News Articles

The Annual Opening Research Symposium on March 4th marked the beginning of the institute’s 2025 activities and seminars.

The Chair of our HUMA Academic Board, Professor Francis Nyamnjoh, has been elected as a Fellow of The British Academy. This prestigious recognition places him among a distinguished community of over 1,700 leading academics.

The “Queer in Africa? The Cape Town Question” symposium will take place from Thursday 6th October till Saturday 8th October 2016 at the District Six Museum.

Despite the undisputed recognition, in an era designated as post-colonial, that the founding act of colonialism was and is the appropriation of space, the nexus between colonialism (as a Law-founding violence) and spatiality has remained la

International Conference, Cuba & Africa: Engagements, circulations and racial representations in the 20th century.

HUMA and the Centre of Excellence in Human Development at Wits are co-hosting a one-day symposium intended to open up a conversation about the implications for the humanities and social sciences of important discoveries in epigenetics.

Dr Nhlanhla Dlamini has recently joined HUMA as visiting researcher for October 2015. Dlamini is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Swaziland. He obtained his PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand (WISER). 

The Winter Academy is conceptualized and steered by members of the Zukunftsphilologie Collegium. It builds on two previous Zukunftsphilologie Winter Schools: Textual Practices Beyond Europe, 1500–1900 (Cairo, 2010), an

We shall focus on the deeper history of our continent in this programme. The history of a single country – “national history” – is a very recent phenomenon. The approach of this programme of African history is to explore the ent

The flow of technology, missionaries and merchants brought printing to African countries. The development of print culture was dispersed and intensified by the advent of colonisation. This two-day colloquium will focus on the interplay betw

There is a pressing need for academic and activist engagement with issues concerning African ‘non-normative’ sexual identities, sexual rights agendas and health-related agendas, and the interfaces between faith, nationalism, genders.

HUMA and Agenda: empowering women for gender equity are pleased to launch the 2015 Issue 1 on ‘Non-normative’ sexual and gender diversities in Africa. Guest editors are Zethu Matebeni and Thabo Msibi.

HUMA is pleased to welcome Lisl George, Administrative Officer, responsible for financial and human resource management. Lisl has worked in research administration at UCT for 13 years and has been in office management for 20 years

Ilana van Wyk‘s book, The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa: A church of strangers (Cambridge University Press, 2014), has recently been nominated for the prestigious Clifford Geertz prize. Awarded by the S

Ethical Quandaries in Social Research, edited by Deborah Posel (HUMA) and Fiona Ross (Social Anthropology), opens up a space of frank discussion about the often unsettling, messy realities of ethical decision-making in the thick of social

HUMA is hosting an international symposium on Conspicuous Consumption in Africa from 4 to 6 December 2014. The opening of the symposium, on 3 December, will also mark the opening of Paul Weinberg’s exhibition called The Other Camera and

“Madiba Remembered” is a 30 minute documentary poignantly directed by award-winning filmmaker, Mark Kaplan, which captures Nelson Mandela – the man and the icon – from the moment of his death through the recollections of Univers

Nigeria has been in the news and in our conversations for all sorts of reasons. There is the insurgency in the Northeastern part of the country by the shady Boko Haram group that emerged in the early 2000s that has been able to enact really

Agenda has been at the forefront of feminist publishing in South Africa for the past 28 years and raises debate around women’s rights and gender issues. The journal is designed to promote critical thinking and debate.

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), a church of Brazilian origin, has been enormously successful in establishing branches and attracting followers in post-apartheid South Africa. Unlike other Pentecostal Charismatic churches

Over the past few years anti-homosexual hatred and laws have spread across the continent. Most vocal in this anti-homosexuality crusade have been the presidents of Zimbabwe, Uganda, Nigeria, Namibia and the Gambia.

Thorstein Veblen coined the phrase ‘conspicuous consumption’ in his critique of nineteenth century American society, as an indictment of the extent to which the need for personal recognition – or ‘honour,’ as he put it &nd

HUMA is delighted to welcome Christi v.d. Westhuizen as the new Postdoctoral Fellow. Christi received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Cape Town and a Masters in Political Economy and South African Politics (Cum Laude) from the N