From its micro-campus in Johannesburg, JIAS offers writers and researchers space to develop new ideas and projects, free from the ordinary obligations of academic and professional life. As an institute for advanced study, JIAS is committed to cultivating ground-breaking research from across the Global South, incorporating the humanities, social sciences, arts and natural sciences.
Echoes in the Sublime: Attentional Infrastructures, the Anthropocene, and African Time
Johannesburg, South Africa | 31 July 2025
The Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) is pleased to host the second instalment of its URGENT/EMERGENT seminar and conversation series: Echoes in the Sublime, featuring Professor Mohammad Shabangu (Colby College) in conversation with Professor Anaïs Nony (JIAS/Institut de Recherche et d’Innovation).
Rooted in JIAS’s commitment to transdisciplinary thought, URGENT/EMERGENT convenes pressing conversations on global questions—from climate collapse and AI to democracy, violence, and freedom.
This session interrogates the intersections of attention, aesthetics, and the Anthropocene, drawing on Professor Shabangu’s recent essay, “Zombies,” Attention, and the Sublime in the Digital Anthropocene (2025, European Journal of Literature, Culture, and Environment). Using Baloji’s short film Zombies (2019) as a lens, the discussion will explore:
What happens to the sublime in an age of fractured attention?
How does the crisis of attention shape our engagement with ecological and political crises?
Can aesthetic experience still provoke critical consciousness in the Capitalocene?
What temporalities emerge when we resist the speed of networked capitalism?
Professor Shabangu will elaborate on his analysis of Zombies as a call to rethink attention as an ecological and political practice, while Professor Nony will bring her expertise in technology, performative images, and the philosophy of digital culture. Together, they will bridge philosophy, critical theory, and contemporary art in a dialogue on aesthetics and planetary urgency.
Speakers
Professor Mohammad Shabangu – Assistant Professor of English at Colby College, a music curator, and author of the forthcoming African Aesthetic Imagination and the Double Bind of Globality (Routledge). His research spans African and world literatures, postcolonial cultural production, and critical theory.
Professor Anaïs Nony – Philosopher and Senior Researcher at JIAS, where she leads the AI and Life Matters research stream. She is the author of Performative Images: A Philosophy of Video Art Technology in France (2023) and co-editor of the Edinburgh Companion to Gilbert Simondon (2025).
Event Details
Date: Thursday, 31 July 2025
Time: 3:00–5:00 PM SAST
Venue: Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (Westdene, Johannesburg) & Online
RSVP: jiasinfo@uj.ac.za
Hosted by Professor Victoria Collis-Buthelezi and Professor Anaïs Nony, this dialogue continues JIAS’s mission to bridge theory and praxis in confronting planetary emergencies.
JIAS Creative Writing Workshop for Emerging Writers
Applications Now Open | Deadline: 30 July 2025
The Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) invites applications for the 2025 Creative Writing Workshop—a six-week, fully funded residency for emerging African writers working in poetry and the short story.
Running from 15 September to 31 October 2025, the workshop will host six writers at our micro-campus in Johannesburg. Travel, accommodation, and a stipend are included.
Facilitated by acclaimed poet, short story writer, and anthologist Makhosazana Xaba, the programme supports creative growth through collective dialogue, close reading, and experimentation. Participants will write, read, and reflect across genres, guided by this year’s theme: Exploring the Ordinary in Our Lives
Each week introduces sub-themes that draw on memory, imagination, and research—expanding craft through mentorship and peer exchange.
Rooted in care, critique, and creative freedom, the JIAS Creative Writing Workshop offers writers a space to think, experiment, and build lasting community across borders.
Learn more here: https://linktr.ee/JIAS_UJ
Contact us.
jiasinfo@uj.ac.za
+27 (0)11 559 7530
1 Tolip Street, Westdene
PO Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006,
Johannesburg, South Africa