Breaking Barriers Through Technology Webinar Series

Webinar Title: Propelling Change: A Decade of Impactful Change in Engineering Education

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Pitso ya Kalaneng 2026 Festival

Wits Theatre Complex flagship, Pitso Ya Kalaneng 2026 Festival, 3rd Edition, opens on Monday 02 February to Saturday 07 February 2026.

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The Poliomyelitis Research Foundation 19th James HS Gear Memorial Lecture

The lecture will be presented by Professor Thumbi Ndung’u, Director for Basic and Translational Science at the Africa Health Research Institute.

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Walkabout @ WAM 'Intersections: Bill Ainslie and the Johannesburg Art Foundation

This walkabout offers an opportunity to hear the curators in discussion. They will share insights, reflections, and fresh perspectives on the exhibition.

Walkabout will be led by curators Wilhelm van Rensburg, Senior Art Specialist and Head Curator at Strauss & Co, and Kagiso Pat Mautloa, artist and Johannesburg Art Foundation affiliate.

Parking for the walkabout is available in the garage beneath the museum. Please allow sufficient travel time as traffic is disrupted by roadworks on Jorissen Street and Bertha Street. 

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13th International Conference on Multilingual Education and Literacies

Theme Multilingual Futures and Literacies of Meaning: Reframing Education for Inclusion and Justice Overview.

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Arthur Bleksley Memorial Lecture

The Poetry of Light: JWST and the dawn after darkness.

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Mombelli's Chapter 7

Mombelli is one of South Africa’s most significant and restlessly creative musical voices.

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AMLD Conference

This is the biggest AI conferences on the continent where the African AI community will come together and share about the state-of-the-art.

Applied Machine Learning Days (AMLD) Africa 2026 is one of the leading pan-African conferences dedicated to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and real-world impact.

Click here for more.

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Make-a-Book with the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts at WAM: Rotating Circular Book

The workshop will take place in the WAM Café / Gallery Forecourt area. 

Join this playful, hands-on workshop where you’ll create a 360° rotating circular book inspired by the natural world. Using hidden pivots, folding techniques, and collage, you’ll build a miniature spinning world— layering landscapes, plants, textures, and symbols to tell a story that moves. As the pages rotate, your book reveals an ever-changing ecosystem, inviting viewers to explore it from every angle.

All ages are welcome.

All materials will be supplied, but feel free to bring any collage material or images of your own if you’d like to include them in your book.

Parking for the workshop is available in the garage beneath the museum. Please allow sufficient travel time as traffic is disrupted by roadworks on Jorissen Street and Bertha Street.

Museum hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 to 16:00 JGCBA hours: Tuesday - Friday 10:00 to 16:00 For more information on the workshop please email 

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The Complete Runner: Train Smart, Fuel Right and Stay Injury-Free

The Physiotherapy Department will be hosting a Free Runner’s Workshop.

The workshop will be hosted by Dr Siyabonga Kunene, a sports physiotherapist, endurance athlete and running coach with extensive experience in musculoskeletal injury prevention and performance training.

This interactive session, themed “The Complete Runner: Train Smart, Fuel Right and Stay Injury-Free,” is designed to equip runners with practical, evidence‑informed strategies to improve performance while reducing injury risk. Participants will learn essential principles of injury prevention, smart and sustainable training methods for both speed and endurance, and the fundamentals of nutrition for both training and race day. The workshop will also include a Q&A segment, giving attendees an opportunity to engage directly with Dr Kunene on their specific running challenges.

The event is open to runners of all levels—from beginners to seasoned marathoners—and to anyone aspiring to run pain‑free and perform at their best.

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Crystal Dicks and the struggle for gender justice in South African higher education

This online event brings together both personal and political history.

The event has two main things:

1) commemorate the life and activism of Crystal Dicks, with a primary focus on her tenure as the Director of the Gender Equity Office (GEO) at Wits University, and

2) connect Crystal’s work to the larger and still ongoing struggle for gender justice in South African higher education. 

Crystal Dicks was at the forefront of political struggles in Southern Africa for decades, beginning as a youth activist and community organizer in Cape Town, then taking on the challenge of worker education and organizing informal workers, and more recently organising in solidarity with activists struggling for a free and democratic Eswatini. Throughout her life, Crystal was especially invested in issues of gender justice, and it was in this context that she took on the Directorship of GEO in 2017. 

This is where the personal and political come together. In this event, we also hope to draw from Crystal’s example and experiences to both reflect upon and contribute to larger struggle for gender justice in South African higher education today. Late last year Wits university students mobilised yet again. And it isn’t just Wits. Universities across South Africa face the same challenges. South Africans more broadly continue to experience exceptional levels of sexual violence, harassment and bullying, and many continue to follow in Crystal’s footsteps by mobilising to take action to advance gender justice and confront impunity.  

We welcome everyone who has been influenced and inspired by Crystal and who remains invested in the cause of gender justice in South African higher education to join us.

We are hosted under the FemIDEAS and the FemDialogue Conference 2026.

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Health Apps Project International Conference

There is no app for this! Regulating the Migration of Health Data in Africa.

The University of the Witwatersrand’s (Wits), School of Law in partnership with Warwick University’s Law School and the University of Nairobi’s business School have jointly organized this final Health Apps conference in Johannesburg to showcase the project’s major scientific outputs and explore with stakeholders how harmonization can be achieved across the subregion to improve regulations and guidelines for Health Apps. The project is funded by the Wellcome Trust. 

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From Water Security to Water Justice: Minding the gap between academic research and lived realities

Join Mandela Institute for a Seminar with Dr Pamela Katic.

The Mandela Institute are delighted to welcome Dr Pamela Giselle Katic, ecological economist and Associate Professor at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, for a special seminar titled: From Water Security to Water Justice: Minding the gap between academic research and lived realities. With over fifteen years of transdisciplinary experience in water economics, governance, justice, and sustainability, Dr Katic will share insights from her journey—from hydro‑economic modelling to approaches grounded in ecological thinking, justice, epistemic diversity, and intercultural collaboration.

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WAM Newwork25 exhibition walkabout

Join us on Saturday 07 February 2026 at 12:00 for the final walkabout of the Newwork25 exhibition.

Newwork25 is a year-long collaborative project culminating in a group exhibition. The project is made up of 56 young artists from the Wits School of Arts in their final year of a BA in Fine Art. The work celebrates the right to exist, to name, and to create from histories made tangible.

The participating artists arrive having worked, persisted, and grown, shaping their practices and communities along the way. To begin is intentional; to become is political and rooted in kinship; to belong is to claim space without compromise. The works on display echo this conversation and reverberate between the gallery walls, forming the language of the Newwork25 exhibition.

Come and see the culmination of a year’s worth of experimentation, reflection, and creative growth. The walkabout will be led by representatives from Newwork25. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear their reflections and gain fresh perspectives on the exhibition. Newwork25 is facilitated by Mbali Dhlamini and Siyanda Marrengane. Parking for the walkabout is available in the garage beneath the museum; please allow extra travel time due to extensive roadworks in the area.

Exhibition closes 14 February 2026 Museum hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 to 16:00 For more information on the show and museum please contact angelique.bougaard@wits.ac.za.

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Book launch

Join us tor the launch of a new book - Worker Cooperatives and Deep Democracy : Transformative Politics and Planetary Care from Below.

Worker Cooperatives and Deep Democracy : Transformative Politics and Planetary Care from Below is in many ways the authors Vishwas Satgar and Michelle Williams' manifesto - drawing on decades of scholarship, activism, and engagement with movements from the Global South.

It confronts the crises that ae defining our time: climate breakdown, inequality, and democratic erosion. It speaks not only to specialists but to thoughtful readers searching for credible and hopeful alternatives to a failing status quo. Retired trade unionist, Dinga Sikwebu will be in conversation with the authors.

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Gender dimensions of unhealthy food and drink advertisements that appeal to South African teenagers

Join the Wits School of Public Health seminar.

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Grammy-nominated Cuban American Vocalist at Wits

Melvis Santa an Afro-Cuban jazz vocalist, pianist, percussionist and Grammy nominated artist will be at Wits.

Hosted by the Department of Music, Santa will participate in two events. 

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Feeling the Love this Valentines Day: Creative Crafting

Join the casual and creative crafting activities focused on beads and beading.

Join the casual and creative crafting activities focused on beads and beading, while surrounded by the beautiful Origins Centre Tapestries. All ages welcome – there will be a variety of activities, materials, crafting tables and inspiration!

Tickets include all materials, light refreshments and full museum access: R120 per person (webtickets or at the door). Group special: Buy 3 get 1 free.

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Exhibition Opening!

Echoes of the Machine: A Cybernetic Song by Renzo Filinich

This exhibition creates a volatile aviary of signals: not birds in flight, but a flocking logic made audible and visible through machine, wire, light and sound.

The artist folds inner sensation and environment into one continuous field creating a deliberately engineered ecology: a self-organising network of artificial neurons that “respond, mutate, and adapt” to one another and to the interruptions of viewers.

In collaboration with the Wits School of Mechanical and Information Engineering. Renzo Filinich is a Peruvian-Chilean media artist and Origins centre post-doc.

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Fractured Focus – Connection and Distraction

Fractured Focus – Connection and Distraction: Mental wellness session with Dr Kirti Ranchod

Join an interactive session with neurologist and brain health specialist Dr Kirti Ranchod.

This session looks at how technology is shaping how we think, focus, and connect. Tickets: R40/R70 (webtickets or at the door). Buy tickets for all 3 sessions in this Mastering Focus: Mental Wellness Series and get 25% discounted entry!

Taking place on 21 February, 14 March and 25 April. Attend all, some, or just one. Each is a complete and independent session.

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Artist walkabout

Artist walkabout: Imagine Visionary Animals with Erla Haraldsdöttir

Join Icelandic artist, Erla Haraldsdöttir, for a walkabout of her photorealist and site-responsive exhibition at Origins.

Tickets: R40 (webtickets or at the door).

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Origins Centre Student Special

We welcome all students to come and get the full Origins experience for just R20!

We welcome all students to come and get the full Origins experience for just R20! Monday-Saturday, 18 January - 28 February. Bring your student card to claim your discounted entry (does not include special events).

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Grond Stories Workshop Experience

Join us for visual art, poetry, connection, calm and qigong.

Let's take a journey through the creative process to experience what stories emerge! Take time to listen to the grond (earth) envisioning its creative potential for our process.

From there, we move inside the museum to ground our minds and bodies through gentle Qigong exercises. You will then begin a group drawing exercise, followed by sculptural explorations using organic materials. After a reflection of what has been created, we go back outside to install our creations in the museum garden, ending our story for the day.

All materials will be provided; Light refreshments will be served.

R250 per person;  R300 at the door.

Tickets: whatsapp 076 196 8080 or  email sam.fortuin05052gmail.com

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Mitigation and Obligations to Cut Emissions Masterclass

The Mandela Institute invites you to Masterclass 2 in our International Courts and Africa: Navigating Global Climate Jurisprudence series.

Mitigation is no longer aspirational - it is a binding legal duty. The second masterclass in the Mandela Institute’s four-part International Courts and Africa series explores how international and regional courts are enforcing legal obligations to cut emissions — and what this means for Africa.

Drawing on landmark decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), the Inter American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the session distils global climate jurisprudence into clear, Africa-focused legal insights. Key themes: - State duties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - Rights-based mitigation obligations and due diligence - Emissions as marine pollution under international law - Implications for South Africa’s coal reliance, NDCs and fossil fuel licensing Presenter: Zunaida Moosa Wadiwala, African Climate Law Lead at Mandela Institute, School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand. Her research centres on climate law, litigation and governance.

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Free family make and create session at Wits Art Museum (WAM)

Bring the whole family to WAM for a free family make and create session around the current JAF exhibition.

Join experienced WAM docents Pam and Elona as they guide you through the exhibition 'Bill Ainslie and the Johannesburg Art Foundation'. Together, you’ll create stencils and experiment with them to explore the space between naturalism and abstract art. Choose your own approach, create your own stencils or use existing ones, play with shapes, patterns and layers to see what emerges. This hands-on workshop is perfect for kids, teens, and families.

No experience needed, just your imagination. The workshop will take place in the WAM Café / Gallery Forecourt area.

All materials are provided. No booking is required and entrance is free.

Free parking for the walkabout is available in the garage beneath the museum; please allow extra travel time due to extensive roadworks in the area. 

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Research Ethics (non-medical)

An informative online session for students, supervisors and researchers designed to help you successfully complete applications for research ethics approval.

This online session is hosted by Dr Nechama Brodie, co-chair of the Human Research Ethics Committee (non-medical), and is open to all Wits students, supervisors, and researchers (including post-docs and staff members). The session will go through the ethics application form – explaining how to correctly complete each section, and what supporting documentation is required, including updated information about approved ethics training certification, permission letters, and other documents.

A short Q&A session will also be hosted, allowing you to ask any questions you have about your specific application/s. Please note that attending this session does not constitute 'ethics training' which is still required for research ethics applications. 

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Anticipatory obedience and Ruptures of resistance: Academic (un)freedom in the US

The talk will review the long history of academic censorship in the U.S.

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MIND Seminar: Learning with photons and quantum machines

The MIND Institute hosts Dr Isaac Nape.

The MIND Institute hosts Dr Isaac Nape (Physics, Wits) discussing how quantum systems can perform machine learning tasks, what it means for a quantum machine to “learn” and using photons and matter to tackle real-world machine learning challenges.

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MineLives symposium: water, energy and food impacts of mining landscapes

Closing symposium for MineLives project (Wits/TU Delft/UniVen).

As the concluding event for the NRF/NWO funded research project, MineLives, this symposium brings together researchers and community workers involved in the Vhembe District of Limpopo and neighbouring areas.

It explores conflicts and symbioses between the past, present and proposed mining in the region, the Just Transition and bio-economy strategies, and indigenous knowledge. Keynotes by Kennedy Manduna (Rosa Luxembourg scholar), Mphatheleni Makaulule (Dzomo la Mupo), and Michael Solomon (UCT). Registration is essential.

Transport to Thohoyandou is not provided. 

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Film screening of the play: Forgotten Voices (about Eva Moorhead Kadalie)

Film screening of the play: Forgotten Voices - Inspired by the life of Eva Moorhead Kadalie followed by a discussion with playwright David Moorhead.

The History Workshop is hosting a screening of the play Forgotten Voices (inspired by the life of Eva Moorhead Kadalie) followed by a Q&A with the playwright David Moorhead About the play: Forgotten Voices is a one woman show based on the remarkable true story of Eva Moorhead Kadalie. Alongside her husband, Clements Kadalie (the first national black trade union leader of South Africa) Eva fought against racism from the 1920s to 1950s.

They paved the way for Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress. The play focuses on Eva's challenges, joys and, ultimately, her sacrifices. History has forgotten Eva as is often the fate of women, especially of colour. Shareesa Valentine gives an electric tour de force performance as Eva. Forgotten Voices is written by David Moorhead (Eva's grandson) and directed by Margaret Connell.

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Urban Latitudes Webinar Series (Storytelling & Community)

This webinar series brings together UK and Gauteng researchers to explore urban data, storytelling, heritage, and collaborative research across cities.

The TOWN Observatory launched in 2025 at Loughborough University, in partnership with Charnwood Borough Council in the United Kingdom. It is part of Healthy and Innovative Loughborough project, supported by the UK Government funded Loughborough Town Deal (2023–2026), aimed at creating jobs, supporting new businesses, and making local people healthier. click here for more information

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TechWomen@Wits

Connecting Global Women Leaders in Technology and Innovation.

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Memorial Service of Professor Deepak Kar

Professor Deena Naidoo cordially invites colleagues, students, alumni, friends, and family to attend a memorial service in honor of Professor Deepak Kar

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Walkabout at the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts

Don’t miss the opportunity to hear her insights and fresh perspectives at the last walkabout before the exhibition closes on 27 February 2026.

Direction to JGCBA: JGCBA is located inside Wits Art Museum in the Es’kia Mphahlele Building on the corner of Jorissen and Bertha Streets in Braamfontein.

Access is through the WAM Admin door. From the foyer, go behind the security desk and take the stairs up one floor, then walk along the mezzanine level above the WAM Café.

Just before the glass turnstiles, the entrance door to JGCBA will be on your left Free parking for the walkabout is available in the garage beneath the museum; please allow extra travel time due to extensive roadworks in the area. 

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Varsity Shield 2026

Join us as we rally behind the Blues as they kick off their first home game of the Varsity Shield campaign on home turf.

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Panel Discussion Reflecting on the 2026 Budget Speech

Assessing the Credibility of South African Fiscal Policy a Year After the GNU’s First Budget Speech.

This panel discussion will unpack the 2026 Budget Speech, analysing whether government’s fiscal strategy restores confidence in South Africa’s public finances. Experts will explore debt stabilisation, revenue performance, spending priorities, and the broader economic outlook.

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Injury: A Political Concept

A talk by Vivienne Jabri, Professor of International Politics, King’s College London, on her project Mapping Injury.

Vivienne Jabri, Professor of International Politics, King’s College London. For more information see: https://www.mappinginjury.org/ .

The concept, ‘injury’, is conventionally associated with war, but can have wider resonance, suggestive of scars and fractures carried across generations and manifest symbolically and materially across embodied and lived spaces, cultures and institutions, both domestic and international. This visiting seminar places the lens on injury as a political concept and considers its implications in rethinking the terms of global justice. There is no need to register your attendance. Light food and drinks will be served.

This seminar forms part of the ‘everything everywhere all at once project”, which is run by the School of Social Sciences. This project seeks to provide postgraduate students with guidance and instruction on multiple fronts (everything all at once).

This project has been running since 2023, and includes:

1) instruction on publications and presentations,

2) instruction on research methods and ethics,

3) guidance regarding Wits procedures and milestones associated with developing and submitting research dissertations,

4) a public lecture series that features both invited guests and Wits postgraduate students. This particular series is organised in conjunction with the Humanities Graduate Center. 

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Book launch –Technological Disruptions in Legal Education and Practice

Join the book launch of Technological Disruption in Legal Education and Practice.

Law schools and faculties are grappling with how to incorporate technology into their curriculum development, and practitioners are confronting unprecedented doctrinal questions raised by AI and digitalisation. Technological Disruption in Legal Education and Practice is a collection of contributions by 13 authors from the Wits School of Law and edited by Carika Keulder that addresses the impact of new digital technologies on the way that law is taught and practiced.

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Birthing survey report launch

The Extent and Nature of Obstetric Violence in South Africa.

For years women have shared their stories of disrespect, neglect and mistreatment in maternity wards in South Africa. Until now we've not been able to quantify just how many women have been affected by obstetric violence and how it has impacted their journey into motherhood.

If we want to improve maternal and child health outcomes, we need to care about how women experience the healthcare system. In 2025 Embrace commissioned the first prevalence survey of women’s birth experiences in Gauteng and Kwa-Zulu Natal.

We invite you to join us as we officially share the findings and engage in critical conversation on how, together, we move from policy to implementation.

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Career arduousness and [healthy] life expectancy in Europe

Join us for a Brown Bag Lunch Seminar presented by Prof. Vincent Vandenberghe from the Economics School of Louvain at UCLouvain in Belgium.

The primary policy response to population ageing has been to raise the statutory retirement age. This has reignited fierce debates over whether retirement ages should vary to reflect differences in the arduousness of work across careers. In this research, we empirically assess both the relevance and the feasibility of such differentiation using European microdata.

We construct a measure of career arduousness by combining four-digit ISCO occupational histories from SHARE Wave 7 with working-conditions data from the U.S. O*NET database, thereby creating an occupation-based index of physical job demands over the life course. Using SHARE follow-up data on health deterioration and mortality, we estimate life expectancy and healthy life expectancy by decile of career arduousness, integrating econometrics with life-table methods.

We find a Europe-wide life expectancy gap of approximately 4 to 4.2 years between the least and most arduous career deciles, while differences in healthy life expectancy are substantially larger, ranging from 6.9 to 9.1 years. We conclude by discussing the implications for retirement policy, the feasibility of arduousness-based retirement age differentiation, and alternative policy options.

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Strategically Free: Platform Competition and Pre-Commitment (joint with Eric Toulemonde, UNamur)

Join us for a Brown Bag Lunch Seminar presented by Prof. Paul Belleflamme from the Economics School of Louvain at UCLouvain in Belgium.

This paper examines competition between two-sided platforms that strategically commit to offering free access to one side of the market. Contrary to standard wisdom, commitment may target the group with weaker cross-side network effects.

This move, when adopted by competitors, relaxes price competition on the paying side, potentially raising platform profits. We derive equilibrium strategies and conditions under which commitment emerges, connecting our findings to the broader literature on platform pricing and market structure.

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The Economic Challenges of Ageing and the Ways to Address Them

Join us for a Postgrad Seminar presented by Prof. Vincent Vandenberghe from the Economics School of Louvain at UCLouvain in Belgium.

The rise in life expectancy is arguably the most remarkable by-product of modern economic growth and scientific progress. Over the past 200 years, advanced economies have gained roughly 2.4 years of life expectancy per decade. Together with sharply declining fertility rates, this has led to pronounced population ageing.

The central concern is the shrinking share of working-age individuals in the population. Since labour remains a fundamental factor of production — including in operating machines and digital systems — a simple approximation suggests that slower growth of the working-age population will weigh on economic output. This reasoning underpins pessimistic projections for living standards in rapidly ageing countries such as Japan, Italy or Germany. Yet this perspective often conflates demography with economics, implicitly assuming a fixed labour supply and unchanged institutions. In reality, societies adjust. Retirement ages can be indexed to healthy life expectancy, entry into the labour market can be accelerated, participation rates can increase, and productivity growth — enhanced by advances such as AI — can help offset demographic headwinds. Population ageing presents real challenges, but its economic consequences depend on policy choices and productivity dynamics, not on demography alone.

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Applying Conversation Analysis in Health and Social Care

We will use the methods of conversation analysis (CA) to examine real-life interactions in different health and social care settings.

We will explore how applied CA can be used to develop interventions that address everyday problems arising in talk between professionals and patients/clients. Practical data sessions utilising naturally occurring data will be run throughout the workshop, providing opportunities for participants to identify key interactional practices, develop their analytical skills, and to consider how CA may be utilised within their own areas of clinical and/or academic interest.

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Workshop: Applying Conversation Analysis in Health and Social Care

In this 2-day workshop we will use the methods of conversation analysis (CA) to examine real-life interactions in different health and social care settings.

We will explore how applied CA can be used to develop interventions that address everyday problems arising in talk between professionals and patients/clients. Practical data sessions utilising naturally occurring data will be run throughout the workshop, providing opportunities for participants to identify key interactional practices, develop their analytical skills, and to consider how CA may be utilised within their own areas of clinical and/or academic interest. 

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Johann van der Schijff: Destiny_02

The exhibition asks the viewer to see the Earth anew, to experience a moment similar to when the photograph Earthrise was taken.

The exhibition asks the viewer to see the Earth anew, to experience a moment similar to when the photograph Earthrise was taken or astronauts first stepped onto the surface of the Moon. It offers a glimpse of landscapes that, at a fleeting moment in history, were still largely unspoiled.

At the same time, it functions as a hand-crafted distress signal – a plea to future generations and possible extraterrestrial beings to heed the urgent call of the environmental movement before it is too late. It is both a gift and a warning, delivered in the hope that these magnificent places can be preserved forever. Free parking for the exhibition is available in the garage beneath the museum; please allow extra travel time due to extensive roadworks in the area.

Artist led walkabout: Saturday 07 March 2026, 12:00 Museum hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 – 16:00 Entrance is free and all are welcome Exhibition dates: 03 March 2026 – 09 May 2026 

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Walkabout @ WAM: 'Intersections: Bill Ainslie and the Johannesburg Art Foundation'

Join the walkabout of Intersections: Bill Ainslie and the Johannesburg Art Foundation

Join the walkabout of Intersections: Bill Ainslie and the Johannesburg Art Foundation led by curators Wilhelm van Rensburg, Senior Art Specialist and Head Curator at Strauss & Co, and Kagiso Pat Mautloa, artist and Johannesburg Art Foundation affiliate.

This walkabout invites you into a dynamic conversation with the curators as they reflect on the exhibition, share behind the scenes insights, and expand on the ideas shaping their thinking.

Parking for the walkabout is available in the garage beneath the museum. Please allow sufficient travel time as traffic is disrupted by roadworks on Jorissen Street and Bertha Street. Logistical support for the exhibition generously provided by Strauss & Co. Exhibition closes on 20 March 2026

Museum hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 – 16:00 Entrance is free and all are welcome. 

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"Sustainable & flexible GMP manufacturing capability in an academic environment"

Prof Sandy (Alexander) Douglas

Sandy trained clinically as a pharmaceutical physician. He leads a research group at the University of Oxford with interests in pre-clinical & early clinical development of novel vaccines, including against rabies & Epstein Barr virus, and in vaccine manufacturing. The seminar will discuss challenges and successes
in sustaining these capabilities in an academic environment, drawing on examples including the University's COVID vaccine programme.

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Pro VC Seminar Series - Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) and Inclusive Wealth

There is widespread recognition of the need to move beyond GDP and growth in GDP as a measure of progress.

While GDP summarises a vast amount of economic information in a single monetary metric making it easy to understand trends in the economy, GDP fails to measure many of the (non-market) contributions of nature to economic activity and human well-being. Here we develop a measure of Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) to calculate the value of nature’s contribution to people (ecosystem goods and services) and discuss the related measure of inclusive wealth as a relevant measure of sustainable development. We use extensive biophysical and economic data to calculate the quantity and price of thirty-five ecosystem services in 250 countries and territories using globally available data and standardised methods. We discuss data and methodological challenges in calculating GEP and inclusive wealth and opportunities to improve such calculations.

Speaker Bio:
Dr. Stephen Polasky is a Regents Professor and the Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics at the University of Minnesota. His research interests focus on the intersection of ecology and economics and include the impacts of land use and land management on the provision and value of ecosystem services and natural capital, biodiversity conservation, and sustainability. He is a co-founder of the Natural Capital Alliance whose mission is to incorporate the value of nature into public and private decision-making. He served as co-chair of the Business and Biodiversity Assessment for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). He served as Senior Staff Economist for environment and resources for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2010. He received a PhD in economics from the University of Michigan in 1986. 

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Postgrad Professional Development: Putting together your postgraduate research proposal

An introduction to putting together postgraduate student proposals in the Humanities and Social Sciences, for circulation to postgraduate students.

Putting together your postgraduate research proposal Prof Joel Quirk, Wits Politics This seminar provides practical guidance and suggestions regarding how to put together a successful postgraduate research proposal. The seminar is targeted at students at all postgraduate levels – Hons, MA, PH.D – since the core components of a research proposal are pretty similar for every postgraduate level. This is primarily for Humanities students and adjacent fields.

In preparation for the seminar participants are asked to review the following documents:

1. Putting together your postgraduate research proposal (guidance template)
2. Humanities Proposal Submission form (2023) And if you have time please also look through the following: Thomas S. Mullaney and Christopher Rea, Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You (and the World), (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022), pp. 19-42.  Wayne Booth, Gregory Colomb, and Joseph Williams, The Craft of Research, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2008), pp. 35-50.  Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing (New York: W. W. Norton, 2021), index of templates regarding how to construct arguments. Nelson Maldonado-Torres, “Outline of Ten Theses on Coloniality and Decoloniality,” Frantz Fanon Foundation, 2016, http://caribbeanstudiesassociation.org/docs/ Maldonado-Torres_Outline_Ten_Theses-10.23.16.pdf. All of these materials can be accessed here: https://lnkd.in/dFphivEz

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Book talk: When Companies Rule: Corporate Power from the East India Company to Silicon Valley

When Companies Rule: Corporate Power from the East India Company to Silicon Valley (book talk – book forthcoming, Columbia University Press, 2026).

When Companies Rule: Corporate Power from the East India Company to Silicon Valley (book talk – book forthcoming, Columbia University Press, 2026) Dr Maha Rafi Atal, University of Glasgow The political power of corporations today is often theorized as a product of state weakness. Neoliberalism has rolled back regulatory capacity, while globalization has unleashed corporations into a transnational realm where no one state has jurisdiction. Corporations govern, so the story runs, in the gaps these changes create, shaping society to serve profit-seeking interests. This story, however, is a flawed one in two respects. First, corporate political power today is as much an ideological as a functional project, shaped by the moral vision that corporate actors have of an ideal society, a vision that is both richer and more idiosyncratic than mere neoliberalism would suggest. Moreover, people subject to corporate political control—whether in industrial enclaves or on the futuristic campuses of digital platforms—respond to it in ideological as well as material terms. Second, the “governance gap” account of corporate power overstates the novelty of contemporary private governance, and underplays the historical continuity of corporations’ status as public and political actors who long predate the modern state. As a result, efforts to curtail corporate power focus on reasserting the public regulatory authority of individual nation-states and restoring corporations to a private, economic realm. In fact, this lecture will argue, a more normative and historicized account of corporate power points to prospects for holding it accountable as a public authority at a transnational level.

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Precarity, Love, and Doomsday Militarism: Evangelical activism with the police in Brazil

Precarity, Love, and Doomsday Militarism: Evangelical activism with the police in Brazil, by Dr Rodrigo Campos, King's College London.

 Title: Precarity, Love, and Doomsday Militarism: Evangelical activism with the police in Brazil. Dr Rodrigo Campos King's College London., co-hosted with WiCDS Abstract: Evangelicals have an urgent message: the end of times is nearing, and you better be prepared for it. In violence-torn Brazil, precarious police officers are hearing - and increasingly accepting - the message: "More important than being a pacifier is to be pacified by the redemptive work of Jesus in the Cross". This presentation will explore the impact of Evangelical activism with the police forces and its relationship to far-right politics in Brazil and beyond. Bio: Rodrigo Campos is lecturer at the Department of International Development, King's College London. His work sits at the intersection between religion, security, and far-right politics, with a specific focus on the global dimensions of Evangelical activism within police and military institutions. Rodrigo concluded his PhD in Politics at the University of York and his thesis, The New Christian Militarism, is currently being prepared for publication with Manchester University Press. He has extensive ethnographic experience in Brazil, Western Sahara, Egypt and England. He is co-author of the book No Way to Gaza (MEMO, 2021) and directed the documentary "A Thread of Hope: Independence or War in Western Sahara". 

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Book Talk: The Colour of Inequality in South Africa and Brazil

Book Talk: The Colour of Inequality in South Africa and Brazil: Making Sense of Social Policy as Reparations, By Dr Madalitso Zililo Phiri.

Book Talk: The Colour of Inequality in South Africa and Brazil: Making Sense of Social Policy as Reparations, Dr Madalitso Zililo Phiri. Abstract: South Africa’s and Brazil’s social policies attempt to address the residues of institutional poverty, inequality, and unemployment. South Africa remains deeply unequal and polarized despite government commitments to undo centuries of social stratification resulting from colonial legacies and post-apartheid policy constraints. On the other hand, under the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT)—Workers’ Party, led government Brazil’s social assistance programmes like the Bolsa Familia was viewed as a model to reduce inequality to be emulated across most countries in the Global South. I answer the following questions: First, can social policy resolve the residuals and contradictions of transhistorical inequalities that have become systemic features of these aspirant democracies that aim to forge a new social contract under the epoch of a hierarchical racialised neoliberal capitalism? Second, what theoretical tools have those racialised as black deployed to imagine social policy as reparations? This book departs from the theoretical prism of studying welfare through the Eurocentric of the Welfare Regime Approach, rather proposes the view of thinking about social policy as reparations. Drawing from 90 in-depth interviewees I challenge hagiographic representations of social policies by centering the Black Radical Tradition and theorizing with my interlocutors, the beneficiaries of these countries’ social welfare regimes. I conclude that the commodification of social provisioning fails to challenge institutional legacies of anti-black racism which are foundational to citizenship in both South Africa and Brazil. The two countries offer a compelling comparison through shared histories of colonial domination, slavery, and anti-black racism. Thinking about social policy as reparations provides potent articulations of inaugurating a post-imperial world order.

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Varsity Shield 2026: FNB WITS VS FNB CPUT

Join us as we rally behind the Blues as they kick off their first home game of the Varsity Shield campaign on home turf.

All smiles for the Blues as they stay unbeaten after three matches in the Varsity Shield campaign, beating FNB UKZN last week Friday with the final score: Final Score: FNB UKZN 3 – 55 FNB Wits.

The Witsies return to home turf on Friday to take on FNB CPUT, let’s rally behind them in full force!

Unlock the full rugby experience and join the Wits Rugby Afterparty on Friday, 6 March 2026, featuring live performances by Eeque, DJ Sixby9ine, DJ Soulphobic, and DJ Debryan.

Match Details:

• Kick-off: 17:00
• Gates open: 15:00
• Afterparty Starts: 19:00 – 00:00
• Varsity Shield Tickets: R30 each via WebTickets
• Combo Ticket (Varsity Shield & Afterparty): R100 each via WebTickets
• Supporters T-shirts: R80 (available at the gate on match day)

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Facing the Heat in South Africa Photography Exhibition and Book Launch

Exhibition from 4 March to 6 May 2026

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Human Rights Day Debate

The debate explores the complex relationship between justice and human rights in South Africa

Wits University invites staff, students and the public to participate in a powerful Human Rights Day Debate and Discussion exploring the complex relationship between justice and human rights in South Africa.

Taking place on 21 March 2026 at the Apartheid Museum, the event commemorates Human Rights Day and reflects on the legacy of the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960, a defining moment in South Africa’s struggle for freedom and equality.

The debate will centre on the thought-provoking question: “When justice and human rights collide, what matters most?”

The programme will feature a live schools debate on the motion: “The pursuit of truth often undermines justice.”

The debate will be followed by reflections and responses from leading constitutional and academic voices, encouraging a rich and engaging intergenerational dialogue on justice, accountability and historical memory.

Featured Speakers

• Justice Steven Majiedt, Justice of the Constitutional Court

• Adv Dinkie Portia Dube, Deputy Public Protector of South Africa

• Dr Tshepo Moloi, Head of Historical Studies, University of Johannesburg

The event is hosted in partnership with the Apartheid Museum, Constitution Hill and the Lighting The Future Foundation, bringing together educators, scholars, learners and the public to engage with the ongoing meaning of human rights in democratic South Africa.

Through debate, discussion and reflection, participants will explore how history continues to shape contemporary understandings of justice, truth and reconciliation.

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Intersections: Bill Ainslee and the Johannesburg Art Foundation

Join the last walkabout of Intersections: Bill Ainslie and the Johannesburg Art Foundation before it closes on 20 March 2026.

Guest curators Wilhelm van Rensburg, Senior Art Specialist and Head Curator at Strauss & Co, and Kagiso Pat Mautloa, artist and Johannesburg Art Foundation affiliate will reflect on the exhibition, share behind-the-scenes insights, and expand on the ideas that shaped the project. Don't miss this final opportunity to engage with the curators as we bid a sad farewell to this wonderful exhibition! Parking for the walkabout is available in the garage beneath the museum. Please allow sufficient travel time as traffic is disrupted by roadworks on Jorissen Street and Bertha Street. Logistical support for the exhibition generously provided by Strauss & Co. 

For more information on the show and museum please email julia.charlton@wits.ac.za

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Webinar | Grooming Minors through Gambling-Like Gaming Practice

The Mandela Institute hosts Prof van Eck on a webinar on how gaming may groom minors into gambling-like behaviour and the legal protections in South Africa.

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Back to the Future: “English” relearning its ABCs

English Academy of Southern Africa in partnership with the Wits School of Education invites you to the 2026 English Academy Percy Baneshik Memorial Lecture.

This talk will begin with some reflections on “English” – as an academic subject, as a scholarly field and as a spur to creative practice – along with the language of English (or Englishes) in multilingual contexts and in the age of Large Language Models. Professor Thurman will place these reflections in dialogue with aspects of Percy Baneshik’s career, especially his work as an arts critic and as a radio broadcaster. The lecture will conclude by taking a – hopefully unpredictable – South African Shakespearean turn.

Guest speaker: Professor Chris Thurman (Department of English, School of Literature, Language and Media, Wits University).

The event includes the presentation of the English Academy Gold Medal Award to Professor Mbongeni Malaba (University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg Campus) for his outstanding service to English over a lifetime. 

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Varsity Shield 2026: FNB WITS VS FNB SPU

Join us as we rally behind the Blues as they kick off their first home game of the Varsity Shield campaign on home turf.

FNB Wits delivered another impressive performance in front of their home crowd, making a strong start against FNB CPUT and securing a commanding 66–22 victory.

The team will host their final home game of the round robin on 20 March 2026 at 19:00, where they will face FNB SPU.

We extend our gratitude to the Wits community for their continued support and look forward to seeing fans at our next home fixture.

• Kick-off: 19:00
• Gates open: 17:00

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World Social Work Day Celebration 2026

The Wits Department of Social Work cordially invite the Wits community to the World Social Work Day celebration.

The theme for this year, ‘Co-Building Hope and Harmony: A Harambee Call to Unite a Divided Society’, highlights the vital role of social work in bringing people together across communities, cultures, and systems to shape a more inclusive and sustainable tomorrow.

The programme brings together student activities, a keynote address by esteemed social work academics, and the awarding of certificates to outstanding social work students.

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