The WISER Podcast
ລາຍລະອຽດຊ່ອງທາງ
The WISER Podcast
Conversations, audio-essays and public talks from the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), at the University of the Witwatersrand.
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50 ຕອນ
Hlonipha Mokoena interviews Achille Mbembe
Hlonipha interviews Achille on winning the Holberg prize, on their backgrounds, institutions and intellectual obsessions.
Bessie Head’s Absorbent Literature
In this week’s episode, Anneke Rautenbach discusses how, when the writer Bessie Head escaped apartheid South Africa and settled in the rural village o...
Cheikh BA: Riverine Landscapes in Senegal
In this episode of The WiSER Podcast, Cheikh BA discusses the Senegal River as an intense node of knowledge making. He discusses how those who live al...
The new nuclear age
In this week’s episode, Simon van Schalkwyk discusses our new nuclear age, the re-emergence of a long latent Cold War atavism, including the politics...
Bridging the Bay: Maputo-Katembe
In this episode, Caio Simões de Araújo discusses the politics of infrastructure in Southern Africa, taking as an entry point the Maputo-Katembe bridge...
Vampires: Pandemics & Politics
In this episode, Timothy Wright discusses the graphic novel Rebirth (2012), which imagines a node of vampire culture in the striated and gritty space...
Two Treasons, Two States, One Family
In Episode One of Season Five of The WiSER Podcast, the Reverend Frank Chikane and his son Regotsofetse Chikane, recollect and discuss the moment – se...
The Art of Meleko Mokgosi Part 2
In this week’s episode, we present Part Two of our mini-series on the work of Botswanan artist Meleko Mokgosi by Hlonipha Mokoena of WISER. Last week,...
The Art of Meleko Mokgosi (Part 1)
Today we release the first of a two-part podcast series that focuses on the work of Botswanan artist Meleko Mokgosi. In today’s episode, Hlonipha Moko...
Inside WISER
Today we hear from Najibha Deshmukh, WISER’s Senior Administrator and Adila Deshmukh, WISER’s Financial Manager. Najibha and Adila, who are sisters, g...
The End of Mugabe
Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu discusses the coup of November 2017 in Zimbabwe, the death of Robert Mugabe, and why it is necessary to build a new set of dig...
WISER Twenty (Part 2)
Today we release the second of several podcasts marking WiSER’s 20th anniversary. The Institute was launched in September 2001 and we asked a number o...
WISER Twenty (Part 1)
Today we release the first of several podcasts marking WiSER’s 20th anniversary. The Institute was launched in September 2001 and we asked a number of...
Feminism. Generation. Activism.
In this podcast, we present highlights from an event “On Violence: An Intergenerational Conversation about Women's Resistance” held at WiSER on August...
Uprising in South Africa (Part 1)
Welcome to Season 4 of The WISER podcast. We begin this season with a number of event podcasts, capturing key debates happening at WISER on matters of...
Uprising in South Africa (Part 2)
Welcome to Season 4 of The WISER podcast. We begin this season with a number of event podcasts, capturing key debates happening at WISER on matters of...
International Contemporary Writing on Water
Our latest episode focuses on oral poetry from the Kenyan coast and its relation to indigenous marine conservation knowledges; black travel writing fr...
China Africa Futures: Thinking Beyond Conspiracy
This episode focuses on the most prominent themes in global and local preoccupations with the models of government that China holds out for African st...
Regions2050: Mobility, Extraction, Circulation (Part 2)
The second episode of our two-part series on Regions2050: mobility, extraction, circulation focuses on the Congo Basin eco-region of Africa, the world...
Regions2050: Mobility, Extraction, Circulation (Part 1)
Today we release the next episode of The WISER Podcast entitled Regions2050: mobility, extraction, circulation. This is Part One of a two-part series....
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, Ti...
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,...
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...
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 res...
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...
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 an...
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 t...
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 L...
Keith Breckenridge: Biometric Capitalism
Keith Breckenridge discusses Biometric Capitalism and African economics in the 21st Century.
The WISER Podcast is also available on Apple Podcas...
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 contri...
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.
Shire...
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...
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 Departme...
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 an...
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 Afr...
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’Afr...
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 colu...
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...
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 environm...
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...