- To produce research of the highest quality, ensuring that the Faculty retains and enhances its reputation as one of the leading centres for research and graduate studies in Africa
- To encourage and enable all academic staff to be research active
- To produce research that contributes to the fundamental understanding of the disciplines in the humanities
- To produce research of an applied nature that contributes to the solution to problems in the Southern African region particularly, and the continent more generally
- To produce a culture of intellectual interest and engagement and a community of scholars dedicated to the development of knowledge and the rational appraisal of ideas
- To help produce the next generation of researchers through the prioritising of graduate studies and the commitment to developing research capacity amongst staff and students.
Dean
- Prof. Mucha Musemwa
Co-Assistant Deans
- Prof. Maria Marchetti-Mercer
- Prof. Victor de Andrade
Wits School of Arts
- Prof. Christo Doherty
School of Human and Community Development
- Prof. Katijah Khoza- Shangase
Wits School of Education
- Prof. Leketi Makalela
REAL
- Prof. Presha Ramsarup - Director
School of Literature, Language and Media
- Prof Robert Muponde
School of Social Sciences
- Dr Thokozani Chilenga-Butao
SWOP
- Prof. Prishani Naidoo - Director
WISER
- Prof. Hlonipha Mokoena - Director
History Research
- Prof. Noor Nieftagodien - Group Director
Humanities Graduate Centre
- Prof. Samuel Ravengai
- Prof. Nomfundo Moroe
Ex Officio Members
- Dr Robin Drennan - Director for Research Development
Wits Innovation Centre (WIC) representative
- Prof. Christo Doherty
Faculty Creative Outputs Liaison:
- Dr Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon
Research in the Faculty of Humanities is guided by URC policies
WISER Faculty-wide Interdisciplinary Seminar
WISER and the School of Social Sciences announce the re-establishment of a Faculty-wide Interdisciplinary Seminar. The Wits Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities (WISH) will be hosted at WISER and held in the traditional late Monday afternoon time slot, from 15:00 to 16:30. The seminar will work in careful coordination with the existing disciplinary seminars, workshops and public talks that are currently being hosted in the Institute, the School and the wider Faculty.
The Interdisciplinary Seminar is intended to provide a venue for the careful consideration of research problems that will help to map out existing and possible intellectual directions for Wits Social Science and Humanities researchers. It will work on the basis of discussion of pre-distributed papers that will be delivered and archived on the WISER website. Participants will be encouraged to attend only on the basis of having read the paper. The Seminar will be administered by WISER but it will be overseen and directed by an interdisciplinary committee. WISER and SOSS view the seminar as an opportunity for constructive cross-disciplinary investigation of research problems, and as a venue to foster and accelerate a closer, more critical and more productive, intellectual engagement between individual researchers, and disciplines. But we also view the seminar as a site to foster stronger linkages and engagements between South African and international scholarship and theory, and as a site to strengthen the voice of Wits-based scholars in this global conversation. We anticipate that the forum will provide local scholars with an opportunity for useful and intense criticism, without the destructive gladiatorial conflict that often characterises these events.
To achieve these ends WISER and SOSS would like to encourage disciplines, centres, institutes and other schools from the Faculty to participate in the workings of the Seminar, and also to let us know about similar talks, seminars and workshops. WISER will build an online calendar of research events in the Faculty to supplement the use of email and physical notices, and to foster the coordination of these different forums. Individuals and disciplines that would like to receive notices about the seminar, or who might like to present work there, should send an email to Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za with the word WISH in the subject line. WISER will use these emails to build a single-purpose email notice list that distributes information about this seminar alone.
For further information please contact
Prof Maria Marchetti-Mercer
maria.marchetti-mercer@wits.ac.za
Prof Victor de Andrade
victor.deandrade@wits.ac.za