2024 Inaugural Lectures
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PROFESSOR BRIDGET KENNY Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities Lecture title: " Glitching the system: Conjunctures of work and labour in South Africa" Date: 28 November 2024 Professor Kenny's lecture examined three moments in the transformation of work and labour in South Africa - the 1950s to the 1970s, the democratic transition and today - to argue for how labour 'glitches' the system, interrupts a transition and poses the question of repair. |
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PROFESSOR VERONICA NTSIEA Department of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Health Sciences Lecture title: “Stroke rehabilitation in South Africa, Overcoming challenges, embracing opportunities and rebuilding lives” Date: 25 November 2024 The lecture was an overview of the current state of stroke rehabilitation in South Africa including understanding the growing prevalence of stroke amongst younger people, highlighting effective interventions, and discussing the economic and social benefits of improving stroke care infrastructure. |
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PROFESSOR SRILA ROY Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities Lecture title: “Dissonant Intimacies: Decolonial Feminism in the Global South” Date: 19 November 2024 Professor Roy's lecture discusses how Global South academic interactions reveal complex and uneven relationships. A terrain of "dissonant intimacies", they reflect the hierarchies, inequalities and asymmetries that run through global knowledge production. |
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PROFESSOR LEE RUSZNYAK Wits School of Education, Faculty of Humanities Lecture title: "The Makings of a Teacher: Research insights for quality teacher education" Date: 04 November 2024 It is commonly assumed that some people are 'born teachers' and that the twelve years spent in school constitute much of the preparation they need for teaching. But this assumption is problematic if we want quality teaching and learning in South African classrooms. Drawing on two decades of research into pre-service teacher education, this lecture demonstrates why a research-driven and structured approach is essential to making effective teachers. |
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PROFESSOR MALOSE LANGA School Human and Community Development, Faculty of Humanities Lecture title: "Hope for the future: Alternative/inclusive/progressive masculinities of being a black boy or man in South African townships" Date: 31 October 2024 In South Africa, black boys and men living in townships are often portrayed negatively, being depicted as violent, abusive, at risk of dropping out of school, abusing substances, or spreading HIV through multiple partners. In his lecture, Prof. Langa challenges this homogenised portrayal, which tends to paint all township black boys and men with the same brush. |
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PROFESSOR EJIKEME MBAJIORGU School of Anatomical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences Lecture title: "The World of Chemicals: Blessing or Curse" Date: 30 October 2024 The scope of the dangers related to the use of chemicals, their mixtures, recombination in the wider environment, their dispersal and disposal is frightening. The vast array of chemicals and their application has provided great opportunities and paved the road to the great modern civilization of our time. |
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PROFESSOR TSHEPO MONGALO School of Law, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management Lecture title: "Making Corporate Law Make Sense: Unshackling Corporate Law from Elitism" Date: 15 October 2024 The lecture showed that several corporate law transactions have distinct benefits and are accessible to ordinary entrepreneurs in a developing country like South Africa. |
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PROFESSOR GILL NELSON School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences Lecture title: "The deeper you go, the more you’ll know" Date: 14 October 2024 Prof. Gill Nelson's research has taken her far and wide - down mines in South Africa, and into other workplaces and countries. For four decades, she has investigated hazardous exposures and the respiratory and neurological health impacts on those who work in dangerous spaces and live in polluted environments. In this lecture, she described her journey through the world of work - both her own and that of the communities she has studied. |
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PROFESSOR KEVIN BEHRENS Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics, School of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences Lecture title: "An appeal for greater humility in our (bio)ethics discourse" Date: 30 September 2024 Today's public - and even academic - discourse on ethical issues is often intolerant, antidebate, anti-rational, denunciatory, divisive, and pernicious. I appeal for greater humility and for an Ubuntu-based, transformative discourse that respects our shared humanity and engenders change for good. |
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PROFESSOR MOTSEOTSILE CLEMENT MARUMOAGAE School of Law, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management Lecture title: "Should non-member spouses receive their member spouses’ accrued retirement benefits held by retirement funds upon divorce? A call for law reform" Date: 17 September 2024 This lecture sought to explore possible law reform measures that can be adopted to safeguard the interests of financially weaker spouses, the majority of whom are women in practice, during divorces. |
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PROFESSOR SINEAD DELANY-MORETLWE Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences Lecture title: "From stigma to solutions: advances in the prevention of HIV and sexually transmitted infections" Date: 09 September 2024 In Africa, one in every 30 adults is living with HIV, and over 3000 adolescent girls and young women acquire HIV infection every week. Nineteen out of the top 20 countries with the highest burden of cervical cancer are in eastern and southern Africa, and women living with HIV a six-fold higher risk of developing cervical cancer. In this lecture, Professor Delany-Moretlwe reflected on biomedical advances in HIV and STI prevention. |
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PROFESSOR JENNIFER WATERMEYER School of Human and Community Development, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Faculty of Humanities Lecture title: "Putting care back into healthcare: The central role of communication" Date: 29 August 2024 Communication at the heart of healthcare, directly influencing patient outcomes and healthcare systems. Despite its crucial role in ensuring quality care, it is often overlooked. In this lecture, I have drawn on twenty years of research in diverse South African healthcare settings to highlight the central role communications plays in healthcare and the importance of analysing communication practices and listening to the voices of patients and healthcare providers. |
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PROFESSOR GLYNIS GOODMAN-CRON School of Animal, Plant & Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science Lecture title: "Of Daisies and Mountains - A plant systematist’s journey exploring the biodiversity of southern Africa" Date: 06 August 2024 Systematics is the foundation for understanding and documenting the diversity of life on Earth. In this lecture, I recounted elements of my journey as a plant systematist – exploring evolutionary relationships and describing new species and genera (mainly in the daisy family, the Asteraceae), and using endemic and near-endemic genera of the Drakensberg to investigate drivers of speciation in this hotspot of biodiversity, and the large genus Helichrysum (everlasting daisies) to explore its role as a ‘melting pot’ in the floral diversification of southern Africa. |
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PROFESSOR DANIELA CASALE School of Economics and Finance, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management Lecture title: "Inequality in South Africa: Reflections of a feminist economist" Date: 5 August 2024 Professor Casale's lecture covered three main areas. She reflected on her personal journey over the last thirty years in the field of economics and specifically the sub-discipline of feminist economics; she described what the study of feminist economics involves and how it offers important insights to the broader discipline; and lastly, she used examples from her research on inequality in South Africa in the post-apartheid period to illustrate how the principles of feminist economics can be employed in practice. |
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PROFESSOR ABDULLAH LAHER Division of Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences. Lecture title: "HIV in the emergency department" Date: 23 July 2024 Globally, there are over 39 million people living with HIV, with approximately 600 000 HIV related deaths annually. Despite free access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) in SA’s public health system, approximately a third of eligible persons are not yet on ART, and of those on ART, another third are not virally suppressed. |
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