.ac.za or kimberleightommy@gmail.com

 

The Wits School of Anatomical Sciences hosts a exhibition at Maropeng Visitor Centre from 23 September to 5 October in honour of the School's centenary.

In 2019, the School of Anatomical Sciences in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Wits celebrates 100 years of existence. As part of the celebrations, an exhibition will open at Maropeng on 23 September 2019, from 09:00 to 15:00 daily, until 5 October 2019.

The School of Anatomical Science has a long and deep history in palaeoanthropology, from housing important fossil material to grooming some of the prolific leaders in palaeoanthropology and it is only fitting that in celebration of 100 years of excellence, the past will once again meet the present at Maropeng at the Cradle of Humankind Heritage Site.

The main goal of this exhibition involves academic outreach. The School would like to take this opportunity to engage and interact with the public concerning all facets of anatomy. We are specifically excited to interact with the youth that will be visiting Maropeng and have several fun-filled activities demonstrating the variety of research endeavours in which the School is currently involved.

Highlights include:

  • Plastic models to demonstrate the anatomy
  • A neuroscience-based brain puzzle
  • A mock excavation of a plastic skeleton
  • A microscopically stained onion to demonstrate cell mitosis
  • Extracting DNA from a strawberry,
  • and details a body donor programme to encourage body donation after death and thereby advance research and teaching.

The study of anatomy is linked to a plethora of academic fields such as medicine, paleoanthropology, forensic anthropology, medical cell biology, clinical anatomy, embryology and neuroscience to mention but a few and as such, many important research projects have been undertaken by students and staff alike based in the school. This will also allow for prospective young anatomists in the making to learn about a possible career in this broad field. We will also have information on the School’s body donor programme which has and will continue to aid in the development of health professionals and scientists.

Join our team of vibrant volunteers at Maropeng and learn more about the incredible field of anatomical sciences!

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Book launch: The last earth: A Palestinian story

When: Wednesday, 18 September 2019 - Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Room 207, Robert Sobukwe Building
Start time:18:30
Enquiries:

Daryl.Glaser@wits.ac.za

The Political Studies Department at Wits and the Afro-Middle East Centre hosts the launch of The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story, by Ramzy Baroud.

Based on numerous interviews, the book conveys powerfully the stories of ordinary Palestinians who have lived through the tumult of modern Palestinian history. 

Main speaker: Ramzy Baroud

Discussant: Daryl Glaser (Wits Political Studies)

Moderator: Karima Brown (journalist and commentator)

 

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The state of literary studies in South Africa

When: Thursday, 19 September 2019 - Thursday, 19 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
WiSER Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building
Start time:11:30
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wts.ac.za 

Colette Gordon from the English Department at Wits will present this seminar hosted by the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER).

The seminar is based on paper that examines what can be gleaned from failure in the English literature classroom, a pattern of (mis)reading, observed both before and after #Feesmustfall, among students interpreting K Sello Duiker’s Thirteen Cents (2000). Against the conventional predictions of narratology and the bromide that reading fosters empathy, a surprising number of students applied a corrective reading, affirming the gas lighting narratives of the two characters (a thief and a pederast) who exemplify the author’s social critique, and attacking the narrator, who is blamed for maligning adult society. In the paper, Gordon tries to think through the many factors that might contribute to this form of dissonant reading, mapping factors specific to the South African context (generational, institutional), but also considering the wider failure of English departments to place misreading at the centre, not the periphery, of their work.


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Traditional authorities and politics of labour recruitment in Zimbabwe's platinum mining industry

When: Friday, 20 September 2019 - Friday, 20 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Hofmeyr House, next to Jubilee Hall
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Gugulethu.Mabena1@wits.ac.za

The Society, Work and Politics Institute (SWOP) will host Dr Joseph Mujere research associate at SWOP to present this breakfast seminar.

Using the case of Zimbabwe Platinum Mines Holdings Limited (Zimplats)’s platinum mining operations in Mhondoro-Ngezi district in Zimbabwe, the talk will analyse the centrality of the politics of belonging in the platinum mining industry’s local labour recruitment regimes. The talk will examine how traditional leaders use autochthonous claims to land to negotiate access to jobs for jobseekers under their jurisdiction and will explore the flaws and contradictions within the local labour recruitment regimes set up by mining companies to appease local communities. The relationship between mining capital and traditional leaders resulted in the emergence of a local labour recruitment regime in which traditional leaders played a significant role. Traditional leaders’ demands for jobs from mining companies whose activities led to their displacement can be viewed as a form of ‘insurgent citizenship’ which led to greater access to mining jobs by local communities. As demonstrated in this research, local communities’ access to mining jobs should not be viewed as a result of the corporate paternalism of mining companies, but coordinated efforts by traditional leaders and local communities who lost their land to mining operations. The talk will also highlight the fraught nature of a local labour recruitment regime that is centred on traditional leaders. Apart from instances of corruption in how traditional leaders manage the local labour recruitment system, the talk will also highlight the contentious nature of the psychomotor tests used by the mining company in recruiting labour. 

*Note: this breakfast seminar is based on a paper co-authored by the presenter with Darryl Chanakira and Sam Spiegel.

 

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In conversation with Sim Tshabalala

When: Thursday, 26 September 2019 - Thursday, 26 September 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Anna.Veileroglou@wits.ac.za 

RSVP:

Anna.Veileroglou@wits.ac.za by 20 September 2019

Professor Adam Habib will be in conversation with Sim Tshabalala, Chief Executive of Standard Bank.

 Habib and Tshabalala are both HeforShe Champions and they will discuss why gender equity is so important for all of us - and what we all can do to promote it in the workplace. Achieving gender equity isn't a women's issue, it's a human rights issue. When we engage 100% of the population, the impact on competitiveness, profitability and sustainability is enormously beneficial. This is why gender equity matters so much for economic growth, human development and most importantly, justice and fairness.

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Building smart local governments

When: Friday, 27 September 2019 - Friday, 27 September 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Sitsabo.Dlamini@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

RSVP

The Wits School of Construction Economics and Management will host and Economic Forum where Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, will deliver the keynote address.

The discussion will be held in line with the National Development Plan 2030 vision for eliminating poverty and reducing inequality by 2030. The Economic Forum is an international discussion platform that seeks to engage the world’s best thinkers in robust economic dialogue to analyse and understand the complexities of economic growth. The discussions provide a global platform for in-depth economic debates with leading academics, industry professionals, investors, policy makers and students.

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Targeting histone deacetylases for cancer therapy and beyond

When: Tuesday, 08 October 2019 - Tuesday, 08 October 2019
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Len Miller Auditorium, Department of Surgery, 9th Floor, Faculty of Health Sciences,
Start time:16:00
Enquiries:

Tanya.Augustine@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Tanya.Augustine@wits.ac.za

The School of Anatomical Sciences will host Ed Seto, the Associate Center Director for Basic Sciences in the GW Cancer Center, George Washington University.

Seto is also a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. His research focuses on understanding gene regulation with a particular emphasis on studying the functions, mechanisms of action, and regulation of histone deacetylases (HDACs).

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Crucial Conversations

When: Thursday, 10 October 2019 - Thursday, 10 October 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits School of Governance
Start time:18:45
Enquiries:

Tholoana.Phoshodi@wits.ac.za

Ann Bernstein, Executive Director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise will be in conversation with Professor Imraan Valodia,.

Everyone agrees that economic growth should be more inclusive. The question is how is this best achieved: by focusing on poverty reduction or by addressing inequality?

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Wits Department of Cardiology World Heart Day Fun Run-Walk

When: Saturday, 28 September 2019 - Saturday, 28 September 2019
Where: Bozzoli Sports Pavilion
Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:7:00
Enquiries:
Mpati: 063 976 1859 / 011 488 3611/ info.cardiology@wits.ac.za
 
RSVP:

Mpati: 063 976 1859 / 011 488 3611/ info.cardiology@wits.ac.za

Cost: 8km: R114,00 5km: R57,00

The Wits Department of Cardiology at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital host their 2nd Annual Walk-Run on 28 September at Wits for World Heart Day.

The World Heart Day Walk and Fun Run kicks off from the Bozzoli Sports Complex, Braamfontein Campus East at 7am on Saturday, 28 September 2019.
 
Entry into the 5km costs R57 and the 8km, R114. Online entries close on 25 September. Later entries and collections can be done from 23-27 September or enter on Race Day from 7am at Wits.
 
Vitality and Multiply points up for grabs!
 
Wits Cardiology hosts its 2nd World Heart Day walk and fun run on 28 September at Wits
 
Further details below:
 
Entries:
Online EFT entries close on 25 September.
Late entries and collections of race numbers can be done from the 23th -27th September at the venue (9:00-17:00) or on Race day 7h00 at the venue.

T-shirts:
The first 3000 entries will receive T-shirts.
 
Disclaimer:  While we endeavor to supply you with your requested T-shirt size, no guarantee can be given to the size availability

Medals:

To all finishers

Route Information

1. No seconding permitted.
2. Regret, athletes will not be allowed to participate with pets.
3.  No ear plugged devices are allowed, excluding hearing aid devices. Runners who wear such devices in contra vention of IAAF rule 144.2b may face disqualification.
4.  Unfortunately, wheelchair athletes may not compete in this race due to the nature of the course. Neither may athletes make use of roller blades, skateboards, cycles, prams or other mechanically propelled devices.
5. Littering is not allowed. Athletes are to dispose of any litter in appropriate bins. Athletes can be disqualified if they litter.
6.  In accordance with ASA rules, there will be at least 3 water tables, not more than 4 kilometers apart.
7. All directions and instructions from traffic officers and marshals must be obeyed. Failure to do so may lead to disqualification.

General Information

Rules:
1. The race is run in accordance with the rules and constitution of ASA and CGA
2.  Athletes indemnify the National, Provincial and Regional bodies, sponsors and organizers of the race against any or all actions whatsoever nature, whatever the same may rise out of the participation in the race.
3.  All athletes participate at their own risk. Athletes acknowledge by entering the event that they are medically fit to participate. All athletes must supply the name and contact number of their next of kin on both the race number and entry form.
4. International athletes must provide a clearance letter (from their country of origin) to the organizers and chief referee prior to the start of the race. Prizes will be withheld if this rule is not adhered to.
5. Athletes who participate without buying a race entry will be disqualified, will not be entitled to any benefits associated with the race and will be liable for a double entry fee charge. Habitual ofienders (those who regularly participate without purchasing a race entry) will be called to a CGA disciplinary.
6. No athlete will be eligible for prizes if details are not completed on sticker or tear off strips and thus deemed to be a non-finisher.
7. Objections must be lodged within 30 minutes before or after prize-giving in writing to the chief referee accompanied by R300.00 which is refundable if the appeal is upheld.
8. Athletes indemnify the National, Provincial athletics bodies, the sponsors, organizers, beneficiaries and local authority against all and any damage or injury they may sustain in participating in the race.
9. Unfortunately, wheelchair athletes may not compete in this race due to the nature of the course. Neither may athletes make use of roller blades, skateboards, cycles, prams or other mechanically propelled devices.
10. All directions and instructions from traffic officers and marshals must be obeyed. Failure to do so may lead to disqualification.
11. In accordance with ASA rules, there will be at least 3 water tables, not more than 4 kilometers apart.
12.  No seconding permitted.
13. Regret, athletes will not be allowed to participate with pets.
14.  No ear plugged devices are allowed, excluding hearing aid devices. Runners who wear such devices in contra vention of IAAF rule 144.2b may face disqualification.
15. Foreign athletes must comply with ASA domicile rules.
16.  The race organizer retains the right to refuse entry and eject persons under the influence of drugs or alcohol, who are disorderly, or engage in inappropriate behaviour, vandalism or evade paying for admission.
17. Littering is not allowed. Athletes are to dispose of any litter in appropriate bins. Athletes can be disqualified if they litter.

Indemnity Disclaimer

All Participants agree to and hereby bind themselves to the following indemnity:

Athletes indemnify the National, Provincial and Regional bodies, sponsors and organizers of the race against any or all actions whatsoever nature, whatever the same may rise out of the participation in the race.
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The relationship between financial stability risks and the real economy

When: Wednesday, 02 October 2019 - Wednesday, 02 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Room 217, New Commerce Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

tholoana.phoshodi@wits.ac.za 

Dr Greg Farrell from Wits will present this seminar hosted by the School of Economic and Business Sciences.

Following the global financial crisis, the mandates of many central banks around the world, South Africa included, have been expanded to encompass both price and financial stability. The monitoring and modelling required for the new financial stability mandate differs in important ways from what is required for the price stability mandate, most notably in its focus on systemic risk, the risk that a single event could result in system-wide financial instability, with severe impacts on real economic growth. How to monitor macroeconomic tails risks originating from financial-sector vulnerabilities is therefore a key question for macroprudential policymakers.

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Wits Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) student chapter launch and annual lecture

When: Wednesday, 02 October 2019 - Wednesday, 02 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Hillman Building
Start time:15:30
Enquiries:

ice.witschapter@gmail.com

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) will launch their first Student Chapter in South Africa.

The activities of the Student Chapter members will provide insight into the civil engineering profession, with presentations on international major projects, (and small ones too), professional practice, development opportunities and more. This event will be followed by ICE’s annual lecture to be presented by Professor Yunus Ballim titled Responding to global rage in the modern world – Civil Engineering as social institution.

 

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Towards alternative epistemologies and pedagogies

When: Wednesday, 02 October 2019 - Wednesday, 02 October 2019
Where: Off campus
Sunnyside Park Hotel, Parktowm, Johanmesburg
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

kudzaiishe.vanyoro@wits.ac.za 

Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Professor of Sociology, University of Coimbra (Portugal) will present this lecture.

De Sousa Santos is Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He earned a masters of law and J.S.D. from Yale University and holds a Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa from McGill University.

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Role and relevance of credits ratings within financial markets, a focus on insurance

When: Thursday, 03 October 2019 - Thursday, 03 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Room 112, 1st floor, The Liberty Actuarial Auditorium, Mathematical Sciences Laboratory
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Edith Mkhabela on 011 717 6272 / Edith.Mkhabela@wits.ac.za

Trevor Barsdorf from S&P Global Ratings will deliver this seminar.

The world’s financial markets depend on credit ratings for accessible insights and valued perspective that drives clarity and growth in the market. S&P Global ratings and insights support growth and transparency in the capital markets and help market participants and investors make educated, confident decisions. Credit ratings are opinions about credit risk. They can express a forward-looking opinion about the capacity and willingness of an entity to meet its financial commitments as they come due, and also the credit quality of an individual debt issue, such as a corporate or municipal bond, and the relative likelihood that the issue may default. Within insurance, an insurer Financial Strength Rating is a forward-looking opinion about an insurance organisation’s ability to pay its policies and contracts. These ratings may be useful for buyers of insurance, risk managers and employee benefit administrators.

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Foreign policy forum: South Africa's presidency of the UN Security Council

When: Tuesday, 08 October 2019 - Tuesday, 08 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Seminar Room, Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building
Start time:15:30
Enquiries:

Malte.Brosig@wits.ac.za 

The Wits Department of International Relations and Politics hosts a roundtable discussion about the current presidency of South Africa in the Security Council.

Which priorities are South Africa setting in the Council? How can African interests be championed in global politics? Will South Africa be able to avoid great power rivalry? 

Register

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Johannesburg-Gauteng and the uneven world economic system

When: Tuesday, 15 October 2019 - Tuesday, 15 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Anna.Veileroglou@wits.ac.za / 011 717 1195

Professor Ronald Wall will deliver his inaugural lecture.

In a globalising world, city-regions increasingly compete to attract firms, trade and investment. These ‘place wars’ occur at local, regional, national, continental and global scales, aimed at triggering economic growth through competitive advantage in leading industrial sectors. City-regions with the right political, economic, geographic, social and environmental ‘location factors’, compete heavily with others to attract these needed resources. This has resulted in a highly uneven world, where a handful of city-regions control much of the world economy, helping boost their economic growth, equality levels and standards of living. However, this uneven distribution is often at the expense of other cities that suffer rising inequality levels. Professor Ronald Wall’s inaugural lecture will address these issues and will discuss strategies on how to boost Johannesburg-Gauteng’s growth, inclusiveness, equality and international position within the global economic system.

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Transportation infrastructure and interdisciplinary interfaces on complex mega-projects

When: Tuesday, 08 October 2019 - Tuesday, 08 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Great Hall
Start time:15:00
Enquiries:

Akpofure.Taigbenu@wits.ac.za

The 12th UK Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) prestigious Brunel International Lecture will be presented by Linda Miller.

Miller is a Bechtel Leader currently serving as a Construction Director and will be talking on: Transportation infrastructure and interdisciplinary interfaces on complex mega-projects – Dreaming Big.

It is no secret or surprise that a transport boom is overtaking the world. On every continent and in every government, transportation infrastructure is seeing a call to action as hasn’t been heard in decades. The reasons driving these are many, and the time for all institutions, private industries and members of the public to put a shoulder behind this boom is now.


Why is this so? Why now? The answer is because the next generation is “dreaming big” and they are crying out for –
Economic Prospects The two key factors in bridging the gap between poverty and prosperity are education/skills, and mobility. Mobility is, of course, the goal of great transportation projects. Transport puts the wind in the sails of young adults starting off in the world; economically disadvantaged individuals making it to steady employment; small business enterprises connecting their products with customers; and growers, creators and workers with the education/skills to deploy moving forward. Mobility is the wind.
Social Justice Future societies increasingly value all people, including those who need multiple diverse pathways for their transport. Now, in every single extended family, we each have at least one loved one, who – because of health, physical incapacity – a wheelchair, loss of sight, a potential for seizures, learning or mental differences, and, increasingly due to fragile old age – are not able to drive. Diverse transport options are, for them, the difference between imprisonment at home or freedom.

Environmental Imperatives Climate change and the counting of our Carbon Footprint are no longer far away, abstract concepts, or a burden in the hands of our scientists! They are overtaking us today and the next generation is already changing the way we create every political decision we make, every bite of food we eat, every way we move. Dramatic, quantifiable environmental benefits are springing from intelligent transport projects, and new innovations – both from engineers and from all creative thinkers in all walks of life – are generating a leap-frogging of the benefits each year.
New government priorities, funding models and stakeholder engagement methods are being crafted. What else is needed? What do leaders and engineers in great, powerful, intelligent transport projects need to do, and how can they thrive amidst the changing nature of engineering and the emerging needs and capacities of the next generation?


During her 12th Brunel International Lecture Series, Linda Miller OBE will address all of these concepts, using six “inescapables” to embrace and act upon. These will give practical examples, using concrete examples from recent projects on three continents.

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A Just Transition from Coal: implications for coal workers and coal affected communities

When: Friday, 04 October 2019 - Friday, 04 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Hofmeyr House, next to Jubilee Hall
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Gugulethu.mabena1@wits.ac.za

The Society, Work and Politics Institute will host this breakfast seminar.

This seminar will question whether increasing resistance to coal mining and burning could drive a socially and environmentally just transition in South Africa. Oppositional agency in three social spaces will be discussed; mining affected communities, the environmental justice movement and the labour movement. In many cases resistance is a response to the dispossession of land and livelihoods, as well as access to clean water and air. This will be demonstrated with reference to Phola township in Mpumalanga. The research suggests a shift is necessary from the dominant view of coal as a source of energy, jobs, and foreign exchange to coal as a driver of inequality, social dislocation and environmental damage.

Speakers: Jacklyn Cock, Dineo Skosana and Victor Munnik

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Health and Ageing in Africa: Addressing inequities over the life course

When: Tuesday, 15 October 2019 - Tuesday, 15 October 2019
Where: Wits Club
Braamfontein Campus West
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Kurium.govender@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Kurium.govender@wits.ac.za. RSVP essential by Wednesday, 9 October 2019

Cost: Free

We begin to age the moment we are born and an ageing population in Africa has profound implications for people and public health.

The Wits University Rural Health and Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt), South African Medical Research, Council and Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies invite you to a highly topical public showcase on Health and Ageing in Southern Africa – Addressing Inequities over the Life Course.

The research showcase, chaired by Wits Chancellor Dr Judy Dlamini, will highlight the latest research from Health and Ageing in Africa: Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa (HAALSI) placing this in BRICS and multi-country contexts.

This ground-breaking initiative addresses vital issues as populations age in African contexts. The research addresses relevant issues around ageing in Africa, including:

  • Cognition and dementia
  • HIV and treatment
  • Chronic non-communicable diseases and multimorbidity.

These have profound implications for the productivity and wellbeing of individuals, their families and society.

Findings can inform health and development policies to achieve better outcomes for those ageing in South Africa.

A high level delegation of scientists who are leading sister studies in BRICS and high-income countries, government stakeholders, civil society, and funders are expected.

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Urgency in the Anthropocene

When: Thursday, 10 October 2019 - Thursday, 10 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Gauteng City-Region Observatory, University Corner, 6th Floor
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

Nadine Abrahams at nadine.abrahams@gcro.ac.za

RSVP:

Nadine Abrahams at nadine.abrahams@gcro.ac.za

The Global Change Institute and the Gauteng City-Region Observatory will host Professor Amanda Lynch from Brown University.

The seminar will discuss some of the wicked challenges we are currently facing. Lynch is a Lindemann Distinguished Professor of Society and Environment.

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Reframing Africa: Future Archives

When: Saturday, 19 October 2019 - Sunday, 20 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Start time:10:00
Enquiries:

pervaiz.khan@wits.ac.za 

This two day conference is hosted by the Wits School of Arts, Wits History Workshop, The Market Photo Workshop and The Windybrow Theatre.

Saturday 19 October

10:00   Coffee & Registration

10:30   Opening Remarks / Introduction

11:00   Re-Covering the Archive

Can the Archive Speak? Searching for Interior Life in Absences - Reece Auguiste

auto-ignition (celluloid as dust, as ash in the colonial archive) - Bettina Malcomess

Chair: Dylan Valley

12:00   National Film Archives Members of the NFA panel  Chair: Aboubakar Sanogo

12:50  Lunch break

13:45 Exhibition walkabout - Afro Argentina by multi-media artist Gaby Messina

14:10  Future Framings

Film: an archive and vehicle to re-define, re-imagine a violent past - Tanja Sakota Paradise Fallen - Zen Marie

What happens when you think of Cinema beyond representation? Kino Kadre collective and their practice of radical Cinema - Chris Wessels & Eugene Paramoer

Chair: Bettinna Malcomess

15:40   Coffee

16:00   Makers of the Archive of the Future

Transforming Education with Black Diaspora Film and Filmmaking Practice –

Ashley Ellis 

Realising Potential in a Pan African Cinema Archive - June Givanni (via Skype)

Archives as Resources: South African film history and education Ian-Malcolm Rijsdijk Chair: Reece Auguiste

17:30   Drinks & Snacks

18:15    Introduction by Teemour Mambéty (via Skype) and screening of Touki Bouki (90mins) by Djibril Diop Mambéty "Tears up the screen with fantasies of African modernity never before seen in film or literature" Manthia Diawara 

20:15   End

Sunday 20 October

11:00  Coffee

11:15   Tainted Archive

District Six Museum - Chrischene Julius

Aboubakar Sanogo

Kumbula: The Third Limitation - Jacob Cloete

Legends of the Casbah - Damon Heatlie

Chair: Cynthia Kros

13:05   Lunch

14:00   Reimagining the Archive

 Stop Bath, Stop River - Abri de Swardt

House of Realness - Sipho Gongxeka 

Family Album - BLD Collective 

Chair: Candice Jansen

15:30   Plenary – Concluding Remarks - Ali Hlongwane 

Chair: Pervaiz Khan

16:30   Drinks & Snacks

17:15   Introduction and screening of Hyenas(1hr 50mins) by Djibril Diop Mambéty - A story of justice, money, and vengeance

19:15   Closing

Venue: Market Photo Workshop 138 Lilian Ngoyi Street, Newtown, Johannesburg.

Space will be limited. If you are interested in attending the workshop please email Cynthia.Kros@wits.ac.za and Pervaiz.Khan@wits.ac.za. There is no registration fee.

Touki Bouki restored 2008 by Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project & the family of Djibril Diop Mambéty. Restoration funded by Armani, Cartier, Qatar Airways & Qatar Museum Authorit

 

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Strengthening social development to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

When: Wednesday, 30 October 2019 - Wednesday, 30 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:15:00
Enquiries:

Fezile Ndebele  at 011 717 4472

RSVP:

Follow this link: https://forms.gle/EDskph7PVLmfdqMu7

Professor Leila Patel from the University of Johannesburg will deliver the annual Professor Edwell Kaseke Memorial Lecture.

Despite the adoption of the social development approach to social welfare and social work by the International Association of Schools of Social Work in 2014, there is still much contestation about the approach particularly as it relates to social and economic development. Drawing on evidence and lessons from how social development ideas are being implemented around the world, pointers are provided for future action and in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in low and middle-income countries. 

The lecture is hosted by the School of Human and Community Development and the Department of Social Work.

About Edwell Kaseke

The 28th of August 2017 will always be remembered as a sad day in the history of Social Work in Zimbabwe and in South Africa, as the profession lost Professor Edwell Kaseke following a battle with cancer. At the time of his death, Professor Edwell Kaseke was Head of the Social Work Department in the School of Human and Community Development at University of the Witwatersrand. He is internationally recognised for the significant role he played in Social Work and Social Development. A memorial lecture is held on an annual basis to keep his legacy alive.

 

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Taming lightning: The dashing killer from heaven

When: Tuesday, 29 October 2019 - Tuesday, 29 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za / 011 717-1193  

Professor Chandima Gomes from the School of Electrical and Information Engineering will present his inaugural lecture.

Lightning, the fascinating, yet destructive atmospheric electrical phenomenon was attributed to divine powers, since the inception of the human civilisation. Once, only a threat to human and animal life and buildings, lightning became a costly affair with the development of electronics, power, and communication. For a few centuries, scientists made ardent efforts to safeguard life and property from lightning, and they are still struggling. This is the story of a person who made a little contribution to this struggle of taming lightning.

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Cannabis: Pre-history, economic potential and future prospects

When: Wednesday, 16 October 2019 - Wednesday, 16 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

tholoana.phoshodi@wits.ac.za 

Paul Alagidede from the Wits Business School will present this seminar hosted by the School of Economic and Business Sciences.

Throughout history a number of indigenous herbs have played various roles in sustaining life either as medicinal, food or industrial plants. Cannabis is one such multidimensional plant that is very little understood. Exploiting the recent Constitutional Court ruling on the personal use of cannabis, this lecture seeks to provide research and anecdotal evidence on the history and economic potential of cannabis especially in creating new jobs, and fresh thinking on entrepreneurship. A number of applications in healthcare and industrial and household properties and usefulness of cannabis is discussed. The lecture argues that the potential of cannabis far outweigh any detrimental effects, and public policy need to catch up with present realities. Finally, the political economy questions around prohibition, consciousness expansion and the future prospects of Cannabis are presented.

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Workshop on electoral reform in South Africa

When: Thursday, 17 October 2019 - Thursday, 17 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Room RS207, Robert Sobukwe Building
Start time:14:00
Enquiries:

Daryl.Glaser@wits.ac.za

 

RSVP:

Daryl.Glaser@wits.ac.za

 

The Wits Department of Political Studies, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and the non-partisan New Nation Movement (NNM hosts this discussion.

Speakers include Mosiua Lekota Member of Parliament, electoral-reform activist Omry Makgoale, Professors Roger Southall and Daryl Glaser from Wits, and representatives of the IEC and NNM.

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What right to food? The absence of food justice in Johannesburg

When: Friday, 18 October 2019 - Friday, 18 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Hofmeyr House, next to Jubilee Hall
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Gugulethu.mabena1@wits.ac.za

RSVP:

Gugulethu.mabena1@wits.ac.za

The Society, Work and Politics Institute (SWOP) will host this breakfast seminar by Brittany Kesselman, a postdoctoral research fellow at SWOP.

Her research is on food sovereignty, food justice and decolonising the food system. This seminar examines the current unhealthy, unjust and unsustainable South African food system and looks to decolonisation as a pathway to transform it. Despite the right to food being included in the constitution, it is largely unknown amongst South Africans and has not been a site of mobilisation in the same way as other socio-economic rights, such as water, education or housing. The combined effects of colonialism, apartheid and industrialisation have normalised the current system to such an extent that it is rarely challenged, despite the fact that it generates high levels of food insecurity, malnutrition, non-communicable diseases and environmental devastation. Drawing on research conducted with urban farmers and unemployed consumers in Johannesburg, the seminar will highlight the importance of decolonial, feminist research methods in challenging the existing food system and highlighting alternatives. Finally, the seminar will consider what decolonisation of the food system entails, and how it might contribute to better health, social justice and ecological sustainability.

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Climate crisis and inequality: Critiques and alternatives from frontline movements in Africa

When: Monday, 21 October 2019 - Monday, 21 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Humanities Graduate Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building
Start time:12:30
Enquiries:

Nthabi.Mofokeng@wits.ac.za

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) and Development Alternatives with Women in a New Era (DAWN) will host this seminar.

 Speaker: Ruth Nyambura, Independent Researcher and Feminist Political Ecologist

Discussant: Brian Kamanzi, Independent Researcher, Tricontinental Institute for Social Research

Chairperson: Dr Hibist Kassa, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies and DAWN Executive Committee member

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Tuberculosis: The grim reaper

When: Tuesday, 22 October 2019 - Tuesday, 22 October 2019
Where: Parktown Health Sciences Campus
Marie Curie Lecture Theatre, Wits Medical School
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Michelle.Gallant@wits.ac.za

Professor Bavesh Kana, from the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research based in the School of Pathology will present his inaugural lecture.

Tuberculosis (TB) continues to present a clear and present danger to the health of all South Africans, killing more people locally than any other bacterial infectious disease. The problem is worsened by the fact that over half the population in our country carry TB bacteria in an asymptomatic state, suggesting that South Africa will continue to battle with an overwhelming current and future TB problem. This urgent public health care crisis requires the development of new drugs, diagnostics and biomarkers that are tailored towards strengthening the local health care system and improving the lives of people living with this dreaded disease.

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Half the sky? How social norms and gender discrimination shape women's work

When: Tuesday, 29 October 2019 - Tuesday, 29 October 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits School of Governance
Start time:17:30
Enquiries:

Nthabi.Mofokeng@wits.ac.za

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies will host its inaugural Inequality Lecture to be presented by Professor Ashwini Deshpande from Ashoka University.

Her Ph.D. and early publications have been about international debt crisis of the 1980s. She has been working on the economics of discrimination and affirmative action, with a focus on caste and gender in India. She has published extensively in leading scholarly journals. Women's participation in labour markets and their work conditions have some common features globally, regardless of level of development or the institutional/cultural context. For instance, everywhere women earn less than men. However, there are also important regional variations, and  analysis of the multiple ways in which gender dynamics play out in the context of work leads to interesting typologies. The bulk of academic analysis makes a neat binary between developing and developed countries. For developing countries, cultural factors or (conservative) social norms, including the stigma attached to women's work, are seen as primarily responsible for women's low labour force participation, or for occupational segregation. For developed countries, the discussion is almost never in terms of social norms; gender gaps are explained in terms of economic discrimination. 

This talk takes stock of the evolution of women's work participation, gender wage gaps, occupational division over the last two decades globally. It highlights key regional differences in these indicators, and argues that it is important to break this analytical binary. While the specific details vary, "cultural" factors matter everywhere.  Similarly, gender discrimination is also ubiquitous, regardless of the level of economic development of the country. 

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Cohorts longitudinal studies from the Global South

When: Monday, 04 November 2019 - Monday, 04 November 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Len Miller auditorium, 9th floor, Medical School
Start time:11:00
Enquiries:

beth.shirley@wits.ac.za 

The DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development will host this seminar.

South Africa, Brazil, Guatemala, India, and Philippines have followed select populations over a period of time, measuring the impact of social transitions and life experiences. These countries experience high rights of maternal and child undernutrition, and have experienced accelerated social and economic transitions. The Principle Investigators of all five have formed the Consortium of Health Orientated Research in Transitioning Societies (COHORTS) and will be presenting their findings.

The South African Birth-to-Twenty Plus study, hosted by the Developmental Pathways to Health Research Unit and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development, is one of the five cohort studies.

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First South African gene editing conference

When: Thursday, 28 November 2019 - Friday, 29 November 2019
Where: Parktown Education Campus
School of Public Health Auditorium, School of Public Health
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Samkelo.Nsimande@wits.ac.za

The Wits School of Clinical Medicine, the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) will host this conference.

Advances in biotechnology have led to human genome editing and progress in artificial intelligence (AI) fuelling the fourth industrial revolution. With these advances gaining momentum promises for well-being at a level not previously imagined, emerge. This progress also raises ethical, legal and social considerations together with valid concerns that the law and ethics are lagging behind. Moreover, recent reports on abuse of these technologies have triggered disquiet. Genome editing involves precise additions, deletions and alterations to the genome. Basic science research in genome editing is already under way in laboratories globally. Clinical applications involving somatic (non-reproductive cells) are in the early stages and going forward there is great potential for the use of this technology in germline (reproductive) cells. What does this mean for us in South Africa and Africa as a whole?

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Open forum: Key voices on digital identity and data privacy in Africa

When: Monday, 28 October 2019 - Monday, 28 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

Bongiwe Tutu at ACRPcontact@gmail.com

The Africa-China Reporting Project and Omidyar Network will host this forum.

As African governments and businesses digitize their identification processes, having a digital identity can be increasingly valuable, if not required, for people to obtain healthcare, education, employment, bank services, purchases and trade; and to pay taxes, amass capital, own property, lend money, open businesses, and travel.

While digital identity has massive implications for economies and societies, very few people understand how they themselves are digitally identified; how their information is used by businesses, governments, and individuals; what rights they have; what risks they are exposed to; and what safeguards are or could be in place.

An estimated 500 million African citizens still have no formal online identification, although African states are now pursuing new and distinctive digital identification projects, many with an economic development agenda and others with national security goals. The private sector is also an active participant in digital identity.

The Africa-China Reporting Project is convening a group of key voices on digital identity in Africa in the fields of public and private IDs, the banking sector, datafication and surveillance, including:

  • Kim Dancey (Head Payments Risk, FirstRand Rest of Africa and India)
  • John Carneson (Former head of policy, strategy, planning and evaluation at South African Home Affairs)
  • Thea Anderson (Policy Director, Omidyar Network)
  • Professor Jane Duncan (Department of Journalism, Film and Television, University of Johannesburg)
  • Professor Keith Breckenridge (Wits Institute For Social & Economic Research)
  • Grace Mutung’u (Associate, Kenya ICT Action Network)

 Click here for the programme

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Engaging with the report of the presidential advisory panel on land reform

When: Wednesday, 23 October 2019 - Wednesday, 23 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
A1, John Moffat Building
Start time:12:00
Enquiries:

Margot.Rubin@wits.ac.za

The School Of Architecture and Planning (SoAP) will host this urban land reform seminar.

The speakers include:

Bulelwa Mabasa: Werksmans Attorneys and the Expert Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture.

Professor Ruth Hall: PLAAS, University of the Western Cape

Lauren Royston: SERI

Professor Marie Huchzermeyer: SoAP & CUBES

Professor Mfaniseni Sihlongonyane: SoAP & CUBES

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The politics of land, governance and development in Africa

When: Thursday, 24 October 2019 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
School of Social Sciences Seminar Room 4 (RS 248), Robert Sobukwe Building
Start time:13:00
Enquiries:

Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za 

The Faculty of Humanities will host this Mapping African Futures seminar by Guma Kunda Komey Kalo from University of Bahri, Sudan.

African governments and policy makers are in general centralising the governance of land rights and in the process eroding land rights of rural communities. Simultaneously, African governments are sanctioning large scale land-based investments by international investors at the expense of local communities. The seminar will provide evidence from Sudan that this approach to development is unlikely to lead to sustainable social and economic transformation of the continent. Strengthening land rights of rural communities and public investment in uplifting rural livelihoods appears to offer a more sustainable path to development. The discussion will primarily focus on Sudan’s experience with the land and agrarian question, and the relevance this holds for South Africa’s on-going land question and Africa in general.

The seminar will be chaired by Samuel Kariuki.

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Seminar and book launch: Competition and Economic Regulation for Inclusive Growth In southern Africa

When: Thursday, 24 October 2019 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Chalsty Teaching and Conference Centre, Law School Building
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Julius Nyamwena at juliusn@uj.ac.za

RSVP:

Julius Nyamwena at juliusn@uj.ac.za

The Mandela Institute and the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development will jointly host a seminar and book launch.

The seminar will be presented by former chairperson of the Competition Tribunal of South Africa and Acting Director of MI, Norman Manoim.

The seminar will be followed by the launch of the edited volume by Professors Jonathan Klaaren, Simon Roberts and Imraan Valodia, titled Competition and Economic Regulation for Inclusive Growth in Southern Africa (2019, Jacana Publishers), which speaks to the challenges and impacts of competition law and economic regulation throughout Southern Africa.

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2019 Carlos Cardoso Memorial Lecture

When: Monday, 28 October 2019 - Monday, 28 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Science Stadium
Start time:17:00
Enquiries:

Aijc@journalism.co.za

RSVP:

Aijc@journalism.co.za

Wits Journalism will host the annual Carlos Cardoso Memorial Lecture to be delivered by Mimi Mefo, an award-winning Cameroonian journalist.

This annual lecture is part of the prestigious 15th edition of the African Investigative Journalism Conference hosted by Wits Journalism.

As a Wits student, Carlos Cardoso was deported to Mozambique in 1974 because of his support for the Frelimo government. He became a journalist, and while investigating political and financial fraud, he was assassinated in Maputo in 2000.

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15th African Investigative Journalism Conference

When: Monday, 28 October 2019 - Wednesday, 30 October 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Science Stadium
Start time:8:00
Enquiries:

Aijc@journalism.co.za

RSVP:

Aijc@journalism.co.za

Wits hosts Africa’s largest gathering of investigative journalists.

Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph E. Stiglitz and award winning Cameroonian journalist, Mimi Mefo will address leading journalists and thought-leaders from around the world attending the 15th African Investigative Journalism Conference (AIJC) hosted by Wits Journalism.

The AIJC is Africa’s premier annual investigative journalism conference and enables members of the Fourth Estate to gain skills that will advance public interest and democracy. View programme details.

As a special guest, Mefo will deliver the Carlos Cardoso Memorial Lecture. Other confirmed speakers include winners of the Global Shining Light Award, Wole Soyinka, and Taco Kuiper awardees John-Allan Namu, Anas Anas, Maggie Michael, Jacques Pauw, Pauli van Wyk, and the team from Bellingcat, to name a few. The gathering closes with an address by Stiglitz on the importance of investigative journalism and the challenges it faces.

More than 62 different sessions are planned, rich in new skills, ideas, stories and opportunities to network, learn, and contribute. Discussions will unpack issues like the experiences of female investigative reporters, the ethics of undercover reporting, and the motives behind investigative journalism.

The conference includes tracks on the latest in cutting-edge digital tools and techniques, including the use of satellite imagery, environmental sensors, robot journalism, and uncovering the secrets of the web.

To register and for more information please visit www.journalism.co.za/aijc19 or @aijc_conference

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WitsQ to hold first Summer School

When: Monday, 02 December 2019 - Tuesday, 10 December 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Science Stadium
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

Professor Barry Dwolatzky, Director: Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering, at info@jcse.org.za.

RSVP:

http://www.wits.ac.za/quantum-computing/summer-school/

Cost: http://www.wits.ac.za/quantum-computing/summer-school/

The WitsQ Quantum Computing Summer School takes place from 2 - 10 December at the Science Stadium.

Wits University, together with IBM Research, the Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering, the Wits Institute for Data Science, and the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) will host its first Quantum Computing Summer School.

REGISTER HERE: http://www.wits.ac.za/quantum-computing/summer-school/ (Registration closes on 22 November 2019 and residence room bookings close on 15 November 2019)

 

Aimed at undergraduates, postgraduates, academics, researchers and members of industry who are interested in Quantum Computing, the Summer School will be an opportunity to produce and facilitate research that incorporates quantum computing.

In June, Wits became the first African partner on the IBM Q Network – a  community of Fortune 500 companies, startups, academic institutions and research labs working with IBM to advance quantum computing and explore practical applications for business and science.

The Summer School has space for 300 attendees and is open to anyone who have the following prerequisites:

  • Good Mathematics: Complex Linear Algebra
  • Understanding of the properties of quantum mechanics: e.g. superposition, entanglement, interference
  • Some programming experience: Python is preferable

Attendees will be in introduced to quantum computing; to its theory as well as to:

  • Qiskit and IBM Quantum Computers
  • Basic Quantum Algorithms
  • Advanced Quantum Algorithms
  • Applications of Quantum Computing
  • Understanding the hardware of Quantum Computers

The school will run from 2 December - 10 December 2019 at the Wits Science Stadium, Braamfontein Campus West, Johannesburg.

Following the Summer School, IBM Q will be hosting an invite-only Qiskit Camp Africa in South Africa (11 – 14 December 2019) for 200 quantum researchers and computer scientists. Qiskit is a full-stack, open-source quantum software development kit to create and run quantum computing programs.

 For enquiries, contact Professor Barry Dwolatzky, Director: Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering, at info@jcse.org.za.

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Aspects of machine learning

When: Monday, 11 November 2019 - Friday, 15 November 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Lecture Room P216, Physics Building
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

http://neo.phys.wits.ac.za/workshop_15/index.html  or pallab.basu at wits.ac.za

The Mandelstam Institute for Theoretical Physics at Wits will hold the 2019 Joburg School in Theoretical Physics.

The 2019 Joburg School in Theoretical Physics will be a mix of pedagogical lectures delivered by five experts in the field, as well as research talks and interaction sessions. All students are welcome. 

The Mandelstam Institute for Theoretical Physics holds theory physics workshops and schools several times a year. The goal of the Joburg School in Theoretical Physics is two-fold. Firstly, to expose the local community to exciting recent developments in the understandings of deep connection between quantum field theoretic methods and machine learning. Secondly, to stimulate discussion and interaction which might lead to new research directions and collaborations.

Lecturers include:

  • Anosh Joseph (IISER Mohali)
  • Giacomo Torlai (CCQ, Flatiron Institute)
  • Jonathan Shock (Univ. of Cape Town)
  • Dimitrios Giataganas (Univ. of Athens)
  • Ismail Akhalwaya (IBM, Johannesburg)

INFO: http://neo.phys.wits.ac.za/workshop_15/index.html 

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The new era of multi-messenger astronomy

When: Tuesday, 26 November 2019 - Tuesday, 26 November 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

 Kelebogile.Tadi@wits.ac.za

Professor Andrew Chen from the School of Physics will deliver his inaugural lecture.

For thousands of years, since before the dawn of history, humanity has peered into the night sky with the naked eye. Beginning in the renaissance, optical telescopes revolutionised our view of the cosmos and our place within it. The 20th Century saw the birth of multiwavelength astronomy, with telescopes spanning the entire electromagnetic spectrum from radio to gamma rays, no longer limited by the narrow band of the visible frequencies. The 21st Century has witnessed two new discoveries, which herald a new era of multi-messenger astronomy, moving beyond light to gravitational waves and neutrinos. On 17 August 2017, a merger of two neutron stars was observed both by gravitational wave detectors LIGO and VIRGO and by gamma-ray telescopes Fermi and INTEGRAL. On 22 September 2017, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory detected a high energy muon neutrino from the blazar TXS 0506+056 which was found to be in a flaring state of high gamma ray emission. In this lecture, Chen will explore the background and meaning of these two momentous discoveries and what the implications are for current and future experiments, including participation by the astronomy group in the School of Physics at Wits.

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International Moringa Symposium

When: Sunday, 10 November 2019 - Wednesday, 13 November 2019
Where: Off campus
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Convention Centre
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

luke.chimunga@wits.ac.za 

Wits University will participate in the second International Symposium on Moringa.

Dr Yannick Nuapia, a postdoctoral fellow at Wits will deliver a talk titled: “Green extraction of Moringa powder to give a Moringa liquid concentrate and its ways to convert back into solid form while preserving the original nutrients”.  Professor Luke Chimuka from Wits will also give a talk looking at the role of government in the bioeconomy with a case study of Moringa sector. It is anticipated that the conference will officially launch the Moringa sector in the country. More than fourteen Moringa farmers and entrepreneurs will exhibit and sell Moringa based products at the conference.

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Have we been betrayed by trade laws?

When: Thursday, 07 November 2019 - Thursday, 07 November 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Auditorium, Chalsty Teaching and Conference Centre, School of Law
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Mandela.Institute@wits.ac.za / 011 717 8468

RSVP:

Mandela.Institute@wits.ac.za by 5 November 2019

The Mandela Institute hosts this seminar on the hot issues in international trade, the approach to the WTO, Brexit and the African Continental Free Trade Area.

Ambassador Xavier Carim, the Deputy Director General of International Trade and Economic Development in the Department of Trade and Industry will be the keynote speaker. Members of the Law School with expertise in international trade and investment will act as discussants.

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Quantum Computing Summer School

When: Monday, 02 December 2019 - Sunday, 10 November 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Wits Science Stadium
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

Info: http://www.wits.ac.za/quantum-computing/summer-school/

Wits, together with IBM, the JCSE, WIDS, and ARUA are excited to announce that the Quantum Computing Summer School will be held this December.

The Summer School is aimed at undergraduates, postgraduates, academics, researchers and members of industry who are interested in Quantum Computing, and are willing to contribute by both producing and facilitating research which incorporates Quantum Computing.

Prerequisites:

  • Good Mathematics: Complex Linear Algebra.
  • Understanding of the properties of quantum mechanics: e.g. superposition, entanglement, interference.
  • Some programming experience: Python is preferable.

Content:

  • What is Quantum Computing?
  • Theory of Quantum Computing
  • Introduction to Qiskit and IBM Quantum Computers
  • Introduction to Basic Quantum Algorithms
  • Advanced Quantum Algorithms
  • Applications of Quantum Computing
  • Understanding the hardware of Quantum Computers

For additional information and registration, please see visit the Quantum Summer School Website

Note: Registration closes on 22 November 2019 and residence room bookings close on 15 November 2019.

 

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Reclaiming waste: Exploring social and environmental challenges

When: Tuesday, 05 November 2019 - Wednesday, 06 November 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Conference Room, 1st floor, IFAS-Recherche, 62 Juta Street, Braamfontein
Start time:8:30
Enquiries:

comm.research@ifas.org.za

Wits School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Sciences, the African Reclaimers Organisation, IFAS-Research and others will host this conference.

The waste crisis is a global reality, meanwhile societies face rising global social emergencies. Mobilisation by informal recyclers brings together struggles for social, economic and environmental justice. Through the Reclaiming Waste conference, informal recyclers, social scientists, activists, and residents will foster conversation on topics including how informal recyclers organise and forge alliances with residents, artists and academics; what informal recycling reveals about tensions between the economy and ecology;  and what it means to decolonise recycling. More information.

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Struggling for a carbon free future: Lessons from the climate justice movement in Germany

When: Thursday, 07 November 2019 - Thursday, 07 November 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
RS 248, 2nd floor Robert Sobukwe Block
Start time:16:30
Enquiries:

janecherrytree@gmail.com

Tobias Kalt, a PhD researcher on labour-environment relations at the University of Kassel, Germany, will present this seminar.

In his research, he focuses on coal transitions and the relations between jobs and the environment and labour and environmental movements. Kalt is also an activist in the climate justice movement in Germany.

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Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution:Defining a role for research universities

When: Monday, 18 November 2019 - Wednesday, 20 November 2019
Where: Off campus
University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

aryeetey@ug.edu.gh

The African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) along with partners will host the second biennial conference on the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Keynote speakers at the conference include:

  •  Professor Zeblon Vilakazi - Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Postgraduate Affairs, Wits University
  • Professor Alison Lewis - University of Cape Town
  • Professor Andrew Thompson - Oxford University
  • Professor Jeffrey Sachs - Columbia University 

Full programme for second ARUA conference

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Governance and ethics of data analytics for student success

When: Thursday, 21 November 2019 - Thursday, 21 November 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:12:00
Enquiries:

Diane.Grayson@wits.ac.za

The office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic will host Dr Colleen Carmean, Founder of Ethical Analytics Group, to present this seminar.

The recently developed Wits Institutional Framework for Student Success provides the basis for integrated, holistic efforts to promote and improve student success across the University. Underlying these efforts is the appropriate collection, analysis and use of data as the basis for decision-making. Guidelines are needed as to what data are collected by whom, how, in what format, and who gets to use data for which purposes. Wits wishes to develop a framework for governance and ethical use of data. The input of known experts in the field like Carmean will be valuable in crafting this framework.

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Violent protests and civil society, where to from here?

When: Friday, 22 November 2019 - Friday, 22 November 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus West
Chalsty Auditorium, Law School
Start time:11:00
Enquiries:

Busisiwe.Zasekhaya1@wits.ac.za by 18 November

The Right2Protest Project will host this dialogue on the challenges in exercising the right to protest.

The case of Kanya Cekeshe has civil society reflecting on the nature of violent protests in South Africa and the role it should be playing. The Right2Protest Project is a coalition of civil society organisations that aim to advance the constitutional right to protest.

Panellists:

  • Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC, Advocate of the Johannesburg Bar
  • Nomzamo Zondo, Director of Litigation, Socio-Economic Rights Institute
  • Stanley Malematja, Attorney, Right2Protest Project
  • Busisiwe Zasekhaya, Coordinator, Right2Protest Project

The dialogue will be facilitated by Dr Tshepo Madlingozi, Director, Centre for Applied Legal Studies.

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Evidence use to strengthen responses to gender based violence

When: Friday, 29 November 2019 - Friday, 29 November 2019
Where: Parktown Management Campus
Donald Gordon Auditorium, Wits School of Governance
Start time:9:00
Enquiries:

Talitha.Hlaka@wits.ac.za / 011 717 3387

RSVP:

Talitha.Hlaka@wits.ac.za / 011 717 3387

CLEAR-AA will host this half day seminar on the use of evidence to strengthen responses to Gender Based Violence (GBV).

Submit a written poem, an artwork, or any form of expressive video on how it feels to be a woman/man in South Africa today to Talitha Hlaka at talitha.hlaka@wits.ac.za.

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Evolution of nursing education programmes at the University of Ghana

When: Tuesday, 03 December 2019 - Tuesday, 03 December 2019
Where: Parktown Education Campus
Resource Centre, School of Public Health
Start time:10:00
Enquiries:

Patience.Sigasa@wits.ac.za

The Wits School of Public Health and the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Ghana will host this seminar.

Professor Lydia Aziato from the University of Ghana will provide an overview of the Evolution of Nursing Education Programmes at the University of Ghana and locate these within Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) reforms. The Republic of Ghana established the NHIS in 2003, with the stated policy goals of universal population coverage and equity. Within this context, nursing education reforms are critical to the success of universal health coverage (UHC), enunciated in the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Aziato will highlight the lessons for low-and middle-income countries, especially in Africa. Three discussants drawn from leadership positions in South African academia, and the public and private health sectors, will reflect on the Ghana experience and highlight the lessons for nursing education reforms in South Africa, within the context of the proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) system.

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Why southern Africa is a climate change hotspot

When: Thursday, 28 November 2019 - Thursday, 28 November 2019
Where: Braamfontein Campus East
Senate Room, 2nd Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House
Start time:18:00
Enquiries:

Michelle.Gallant@wits.ac.za 

Professor Francois Engelbrecht from the Global Change Institute at Wits will present his inaugural lecture.

The recent IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 ºC identified southern Africa as a climate change hotspot. The lecture will explain how this assessment was made through the combined analysis of proxy records of palaeoclimate, trends observed over recent decades and model projections of future climate change. Under future global warming of 1.5-4°C, pronounced poleward displacements of the westerlies and cold fronts are projected to occur in conjunction with the more frequent formation of high-pressure systems over southern Africa. This implies that general reductions in rainfall are likely to occur over the region, which are to co-occur with drastic increases in temperature. It will be shown that such changes may bring tipping points to southern Africa in terms of water security, the maize crop and the livestock industry. The lecture will conclude with a discussion of the extent to which global warming can still be mitigated, and the ambitious climate change adaptation projects southern Africa can pursue under low mitigation futures. 

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