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On Wednesday 20 March the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study successfully hosted the launch of Prof Zakes Mda’s latest offering, The Zulus of New York.

On 12 March 2019 the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study hosted Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, Vice Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg.

Prof Rapley is currently on sabbatical at JIAS from February until the end of May 2019. John Rapley has made a vocation of working, and living, at the frontier where theory meets practice.

The International International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies (HR Network) has released a resource guide entitled Engaging with Human Rights in the National Academy Context.

THE Colloquium on Digital Finance in Africa was opened on 22 October 2018 by Mr Trevor Manuel, former South African Minister of Finance. His keynote address was followed by a panel discussion on ‘The Impact of Digital Finance on Africa’s Growth’.

No 5 Tolip Street, Westdene, which has been purchased to expand the JIAS complex.The University of Johannesburg had purchased a property next to the existing JIAS complex in Tolip Street, Westdene.

ON 30 August 2018, Prof Tshilidzi Marwala, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg, delivered a lecture on ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Society’ at the NTU Institute of Science and Technology for Humanity (NTSH) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. The lecture formed part of the NISTH’s Distinguished Lecture Series.

FROM 15 August to 12 September, JIAS will host four high-level panel discussions on the future of work. The series is aimed at providing South African role players with an opportunity to discuss the nature and implications of the far-reaching technological changes under way in the workplace in South Africa as well as globally.

Routledge has released a book entitled Reversing Urban Inequality in Johannesburg, edited by former JIAS Writing Fellow Melissa Tandiwe Myambo.

The Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) invites applications for its Fourth Writing Semester, which will run from 4 February to 31 May 2019.

Dr Bongani Ngqulunga, academic, public sector administrator and author, has been appointed as Deputy Director of JIAS.

Dr Bongani Ngqulunga at the Sunday Times Literary Awards ceremony in Johannesburg on 23 June 2018.Dr Bongani Ngqulunga, newly appointed Deputy Director of JIAS, has won the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction for his book The Man Who Founded the ANC: A Biography of Pixley ka Isaka Seme. He received the award at a gala dinner held in Johannesburg on Saturday 23 June 2018.

JIAS is offering month-long residencies, effective November 2018, to academics, writers, journalists, playwrights and independent researchers.

The JIAS group outside Maropeng, the visitor’s centre at the Cradle of Humankind.On 18 May, seven 2018 JIAS Writing Fellows visited the Cradle of Humankind, the World Heritage Site north west of Johannesburg in Gauteng province.

On 17–20 April 2018, a JIAS team, including some of our 2018 Writing Fellows, participated in the Polokwane Literary Fair in Limpopo. The Fair is a flagship project of the Department of Cultural Services of the Polokwane Municipality, in the provincial capital of Limpopo. JIAS has participated in this event every year since 2016.

Important changes in leadership have taken place at the University of Johannesburg and Nanyang Technological University Singapore, which have jointly established JIAS.

THE International Woman has published a lengthy interview with the acclaimed South African writer Zukiswa Wanner, a 2018 JIAS Writing Fellow.

JIAS staffed a booth at Science Forum South Africa 2017, held at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria on 7 – 8 December 2017.

JIAS has announced the names of its third intake of Writing Fellows for its four-month Writing Term that will run from February to May 2018. Selected from more than 300 applicants, the Writing Fellows include authors, journalists, and scholars in various disciplines from Africa and Asia.

Professor David Schulman, one of the greatest living Indologists,visited JIAS in early September. He was a cures of the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, Wits University, and JIAS.

JIAS has contracted Africartoons to exhibit ‘30 Years of Stacey Stent’ in the JIAS Cartoon Room.

UBIAS (University-Based Institutes for Advanced Study) has called for applications to participate in the third UBIAS Intercontinental Academia (ICA) on ‘Laws: Rigidity and Dynamics’, to be held at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore in March 2018, and the University of Birmingham in March 2019.

A BOOK written by David B Coplan, professor of social anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand and a 2016 JIAS Writing Fellow, was launched in Johannesburg on Sunday 11 June 2017.

LINKAGES between Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and JIAS were explored at an event at NTU in Singapore on Wednesday 12 April 2016.

A comprehensive report on the colloquium entitled ‘Why The Brain Matters’ hosted by JIAS in the latter half of 2016 has been completed and is available to the public.