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Graduates in disciplines such as sociology, development, philosophy, gender and politics have the analytical tools to unpack social nuances, historical context and ethical boundaries. Photo: File

Podcast regulation: Consider humanities graduates in the process 

Graduates in disciplines such as sociology, development, philosophy, gender and politics have the analytical tools to unpack social nuances, historical context and ethical…

NWU’s population and health expertise is guiding South Africa to a more equitable future

The Population and Health Research Entity at the North-West University (NWU) brings together both budding and veteran researchers with a singular mission: to illuminate and…

Teachers

We need more privilege – and ways to spread it around

As educators, we must not just check our privilege but own up to it – and wield it for good

‘Tell no lies’: University of Johannesburg rejects with contempt claims that it stifles academic freedom and transformation. Photo: ER Lombard

Academic freedom upheld at University of Johannesburg

Untrue allegations made by disgruntled humanities academic dismissed by labour court as his leave for appeal is refused

(John McCann/M&G)

It is possible to decolonise science

Though it’s based in fact and measurement, science teaching needn’t only foreground individuals, but can situate itself in a web of knowledge and try to lower barriers to learning

Afropolitanism: Africans get their knowledge the traditional way but they are now being exposed to more images

​The digital age erases the divide between humans and objects

Africa, with its ancient conceptions of the relations between being and matter, is fertile ground for digital technologies.

Hours after falling into a pit latrine, Michael Komape’s mother still desperately hoping he could be rescued alive, had to sit, looking at the little hand, waiting for social services to come. (Elijar Mushiana/Gallo Images/Sowetan)

​The age of humanism is ending

The divergence of democracy and capital will defy reason and politics will become brutal survivalism.

Romantic idealist: Professor Craig Calhoun says that universities should be reinvented

‘Fight back!’ Universities must put teaching at their front and centre

What futures do varsities globally have? Peter Vale interviewed Craig Calhoun, director of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

No need to defend the value of under siege arts degrees

Study of the arts cannot claim to be essential to democracy or economic success but it is the intrinsic value of the arts that keeps us coming back.

Support the humanities, find room for the right arguments

Oh, the humanities – hindered by politics, yet offering such depth to democracy and debate.

Downsizing the humanities is a recipe for increasing alienation

Universities, industry and the state need research that includes input from civil society.

Christiaan Barnard and of South Africa and Michael DeBakey and Adrian Kantrowitz of United Stated confer on the set o the CBS programme Face the Nation in 1967. (AP)

The art of medicine dissected

A new set of initiatives in South Africa plans to situate the field of arts-in-medicine and the "medical humanities" within an academic context.