The WISER Podcast

Lost Books: Four Narratives On Absent Books

Today we release the next episode of The WISER Podcast entitled Lost Books: Four Narratives On Absent Books. Focusing especially on books by women, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Sarah Nuttall, Isabel Hofmeyr and Confidence Joseph offer an array of engaging short narratives on books lost, hidden, dreamt, thrown overboard or killed on social media. The episode is dedicated to all those students, staff and workers, and the manuscripts, books, films and artefacts, impacted or destroyed by the recent fires at the University of Cape Town. 

 

Find our WISER Transcripts here  -

https://wiser.wits.ac.za/thewisertranscripts

 

The members of the WISER Podcast team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Isabel Hofmeyr, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Mpho Matsipa, Achille Mbembe and Bronwyn Kotzen.

The Futures of the Constitution (Part 2)

Today we release Part Two of The WISER Podcast’s next mini-series, The Futures of the Constitution. It draws on research by WISER Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, on continuities between South Africa’s apartheid past and its democratic present, under the framework of “the new apartheid”.

 

In this podcast, he continues to explore the South African Constitution’s conception of justice, this time through a comparative lens. He then examines links between the Constitution’s conception of justice and the persistent injustices of South Africa’s present and considers how we might frame a set of future-oriented debates in relation to both. 

 

Today we also release our second batch of WISER Transcripts, making four more of our podcasts available in textual form for ease of citation and reference. Curated and designed by Tinashe Mushakavanhu, the transcripts can be found at this link:  

 

The members of the WISER Podcast team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Isabel Hofmeyr, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Mpho Matsipa, Achille Mbembe and Bronwyn Kotzen.

The Futures of the Constitution (Part 1)

Today we release Part One The WISER Podcast’s next mini-series, The Futures of the Constitution. It draws on research by WiSER Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, on continuities between South Africa’s apartheid past and its democratic present, under the framework of “the new apartheid”.

In this podcast, Sizwe and Tshepo Madlingozi, Director and Associate Professor at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, critique the Preamble of South Africa's Constitution. They suggest that the Preamble espouses a limited conception of justice which partly explains persistent inequality in South Africa’s present. 

The members of the WISER Podcast team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Isabel Hofmeyr, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Mpho Matsipa, Achille Mbembe and Bronwyn Kotzen.

Travelling Technology: Big Infrastructure, Small Devices (Part 2)

Today we release Part Two of our next mini-series of The WISER Podcast. This two-part series takes as its theme Travelling Technology. It draws on research led by Prof Richard Rottenburg at WISER spanning 15 African countries and focusing on large technical systems as well as stand-alone devices to reflect on the amalgamation of techno-science with social, political, juridical and cultural elements in concrete African contexts beyond the modernist binary of nature and culture.

 

In this podcast, after a brief introduction by Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh (WISER) we hear from Katrien Pype (KU Leuven) on “radio phonie” in Kinshasa, and then Sara Geenen with Simon Marijse (U Antwerp) tell the story of the “scaphandre” on the Congolese Shabunda river. The two detailed studies show moments of translation in the circulation of technologies and challenge the difference between innovation, tweaking and improvisation.

 

The members of the WISER Podcast team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Isabel Hofmeyr, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Mpho Matsipa, Achille Mbembe and Bronwyn Kotzen.

Travelling Technology: Big Infrastructures, Small Devices (Part 1)

This two-part series addresses Travelling Technology. It draws on research spanning 15 African countries and focusing on various technical assemblages to reflect on the amalgamation of techno-science with social, political, juridical and cultural elements in concrete African contexts beyond the modernist binary of nature and culture.

In today's podcast, we hear from Richard Rottenburg (WISER) on the key intellectual dimensions of this ongoing project, followed by Faeeza Ballim (UJ) on Eskom and Medupi power stations in South Africa, and Iginio Gagliadone (Wits) on the politics of the Internet in Ethiopa.

The members of the WISER Podcast team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Mpho Matsipa, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Achille Mbembe, Bronwyn Kotzen and Isabel Hofmeyr.

8 Ways to Think About Unsettlement (Part 2)

Part 2 of our mini-series on Unsettlement explores the predicament of those who are stranded in states of indefinite displacement, deferred arrival and recurrent departure around the world today. It has emerged from a collaboration between The Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University, Africana Studies at Barnard College in New York and WISER.

In this episode, we hear four further interventions on how we might think about unsettlement. Listen to Rosalind Morris (Columbia), Johannes Machinya (WISER), Sarah Nuttall (WISER) and Achille Mbembe (WISER).

The members of the WISER Podcast team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Mpho Matsipa, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Achille Mbembe, Bronwyn Kotzen and Isabel Hofmeyr.

8 Ways to Think About Unsettlement (Part 1)

Today we launch our 2021 Season of The WISER Podcast. This year, from March to September, we will run concept-based podcasts, each in two parts over two weeks. Our first edition of The WISER Podcast features the theme of Unsettlement, and we approach our topic from 8 different angles.

 

The topic is born of a collaboration between The Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University, Africana Studies at Barnard College in New York and WISER.

 

Listen in to find out what the term Unsettlement draws into focus in an original way. Speakers in Part 1, released today are Rosalind Morris (Columbia University), who introduces the theme, Isabel Hofmeyr(Wits/WISER), Yvette Christianse (Barnard College) and Mpho Matsipa (Wits/WISER).

 

Today we also launch The WISER Transcripts, compiled and curated  by Tinashe Mushakavanhu (WISER). Here, we make available all editions of The WISER Podcast in textual form, for ease of access, reference and citation. Please see our first four releases at this link: https://wiser.wits.ac.za/thewisertranscripts.

 

The members of the WISER Podcast team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Bronwyn Kotzen, Isabel Hofmeyr, Achille Mbembe and Mpho Matsipa.

Charne Lavery: Southern Oceanicity

Charne Lavery discusses how theory from the south can be taken further south, towards the currents and creatures of the Southern Ocean.

Charne Lavery is a Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Pretoria and a Research Fellow in the Oceanic Humanities for the Global South project (www.oceanichumanities.com) based at WISER. Her work explores literary and cultural representations of the deep ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Southern Ocean and Antarctic seas, researching oceanic underworlds of the global South in a time of climate change.

Keith Breckenridge: Biometric Capitalism

Keith Breckenridge discusses Biometric Capitalism and African economics in the 21st Century.

The WISER Podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Keith Breckenridge is a Professor of History, and Deputy Director of WISER.

For more WISER research, visit: https://wiser.wits.ac.za/publications

 

 

Sarah Nuttall: The Redistributed University

Using Covid-19 as a point of departure, Sarah Nuttall explores the “redistributed university”. She considers new and older challenges that have contributed to redefining institutions of higher learning. As the university constantly reconfigures itself in response to multiple pressures and struggles, including economic pressures, struggles for social justice and rapid technological change, she asks - concretely and speculatively - how we might approach the institution in its present and historical formation.  

Sarah Nuttall is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies and the Director of WISER. Her research focuses on literary and visual cultures, city lives and forms and critical cultural theory. She has authored or edited many influential books, published more than 60 articles and book chapters and her  work is widely cited across disciplines. For eight years she has directed WISER, one of the largest and most established Humanities Institutes across the global South.

https://wiser.wits.ac.za

 

Sisonke Msimang: Winnie Mandela — An Intimate Accountability

Sisonke Msimang discusses the life, politics and legacy of Winnie Mandela.

Sisonke Msimang is the author of  Always Another Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home (2017) and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela (2018) and is a Writing Fellow at WISER.

Shireen Hassim: Winnie Mandela — The Politics of Refusal

In Episode 4 of Season 2 of The WISER Podcast, Shireen Hassim and Sisonke Msimang discuss the life, politics and legacy of Winnie Mandela.

Shireen Hassim is Canada 150 Research Chair in Gender and African Politics and Visiting Professor at WiSER. She has published three articles on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela: “A Life of Refusal: Winnie Madikizela Mandela and violence in South Africa (Storia della Donne); “Not Just Nelson’s Wife: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Violence and Radicalism in South Africa”, and “The Impossible Contract: The Political and Private Marriage of Nelson and Winnie Mandela” (both in the Journal of Southern African Studies)

Sakiru Adebayo: Melancholy in the Time of Pandemic

Sakiru Adebayo examines the multiple melancholies associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Sakiru Adebayo is a sessional lecturer in the Department of African Literature and Postdoctoral Fellow at WiSER, the University of the Witwatersrand. 

 

Terry Kurgan: Two Photographs About Death

Terry Kurgan discusses two photographs, each found in her father’s possession, and both taken on the edge of graves, one in Ein al-Beida, Palestine and the other in a forest just outside the town of Panevėžys in Lithuania. She considers the two photographs as entry points to a new book she has just begun that will traverse perhaps the darkest period of mid-twentieth century European and Middle Eastern History.

Terry Kurgan is a visual artist and writer based in Johannesburg. Her recent publication, Everyone is Present, written while she was a Writing Fellow and Artist in Residence at WiSER, won South Africa’s premier literary prize, the 2019 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. It was also shortlisted for the 2019 Photo Arles Book Prize, and selected as a Finalist for the 2019 New York based National Jewish Book Awards. Terry is currently a Research Associate at WISER, working on a new book project, and co-director of the independent publishing project, Fourthwall Books. www.terrykurgan.com

Johannes Machinya: The Packed Suitcase: Living With Deportability

Johannes Machinya discusses the everyday experience of living with potential or imminent arrest and deportation for undocumented migrants in South Africa.

Johannes Machinya is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow co-hosted by WISER and the African Studies Center (ASC) at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on migration, labour and politics, migration control and the temporalities associated with waiting and the anticipation of deportation.

 

Boehi, Concheiro San Vicente & Xaba: Urban Green Spaces During Covid-19

Melanie Boehi discusses botanical gardens and public parks in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic with Luciano Concheiro San Vicente and Phakamani m’Afrika Xaba.

Melanie Boehi is a Visiting Researcher at WISER and a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Postdoctoral Fellow. She is currently finalising a book about the history of the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town and doing research about journalist Ruth Weiss.

Phakamani m’Afrika Xaba is a senior horticulturalist and researcher based at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town. He is the co-author of the book Traditionally Useful Plants of Africa: Their Cultivation and Use (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Luciano Concheiro San Vicente holds a Ph.D. in history from The National Autonomous University of Mexico and an M.Phil in Sociology from Cambridge University. He is currently doing research about the history of Chapultepec, Mexico's most important urban park. 

Visit our website: https://wiser.wits.ac.za

Makhosazana Xaba: An Absent Presence: Writing Noni Jabavu's Life

In the latest episode of The WISER Podcast, Makhosazana Xaba discusses the life and work of Noni Jabavu, memoirist, reader, radio broadcaster and columnist.

 

Makhosazana Xaba has published three poetry collections, compiled and edited five anthologies and is the 2014 co-winner of the SALA Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award for her collection, Running and other stories. She has twice been a Writer in Residence at WISER and is currently a Research Associate at the Institute working on a biography of Noni Jabavu. 

Ruth Sacks: The Built Remainders of Kinshasa's Independence

In the latest episode of The WISER Podcast, Ruth Sacks discusses post-independence sites in Kinshasa, focusing especially on L’Échangeur [the Exchange] in Limete as a means of understanding processes of disrepair and reconstruction in the city today.

Ruth Sacks is a South African visual artist and academic based in Johannesburg who completed her PhD at WiSER and currently holds a Postdoc at the SARChI Chair for Social Change at the University of Fort Hare. Sacks’ first academic book, Congo Style: From Art Nouveau to African Independence (Michigan University Press and Wits University Press), is forthcoming in 2021.

Oceanic Humanities: Below the Water Line

Confidence Joseph, Ryan Poinasamy, Meghan Judge and Mapule Mohulatsi go below the water line as they describe new avenues for research in the environmental humanities and critical ocean studies.

Confidence Joseph is an African Literature doctoral candidate at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Mapule Mohulatsi is a reader and writer from Johannesburg. She is completing a PhD in African Literature at Wits. 
Ryan Poinasamy is based in the department of African Literature at the University of Witwatersrand.
Meghan Judge is an artist and researcher working on a PhD in creative work at the Wits School of Arts.

All four are fellows of the Oceanic Humanities for the Global South programme at WiSER.

Pamila Gupta & Drew Thompson: Decolonising Visuality

Pamila Gupta and Drew Thompson discuss the visual archive of Ricardo Rangel, whose photography documents the last days of Portuguese colonial rule in Mozambique. Pamila Gupta is a Professor of historical anthropology at WiSER. Her latest book is Portuguese Decolonization in the Indian Ocean World: History and Ethnography (2019). Drew Thompson is Assistant Professor of Historical and Africana Studies at Bard College.