Faculty of

Humanities
 Contents
About the Faculty......................1

Schools in the Faculty............... 2

Faculty of Humanities Graduate Centre..... 4

Wits Rankings............................5

Humanities Statistics.................................... 6

Research.................................... 8

Research Entities....................... 10

Other Centres and Institutes..... 17

Mellon Projects..........................19
Where leaders thrive and learn
Programme Impacts.................. 26
and where we are committed
to excellence and inclusion Harnessing the Humanities...... 29

through education Major Partners...........................33

 About the Faculty

A leading centre of study and

research in the Arts, Social Sciences,
Human and Community Development,
Education and Literature, Language and
Media in South Africa and Africa.

The Faculty of Humanities is a leading centre of Creative curricula respond to students’ learning needs
study and research in the Arts, Social Sciences, Human and are reflective of diverse values, learning histories and
and Community Development, Education and Literature, strengths which enable students to engage with cutting
Language and Media in South Africa and Africa. edge developments in the disciplines of the Humanities.
The Faculty’s extensive range of programmes at The education offered at the Faculty of Humanities
undergraduate and postgraduate level offer students provides graduates with the skills and capacity for
the opportunity to follow careers in specific professions non-linear and divergent thinking that recognises that
or to pursue more theoretical and research oriented most of the problems currently facing South Africa and
studies. The development of critical analytical skills open the world require not one, but a range of inter-connecting
up a range of careers in academia and research institutes, solutions and approaches which students are able to
the public and private sectors and non-governmental formulate and execute.
organisations alike.

About the Faculty 1

Schools in the Faculty

5
Schools in the Faculty

Wits School of Wits School of

Arts Education
The School combines critical The School offers education
inquiry with artistic practice in ways degrees in diverse subject areas
that engage transformatively with for both initial teacher education
our contemporary urban, African and and in-service teaching, the latter
global contexts. at postgraduate level.

2 Schools in the Faculty

 School of School of School of Social
Human and Community Literature, Language Sciences
Development and Media
The School offers the disciplines
Majors include audiology, speech The School contributes to the of History, International Relations,
and language pathology, psychology vibrant literary and intellectual life Philosophy, Political Studies, Social
and social work, with the School of the University and offers students Anthropology and Sociology. It is
also working in related medical, the opportunity to explore the impli- committed to fostering understand-
educational, linguistic and psycho- cations of social and cultural diver- ing of all aspects of society in order
logical areas to strengthen students' sity through the study of language, to help improve livelihoods. While
background knowledge. literature, writing, media studies, focusing on research and teaching,
ICT policy and regulation and inter- SOSS is cognisant of its critical role
disciplinary digital knowledge. in promoting public debates that con-
tribute to sound public policy formu-
lation and implementation.

Schools in the Faculty 3

 Humanities
The Humanities Graduate Centre is
an innovative space at the University

Graduate Centre which provides a stimulating interdis-

ciplinary environment for postgrad-
uates, housing as it does doctoral
The mission of the fellows and PhD students from all
the Schools, Departments, Centres
Humanities Graduate and Institutes. The Centre also has
Centre (HGC) is to space for Masters and Honours
students and acts as a networking
provide an intellectually hub between junior postgraduates
enriching, professionally and senior PhDs. Apart from its study,
discussion and research space, the
enabling and socially HGC provides students with an inter-
supportive environment esting programme of events which
include academic workshops, the
for postgraduate Isizinda Sokubhala (the place of writ-
ing) programme, Resident PhD Sem-
students
inar workshops, Resident Fellows
Guest Lecture Series and mentorship
programmes.

4 Humanities Graduate Centre

 What we are known for
• Intellectual excellence
• International competitiveness
• Local relevance

Wits Rankings 2017/2018

#1: Wits is the highest 27 28

SARChi NRF A-Rated
ranking university in Research Chairs Researchers

South Africa and Africa

Academic Ranking of World Universities
and the Centre for World University Rankings.
384
NRF-Rated
Researchers

#1: in the
top two universities in Achievements
South Africa and Africa Research output has increased by 80% over the last five
years, and over 85% of all publications are published in
Times Higher Education World University Rankings accredited international journals.
and the Quacquarelli Symonds World Rankings. In 2017, Wits announced 16 ground-breaking new
discoveries! And at the moment, Wits has a total of
50 active research projects on the African continent.
Of those employed, 97% of Wits This is why we are seen as a leading research-intensive
institution and a gateway to research engagement.
graduates obtained employment
within six months of graduating Did you know?
Wits co-founded the African Research
Universities Alliance in 2015.

Rankings 5
 Statistics – Graduation and Employability
A growing number of graduates view the first degree
as a stepping stone given that the knowledge
economy requires that individuals become specialists and
build on their first qualification to remain competitive

In today’s competitive global The Wits Graduate Exit Survey

The fact that the majority (90%) market, there is a need for more than (WGES), which seeks to determine
of the students electing to study just a strong academic qualification the employment status of ‘Witsies’,
further elected to do so at Wits is to achieve potential as a graduate. has revealed that a high number of
evidence of high student satisfac- The University’s focus is on produc- the University’s graduates secure
tion levels with the Wits academic ing graduates that are employable employment with relative ease.
experience and staff expertise. and equipped to manage their future The survey targeted Wits students
development. who were capped at graduation
ceremonies between March 2017
According to the QS World University
and July 2018. Nearly 14 000
Rankings, Wits’ ranking is 201-250 for attended graduation during this
Graduate Employability Ranking. period of which around 6 000
responded to the survey.

6 Statistics
 The Wits Graduate Exit Survey

Questions
»» How long does it take graduates
to find employment?
»» Do the posts match their fields of
interest?
»» Where are they employed?

Of the 52% graduates Findings

»»Of those employed (52%), 97%
employed, 97% secured secured employment within six
months of completing their qualifi-
employment within cation at Wits.
»»Of the above, 67% found employ-
six months of ment during their studies or prior
to completion – 26% within three

completing their months and 4% within six months.

»»60% of respondents are in profes-
qualification at Wits sions directly related to their field
of study while 17% are in some-
what related fields.
»»97% of employed humanities grad-
uates secured employment within
Females made up 62% of those studying further.
six months, defying the perception
This is an indication of the success of the University
that humanities skills are not in
in developing a culture of further learning among its
demand.
students in line with global trends and the desire to
support the continent’s development ambitions. »»Overall, 52% of the respond-
ents were employed, of which
97% found employment within
six months of completion, 29%
were furthering their studies,
and the 19% unemployed includ-
ed teachers, doctors and other
professionals awaiting internship
placement by the government.

Statistics 7
Research Output and Impact

Thirteen academics on its staff The Research Vision and Mission at the Faculty of
Humanities include:
are members of the prestigious
»»To produce research of the highest quality, ensuring
Academy of Science of South that the Faculty retains and enhances its reputation as
Africa and almost a quarter of its one of the leading centres for research and graduate
studies in Africa
researchers have obtained ratings »»To encourage and enable all academic staff to be
from the National Research research active

Foundation »»To produce research of a pure or theoretical nature that

contributes to the fundamental understanding of the
disciplines in the humanities

»»To produce research of an applied nature that contrib-

utes to the solution to problems in the southern African
region particularly, and the continent more generally

»»To produce a culture of intellectual interest and engage-

ment and a community of scholars dedicated to the
development of knowledge and the rational appraisal
of ideas, and ready to use their intellectual skills and
expertise to engage in debate in the public domain

»»To help produce the next generation of researchers

through the prioritising of graduate studies and through
the commitment to developing research capacity
amongst young or new members of staff and graduate
students.

8 Research
 The Faculty is home to globally The Faculty’s collective knowledge is than the normalised global average
renowned and emerging scholars published through a steeply increas- for knowledge in the humanities
working within, between and beyond ing number of high-quality books, over the past five years, and their
disciplines in the humanities at the chapters and journal articles that authors are invited to deliver keynote
horizon of the knowledge econ- give shape to a formidable biblio- addresses to global gatherings of
omy. Thirteen academics on its metric footprint. Over the last three experts annually. Against this back-
staff are members of the prestig- years, the Faculty has produced over drop and in keeping with the vision
ious Academy of Science of South 1,900 outputs, reaching 500 accred- of a research-intensive university the
Africa and almost a quarter of its ited units for the first time in 2017. Faculty will continue to develop and
researchers have obtained ratings The quality and impact of such schol- advance globally impactful scholar-
from the National Research Foun- arship is evidenced by the fact that ship on the questions that define and
dation. Of those rated, six are con- these publications have been cited disrupt what it means to be human in
sidered world leaders in their fields. approximately 65 per cent more the twenty-first century.

Chair School Title

Prof. C Penn (late) SHCD Simmonds Hampton Chair of Speech Pathology and Audiology

Prof. A Harber SLLM Caxton Chair of Journalism and Media Studies

Prof. LA Hamilton SoSS SARCHi Chair Political Theory

Prof. LB Landau SoSS SARCHi Chair Mobility and the Politics of Difference

Prof. N Nieftagodien SoSS SARChI Chair Local Histories and Present Realities

Prof. ME Steyn SoSS SARCHI Chair in Critical Diversity Studies

Prof. JB Adler WSoE SARCHI Chair in Mathematics Education

Prof. SM Allais WSoE SARCHI Chair in Skills Development

Prof. L Makalela WSoE SARChi Chair of Multilingual Education for Social Inclusion

Prof. R Osman WSoE UNESCO Chair in Teacher Education for Diversity and Development

Prof. H Venkatakrishnan WSoE SARCHI Chair in Numeracy

Research 9
Research Entities

African Centre for

Centre for Indian
Migration and Society
Studies in Africa (CISA)
(ACMS)

ACMS is an African Research Universities Alliance CISA was established at Wits University towards the
(ARUA) Centre of Excellence and a leading scholarly end of 2007. The Centre is the first in Africa to focus
institution for research and teaching on human mobility. on India. CISA promotes teaching, research and public
Established in 1993, ACMS is an independent, interdisci- activities concerning the Indian sub-continent, its links to
plinary and internationally engaged institution focusing Africa and the Indian Ocean, the Global South and builds
on relationships among human movement politics, pov- on the multi-faceted networks developed with Indian
erty, and social transformation. While oriented towards universities, research institutions and public agencies.
southern Africa, the Centre conducts collaborative schol- The Centre tries to chart a new post-colonial history by
arly and policy-oriented work across sub-Saharan Africa. working against nation-centred thinking on historical
The Centre also has partnerships in Asia, Europe and processes and promotes thinking about the histories
the Americas. It offers Africa’s only postgraduate degree of Africa, Asia and Latin America together through the
in forced migration studies and provides training to stu- connections that they have always had through religion,
dents and professionals on topics ranging from the soci- commerce, the movements of labour and capital, and not
ology of migration, mobility and health, human rights, to least the circulation of ideas.
research methods.

www.wits.ac.za/acms/ cisa-wits.org.za

10 Research Entities
 Centre for Researching Children’s
Education and Labour Communication
centre for researching
education and labour
(REAL) Centre (CCC)

REAL is a research centre in the School of Education The CCC was started by the Department of Speech
at Wits University. The REAL Centre conducts research Pathology and Audiology at Wits in the early 1970s.
into areas of theoretical and policy concern focused on The CCC offers specialised programmes for children
the complex relationships between education, knowl- with speech-language and hearing impairments in
edge, work, the economy, and society. The REAL Cen- small, facilitatory groups. There is an ongoing relation-
tre is a vibrant part of the Wits School of Education’s ship between the CCC and the School of Human and
Education Leadership, Policy and Skills Division, conduct- Community Development. The CCC is a site for student
ing cutting-edge research, offering teaching programmes clinical training and research.
which develop the professional capacity of researchers
and practitioners, and providing support to policymakers
and regulatory institutions.

www.wits.ac.za/real/ https://thecentre.org.za

Research Entities 11
 Learning Information
Health Communication
Networking Knowledge
Research Unit
(LINK) Centre

Effective and disease-specific communication can play The LINK Centre is the leading academic research and
a huge role in the improved health of patients with vari- training body in the field of electronic communications
ous diseases and illnesses ranging from HIV/AIDS and and ICT (information and communications technology)
strokes to schizophrenia, according to the late Claire policy, regulation and management in southern Africa.
Penn, A-rated Research Professor from the School of LINK focuses on knowledge production and capacity
Human and Community Development and former Director building for the broad ICT sector, including telecoms and
of the Health Communication Project at Wits. The aim of broadcasting (electronic communications), advances
the project is to apply methods from social sciences such in the wider ICT sector, e-government in the public sec-
as linguistics and anthropology to investigate communi- tor, and e-development in society and the economy. It
cation practices used in intercultural health interactions. offers certificate and degree educational programmes,
The project, which harnesses the knowledge and exper- applied research and advisory services aimed at max-
tise of a multidisciplinary team, focuses on both verbal imising the benefits of the information society and the
communication and non-verbal behaviours that occur knowledge economy. It prepares research-based policy
within interactions between individuals in health-care advice for government and regional bodies, and pub-
contexts the knowledge economy. lishes a Department of Higher Education accredited
academic journal, The African Journal of Information and
Communication.

www.wits.ac.za/hcru/ www.wits.ac.za/linkcentre/

12 Research Entities
 Society, Work and
Marang Development Institute
(SWOP)

The Marang Centre for Mathematics and Science Edu- The SWOP Institute conducts high-quality research
cation is a division of the Wits School of Education. The on the world of work. Primarily academic in orienta-
Marang Centre was inaugurated as an academic centre tion, the Institute focuses on disseminating research
in October 2005, following substantial sponsorship from through teaching, publications and conferences, and on
the Standard Bank of South Africa, which continues to be conducting significant contract policy research.
the major sponsor of the Centre. The Centre occupies part It maintains communication and interaction with a broad
of the Parktown Education Campus, formerly the campus range of actors within the world of work, such as organ-
of the Johannesburg College of Education next to the ised labour, business, government and other research
Faculty of Health Sciences. organisations. SWOP was recently granted the status of
an institute in recognition of the critical role it plays in
producing ground-breaking social science research on
the world of work, society, the state and the environment.

www.wits.ac.za/marang/ www.wits.ac.za/swop/

Research Entities 13
 The Centre for
Deaf Studies The Emthonjeni Centre
Centre of Excellence in Africa

Through innovative teaching, research and commu- The Emthonjeni Centre (EC), an initiative by the School
nity engagement, the Wits Centre for Deaf Studies of Human and Community Development, is aimed at pro-
aims to equip, develop and improve the lives of Deaf viding a vehicle for donors to support the creation of a
and hard-of-hearing people across their life-span and multi-disciplinary community service and development
foster equal opportunities for all. The Centre offers centre. In addition to current services the EC also aims to
academic courses at undergraduate and postgraduate establish collaborative networks with organisations and
level as well as on-line, short and tailor-made courses. institutions internationally and on the continent of Africa.
The research carried out by the Centre actively contrib- In this way the Centre hopes to facilitate scholarship and
utes to the intellectual development of Deaf Studies knowledge generation that promotes sustainable devel-
and the elevation of Deaf education in South Africa. It opment in various communities, especially on the African
aims to influence both policy and practice and encour- continent.
age multidisciplinary collaboration. The Centre is deeply
involved in community outreach programmes such as
the HI HOPES programme, a home-based, family-centred
community outreach initiative which, for over 12 years,
has empowered Home Interventionists and Deaf
Mentors to support more than 2400 families and their
deaf and hard-of-hearing infants.

www.wits.ac.za/centre-for-deaf-studies/ wits.ac.za/shcd/emthonjeni-centre/

14 Research Entities
 Wits Centre for Diversity
Wits Centre for Ethics
Studies

Through its interdisciplinary research, education and The Wits Centre for Ethics (WiCE) is a research cen-
projects, the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies provides a tre housing a team of moral specialists, based in the
hub for engaging issues of transformation and social jus- philosophy department, but bringing together researchers
tice. In addition to being grounded in social justice imper- from different disciplines across the University, which pro-
atives, the research and education of the programme is duces research into ethical issues of concern to the south-
informed by the notion of Critical Diversity Literacy (Steyn ern African region. The Centre’s work includes research,
2015) which “examines those operations of power which teaching and advocacy, and it organises conferences and
implicate social identities to create systems of privilege, talks which are open to all. Whereas other Ethics centres
advantage, disadvantage and oppression”. Drawing on in the country specialise in areas of applied ethics such
cutting edge social theory, the Critical Diversity Studies as Bioethics or Business Ethics, WiCE works in both the-
lens opens up challenging research questions which oretical questions such as the nature of morality, moral
emerge in the interstices of current disciplinary bounda- knowledge, and how moral objectivity is possible, as well
ries. These questions have the capacity to shift ‘common as on applied ethical questions, such as arms sales, HIV
sense’ assumptions about the social, enabling fresh and testing regimes, business responsibility to workers, press
penetrating analyses of current social challenges. While objectivity, and animal rights. Current research focuses
no single research methodology need necessarily flow include justice, punishment, responsibility and ubuntu.
from Critical Diversity Literacy, it involves the recognition
of social construction and the constitutive role of dis-
course in employing critical social theory.
The Centre offers postgraduate degree programmes
(Hons, MA, PhD) in Critical Diversity Studies. WiCDS also
houses the DST-NRF SARChI Chair in Critical Diversity
Studies, held by Professor Melissa Steyn. The Interna-
tional Journal of Critical Diversity Studies is another initi-
ative of the Centre.

www.wits.ac.za/wicds/ www.wits.ac.za/wice/

Research Entities 15
 Wits Institute for Social
and Economic Research
(WISER)

WISER, established in 2001, is a African researchers and academ-

globally influential interdisciplinary ics in the rest of the world. There
research institute in the humanities can be few regions anywhere in
and social sciences. The Institute the world with a more acute need
draws on a history of advanced inter- for the kind of incisive, high-calibre
disciplinary research at Wits that social science research carried out
dates back to the late 1960s, but by WiSER than Africa. Social institu-
has pursued five main objectives tions and networks are being trans-
formed all over the continent. The
with distinctive energy and enter-
rise of new sites of accumulation, the
prise: to foster independent, critical
reconfiguration of political systems
inquiry into the complexities and
and the re-composition of gender
paradoxes of change in South Africa;
relations are as much part of a com-
to conduct this enquiry by drawing
plex reworking of old social relations
intensively on comparative interna-
as responses to changing external
tional research especially from the circumstances.
African continent; to foreground the In recent years, with generous sup-
global theoretical significance of port from Wits and outside donors,
WISER’s research agenda; to com- the Institute has grown significantly,
bine aesthetic and social scientific shaping global and local audiences
analyses; and to provide an institu- with an interest in the pressing
tional space that strengthens the political and cultural concerns of the
scholarly dialogue between South postcolonial era.

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

16 Research Entities
Other notable Centres and Institutes

has been to uncover hidden histo-

History Workshop
ries of the black majority, especially
its resistance to colonial and apart-
heid oppression. A second guiding
concern for the History Workshop
has been to develop Public History

“ ”
HISTORY WORKSHOP
through collaboration with commu-
nities to try to make these histories
accessible to people outside the
academy. This has taken various
forms, including producing and pop-
From its inception in 1977, one of ularising people’s histories, heritage
the History Workshop’s key intellec- projects, exhibitions and community
tual and political concerns has been archives. The South African Research
to promote research on the everyday Chair on Local History, Present Reali-
lives of ‘ordinary people’, particularly ties (located in the History Workshop)
working men and, significantly, has over the past decade supported
women, who had by and large been a large cohort of postgraduate stu-
neglected by scholarly investigation. dents who have undertaken research
This research operates through the in more than eighty (80) small and
intellectual rubric of social history, medium-sized towns and rural areas
or ‘history from below’. A prominent in the northern provinces of South
and consistent facet of this work Africa.

www.wits.ac.za/history-workshop/

Centres and Institutes 17

 Camoes Portuguese Studies Centre Mexican Studies Centre in South Africa

The Portuguese Language Centre (CLP) of the CAMÕES The Mexican Studies Centre in South Africa is an
Institute, Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua, is a study academic branch of the National Autonomous University
and research centre within the School of Literature, Lan- of Mexico (UNAM), hosted by the School of Literature,
guage and Media in the Faculty of Humanities. The CLP Language and Media (SLLM) at Wits. It was launched in
space represents a dedicated multimedia, study, research May 2018 with the mission of promoting academic and
and library space for students. The Centre plays an impor- cultural exchanges between UNAM and higher educa-
tant role in promoting the Portuguese language as a lan- tion institutions in South Africa among undergraduates,
guage of international and continental communication graduates and academic staff in all the areas of knowl-
as well as the diverse cultures and literatures associated edge. The Centre also seeks to establish joint research
with the language. Its role is to strengthen academic, and projects between Wits and UNAM scholars. As part
intellectual and cultural relations within the multicultural of the agreement between UNAM and Wits, the Centre
context of the University of the Witwatersrand. The CLP contributes to the academic teaching and certification of
hosts a dynamic programme of events, meetings, work- Spanish as a foreign language, as well as in the promotion
shops, training sessions and conferences. of the Mexican culture.

www.wits.ac.za/sllm/disciplines/
www.wits.ac.za/mexicanstudies/
portuguese

18 Centres and Institutes

Mellon Projects

Mellon Projects 19
20 Mellon Projects
 Arts Research Africa Digital Humanities

The Arts Research Africa project seeks to explore A generation ago scholars worried that the African
and develop creative research in the Wits School of continent was structurally disconnected from the
Arts and addresses the central question of: What, in global network economy, and destined to drift back-
current South African, African continental and global wards as the rest of the world accelerated into a tech-
contexts, do artistic and/or creative modes is rendered nologically mediated future. In the present something
intelligible by artistic and/or creative modes of inquiry like the opposite seems to be happening as African
that can be used to advance transformative research, states, citizens and firms have become objects of
learning and public engagement? unconstrained digital experiment and innovation.
These experiments take many forms -- cybernetic
research trials, biometric identity registration, mobile
credit surveillance, cash transfers and a host of hack-
ing activities -- but the combination is fashioning a
21st century Africa powerfully made by networked,
mobile and numerical technologies.

Emancipatory Futures Studies

in the Anthropocene Governing Intimacies

In the context of the Anthropocene, this project aims Governing Intimacies: Sexualities, gender and the
to support a programme in emancipatory futures stud- state in the postcolonial world is a project which sup-
ies which explores alternative futures to hegemonic ports a research and graduate training programme on
versions of modernity and advances different possible the persistence of gender inequalities in the Global
future human and ecological pathways. South.

Mellon Projects 21
 Mellon Mays Undergraduate Mobility and the Politics
Fellowship Programme of Difference

The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Pro- The South African Chair in Mobility and the Politics
gramme (MMUF) funds five students per annum from of Difference looks at the politics of human movement
a previously disadvantaged group completing a Bach- and is premised on the understanding that Africa’s
elor’s degree in humanities or science in at least one of social diversity is being reshaped by the mobility of
the Mellon designated fields of study. Students need to those within it. Their movements and interactions are
be above average in their class, committed to further generating novel social and political configurations
postgraduate study up to PhD level and interested in that give cause to reconsider the spatial, ethical, and
an academic career. The overall goal is to diversify the conceptual foundations of social and political theory.
academy. These include definitions and responses to the ‘other’;
the spatial bases of political community; and how
mobility and translocal connections are positioning
African cities and Africans within global circulation of
values and power.
Mobility and Sociality in Africa’s
The initiatives conducted by Chair affiliates and
Emerging Urban students are radically interdisciplinary and destabilis-
ing, in ways that provide insights into underexplored
Mobility and Sociality in Africa’s Emerging Urban is processes with acute theoretical and practical signifi-
a five-country interdisciplinary study (social sciences cance. These enquires work across sub-Saharan Africa
and humanities) of urban change in Africa.The ini- and in partnership with scholars on four continents in
tiative is a scholarly response to unprecedented ways that insert creatively curated empirical insights
levels of urbanisation and mobility driven by con- into ongoing theoretical and policy debates around
flict, ambition, and respatialising economies. It is the foundations of political authority, the role of law in
intended to develop African-based contributions to regulating differences, and the meaning of violence in
theories of human mobility and transforming modes shaping tomorrow’s communities.
of social engagement, authority, representation, and The project supports a research and graduate train-
expression. ing programme on urban mobility.

22 Mellon Projects
 Narrative Enquiry for New Generation of African Writers
Social Transformation
From 2019 to 2021, the Department of Creative Writ-
Narrative Enquiry for Social Transformation (NEST) is ing is hosting a series of residencies in which six writ-
a research network launched in July 2015 with the aim ers (two per year) will contribute to the development of
to foster the theory and practice of narrative as a field the students in our postgraduate programmes. They
of study through interdisciplinary research and empiri- will also be at work on their own projects, which they
cal investigations into questions of human experience, will present to the broader university community dur-
development and social change. Its members are ing the residency. These award-winning artists bring
drawn from the Humanities and Social Sciences as well fresh perspectives to the Department, strengthen our
as creative and community-based constituencies. The ties with local and international authors, and support
current configuration of the NEST network allows for an the work of our own emerging writers. The residents
articulation between the Arts, Social Sciences and Socio- are: Yewande Omotoso, Sean Christie, Achal Prabhala,
psychological work. NEST is informed by the principle Richardt Quaz Roodt, Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese and
that narrative is one of the defining features of what it Tinashe Mushakavanhu.
means to be human. Personal and collective senses
of self, experience, desires, fears and hopes are devel-
oped in and through narrative meaning-making, pro-
viding recognition and validation, and deepening our
sense of human dignity across lines of difference and
existence.

Mellon Projects 23
 Oceanic Humanities The Medical Humanities

This project seeks to institute oceanic humanities as In 2012 colleagues at Wits started working on estab-
a field in the global south, through graduate curriculum lishing a medical humanities research interest group
development and training, research production, build- and centre of excellence based at WiSER.
ing supra-national global south research networks, and Interest in the field has resulted in an extensive
public humanities activities and platforms. The rise of group of academics and professionals from the health
ocean levels has become a tangible sign of climate sciences as well as from the social sciences and
change and the Anthropocene. These rising water lev- humanities, the Law School, and the Wits School of
els have precipitated a new awareness of the ocean Arts joining the reading groups and participating at the
and have shifted the ways in which scholars think various events.
about it, inaugurating a new critical oceanic studies.
There have of course been long and rich traditions of
maritime scholarship on human history at sea, trac-
ing movements of people, ideas and objects across
oceans. This work has however been human-centred Transforming the Humanities
and concerned only with the ocean as a backdrop.
through Interdisciplinary Knowledge
Critical ocean studies ask us to engage with both
human and non-human aspects of the ocean, with both
the depth and the surface, with the materiality and Transforming the Humanities through Interdiscipli-
sea-ness of the sea. nary Knowledge (THInK) supports a new generation
of interdisciplinary scholars in the social sciences and
humanities through bursaries, research support and
innovative programming.
The Everyday and Public History

The Everyday and Public History is a graduate develop-

ment programme which seeks to give sustained atten-
tion to ‘the everyday’ as a conceptual frame through
which to understand social, cultural and political pro-
cesses in southern Africa and to simultaneously enable
an engagement with everyday practices of historical
knowledge production in the field of public history.

24 Mellon Projects
 Violent States, States of Violence

The project is interested in the connections and

dynamics between violence and large-scale structures,
histories and institutions, and the more micro-level for-
mation of citizenship, subjectivity and the intimate pro-
ductions of selfhood. Research is particularly focused
on how violence reticulates along varied structural,
social, political, communal, collective, interpersonal,
cultural, embodied, moral, affective and emotional
conduits in constituting a matrix – one in which there
is an ongoing interplay between structural conditions
that enable violence and processes of subject and
self-formation in which violence comes to play a form-
ative and reproductive function. Here, encounters of
violence represent not only the sites of convergence
for persons, social subjects, citizens and social struc-
tures, but also provide opportunities to understand the
mechanics, processes and dynamics of violence (i.e.
the ‘how’ of violence) that should offer a deeper under-
standing of the ‘why’ of violence.

Mellon Projects 25
Programme Impact Creative Writing (SLLM)
Creative Writing at Wits University offers an intensive
workshop-based postgraduate programme focused on
reading and writing across a number of genres. Students
benefit from close attention to their work from staff and
peers and enjoy rigorous debate and discussion in a
small-group forum. The programme regularly invites pub-
lished writers to lead workshops, give lectures and mentor
individual students. At the end of the Honours degree, stu-
dents have substantial portfolios of writing. MA and PhD
students complete a full-length manuscript of fiction or
non-fiction deemed worthy of submission to a publisher.
The Department is fortunate to have the Distin-
guished Professor Ivan Vladislavić as part of the
Creative Writing team. He is the author of eight books
of fiction, including the novels The Restless Supermarket,
The Exploded View and Double Negative. Among his more
recent publications are the story collection 101 Detectives
and a set of reflections on writing called The Loss Library.
He has written extensively on Johannesburg, notably in
the documentary text Portrait with Keys, edited volumes
on architecture and art and published a monograph on
the artist Willem Boshoff. His work has won many awards,
including the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction and Yale
University’s Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction.

26 Programme Impacts
Demography and academic discipline seeks to explore
Population Studies the dynamics of human populations
(SoSS) in relation to the changes in their
sizes, structures and distributions.
The Wits Programme in Demogra- Population changes have implica-
phy and Population Studies offers an tions for the environment, employ-
interdisciplinary graduate teaching ment, work, family relations, health,
and research in demography and pop- ageing and urbanisation to mention
ulation studies. Demography as an just a few.

Digital Arts (WSOA)

approaches to contemporary
What makes Digital Arts exciting is art-making. It’s an interactive way of
the combination of the arts and tech- approaching storytelling, animation
nology sectors. It can be approached and games being experimental and
from either direction: the creative arts relevant to our modern technological
through the BA in Digital Arts, or the world. The engineering side of Digital
information engineering side through Arts covers the core tenets of Electri-
the BEngSc in Digital Arts. While cal and Information Engineering, but
the degrees focus on very different also facilitates the creative aspects
aspects, students develop a famili- of game design and practical coding,
arity with the intersecting elements allowing a flexible and diverse range
in the fields. To this end, students of skill that extends upon your base
in both degrees attend core courses learning.
side by side, working together in an Students will challenge the tradi-
interdisciplinary environment. tional, question ways of thinking, and
The creative arts side of Digital pioneer the creative in a field that is
Arts covers a variety of multi-modal evolving and always exciting.

Programme Impacts 27
Enhancing Pedagogy with Information
and Communication Technologies
(ICT)
faces challenges associated with the ‘digital divide’, as
Educational Technology is a burgeoning field of inquiry South Africa seeks to integrate digital technologies into
in the terrain of Education. As the world increasingly its school and university classrooms, so the need for spe-
becomes the ‘networked society’, as Africa increasingly cialised knowledge and expertise in this field increases.

MA in e-Science with computational approaches to

building and analysing data sets – national
ranging from social surveys and offi- e-science
postgraduate teaching
The MA in the field of e-Science is cial statistics to spatial and textual and training platform
an interdisciplinary programme in data. The MA in the field of e-Science
quantitative research methods and forms part of the National e-Sci-
applied data science. It is open to ence Postgraduate Teaching and
those whose previous training is in Training Platform, a consortium of
the social sciences and humanities six universities supported by South
with some exposure to quantitative Africa’s Department of Science and
methods. Expertise in statistics and Technology. Bursaries are available
computer science is not a prerequi- for full-time students on a competi-
site. The programme aims to equip tive basis. The programme combines
students for emerging careers that coursework and a research report
combine substantive knowledge in and typically takes three semesters
the social sciences and humanities to complete.

28 Humanities
 Harnessing the Humanities
A humanities degree can open people’s minds
in the fourth industrial revolution
Professor Ruksana Osman

The term “fourth industrial revolu- will, like all times of change, require
tion” is understood in various ways. universities to push the boundaries
Some people are excited about it. of teaching and learning.
Others are cautious. Some assume Universities will need to ensure
it means that technology and robots that students are equipped with
will take over every human activity. approaches to learning that involve
And still others imagine that this “rev- agility, adaptability and curiosity. It
olution” will lead only to joblessness will be a challenge for us all.
and automation. The fourth industrial revolution will
There are also those who are scepti- also raise many questions for univer-
cal and insist it’s no revolution at all. sities to consider. What needs to shift
They argue that it’s just an improve- in how lecturers teach and how stu-
ment and fusion of various technolo- dents learn and will be learning? What
gies – like artificial intelligence and does the blurring of the lines between
3D printing – and acceleration in pro- the physical, digital and technologi-
ductivity. cal mean for social relationships and
In all these instances, the interac- for student learning? What do these
tion of technology with humans and shifts mean for different countries?
humans with technology is underes- Is learning in an environment with
timated. The emphasis on interaction peers (virtually or in a class) better
is central to understanding the fourth than learning online?
industrial revolution. And this epoch In seeking answers, societies must

Humanities 29
 create the space to have conversations across social,
academic, industry and community boundaries. The
purpose of these conversations is to determine priority
Critical thinking, debating and areas that need to be improved by the rapid technological
changes we are currently experiencing as well as thinking
creative problem solving are taught in about how we redefine the human condition.
the humanities. This kind of Universities have a crucial role to play in these conversa-
tions. And a humanities education has a lot to offer when
critical orientation allows students to it comes to preparing students for the fourth industrial
explore the complex human-to-human revolution.

relations and the human to robotic A humanities education inculcates the importance of
reflecting on the vast array of methodological and soci-
relations that we are already
etal issues that arise from any practices. These include
encountering and that will become the technological and computational practices that
underpin the fourth industrial revolution.
ever more common Critical thinking, debating and creative problem
solving are taught in the humanities.

30 Programme Impacts
 This kind of critical orientation allows students to
explore the complex human-to-human relations and the
human to robotic relations that we are already encounter-
ing and that will become ever more common.
This isn’t to suggest that only the humanities are
relevant. Cross-disciplinary communities of researchers
and educators matter and will matter now more than ever.
This is particularly true in South Africa where the
education system hasn’t provided for the breaking
down of boundaries between the sciences, let alone
between the disciplines in the humanities. Collec-
tively we will need to do more when it comes to draw-
ing on approaches from various disciplines, which
will allow for quantitative reasoning, problem solv-
ing and systems thinking that are socially relevant.
Such partnerships are already happening in small
pockets, and are yielding promising results.

Humanities 31
Collaborating and Mutuality
For instance, the Faculty of Humanities collaborates together science and humanities students and staff to
with the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment work on complex, big data problems. They’re also taught
to offer a joint undergraduate programme that meshes to think of ways to visualise and communicate this infor-
engineering with arts to make a programme in game mation and to question the predictive powers of big data.
design and digital arts. Students are exposed to various interdisciplinary
Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Engineering students approaches like statistical computing and modelling, data
work alongside each other in courses that are team- visualisation, text analysis, and geographical information
taught to design innovative high tech games. It’s not systems. Master of Arts students take courses in data
all fun: games, after all, are a means of challenging our- privacy and ethics alongside MSc students. This course is
selves, controlling outcomes, competing, and figuring out team-taught and students engage with complex problems
successful strategies of doing things. from two or more science and humanities disciplines.
Students from this programme draw on a variety of These and other examples of innovative teaching and
skills like problem solving, inferential thinking and visual- learning help to disrupt the current techno talk that dom-
isation. They have produced games that are frequently inates conversations about the fourth industrial revolu-
downloaded from various app stores. tion. It is essential that we bring our ideas to the fore and
Similarly, the University’s Faculties of Science reshape the conversations in ways that resonate with who
and Humanities offer a postgraduate programme on we are, where we are located and what this means for us
e-Science or Data Science. The programme brings and our futures.

*For more articles on the Humanities and its

impact in world, please go to: www.wits.ac.za/future/

32 Humanities
Major Partners

Major Partners 33
 Professor Ruksana Osman
Substantive Dean - Faculty of Humanities
T 011717 4012
E [email protected]

Professor Garth Stevens

Deputy and Acting Dean - Faculty of Humanities
T 011717 4012
E [email protected]

www.wits.ac.za/humanities