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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.

The Brain Matters Seminar Series emanating from the JIAS Colloquium on ‘Why The Brain Matters’ was launched at the School of Public Health of the University of the Witwatersrand on 23 March 2017.

The JIAS Writing Fellows for 2017 will present a seminar series that will run from April to June. The seminars are open to members of the public. All the seminars will be held at the JIAS campus at 1 Tolip Street, Westdene, on Wednesday mornings from 9h00 to 12h00.

Ronit Frenkel, Associate Professor of English at UJ, has jointed JIAS as Deputy Director. She will primarily be responsible for managing its academic programmes.

The UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNEBURG and Nanyang Technological University of Singapore have agreed to extend their collaboration on the JIAS initiative for another five years. The initial agreement establishing JIAS was signed in 2015.

Participants in the JIAS Colloquium on ‘Why The Brain Matters’ have launched a follow-up in the form of an interdisciplinary seminar series entitled ‘Brain Matter Seminars: the past, present and future of neuroscience in southern Africa’.

An interdisciplinary three-day conference entitled ‘The Prelude to Decolonisation: The Turning of the Tide’ will be held at JIAS from 30 August to 1 September 2017.