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.
The Machine and the Margins: Annotation-Based Pedagogy for the AI Age
15 May 2025
Hosted at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), The Machine and the Margins invites educators, researchers, and students into a conversation on the future of teaching in the age of AI.
With the rapid integration of generative AI tools in higher education, this session will reflect on how university classrooms might move beyond chatbot thinking and toward meaningful, socially grounded reading practices. Dr. Carrie Timlin and Dr. Colette Gordon draw on open web annotation, expectation-noting, and social reading to explore how literary studies can foster academic integrity and re-center knowledge as a collaborative human activity.
The event will be co-chaired by Prof. Victoria Collis-Buthelezi (Director, JIAS) and Dr. Anaïs Nony (Senior Researcher, JIAS).
Register now! https://linktr.ee/JIAS_UJ
2025 JIAS Writing Fellowship
Following an open call released last year, JIAS received nearly 600 applications for the 2025 Writing Fellowship. Submissions poured in from across the African continent and the Global South — a remarkable response that speaks to the urgency and vitality of contemporary thought and creative work. The breadth and brilliance of the applications were humbling, and we remain truly grateful to every writer, scholar, and artist who shared their work with us.
After a rigorous and thoughtful selection process, we are proud to welcome a new cohort of Writing Fellows to Johannesburg this April.
The 2025 Fellows are:
Keguro Macharia — Scholar of intimacy, freedom, and Black aesthetics
Katucha Bento — Afro-Brazilian feminist sociologist and decolonial writer
Candice Jansen — Researcher of Black image archives and photographic memory
Sarah Lubala — Poet of exile, matriarchy, and memory
We are also pleased to welcome two deferred fellows:
Mosa Phadi — Sociologist examining Black class formations and the resonance of Du Bois in South Africa
Dee Marco — Creative scholar working across sound, memory, and feminist storytelling
This year’s Fellowship centers on the theme of Global Blackness. At JIAS, we use the term “global Blackness” to signal our investment in exploring the multiplicity of Black experience, intellectual traditions, and perspectives as well as modes of Black theory.
We ask: What are the geographies, practices, and theories of Blackness with which we work? How is Blackness instantiated in different spacetimes?
Contact us.
jiasinfo@uj.ac.za
+27 (0)11 559 7530
1 Tolip Street, Westdene
PO Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006,
Johannesburg, South Africa