Wits University Press

10/02/2025

In case you missed this, here is a fascinating interview with Casey Golomski, the author of a new book about a study looking at (mostly white) residents and (mostly black) workers in an old age home in South Africa that took place over seven years upending stereotypes.
Told in breathtakingly intimate and witty conversations with the home’s residents and nurses, including the untold story of Nelson Mandela’s Robben Island prison nurse, readers learn how ageism, sexism, and racism intersect and impact health care as well as create conditions in which people primed to be enemies find grace despite the odds

The study of (mostly white) residents and (mostly black) workers in an old age home in South Africa took place over seven years and it upended stereotypes.

07/02/2025

Wits University Press mourns the passing of Marxist sociologist, Michael Burawoy.

It is with great sadness that we heard of the death of eminent sociologist and UC Berkeley professor emeritus Michael Burawoy who died on Monday 4 February in Oakland, California. Burawoy was one of the world’s most influential sociologists who worked within Marxist social theory. He was best known as the leading proponent of public sociology and the author of 'Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism'.

Michael Burawoy was deeply involved with the South African sociology fraternity with his decades long academic relationship and friendship with Wits sociologists Eddie Webster, Karl von Holdt and others. Burawoy spoke in October 2023 in Johannesburg at the launch celebration of Eddie Webster’s last book, 'Recasting Workers’ Power: Work and Inequality in the Shadow of the Digital Age' (written with Lynford Dor), published by Wits University Press. See photographs. Burawoy praised Webster’s lasting influence, his shaping of generation after generation of sociology students, his inexhaustible energy. A mere 5 months later Eddie Webster had passed at the age of 82.

And now Michael Burawoy is gone too. That same inexhaustible energy describes Burawoy. “He left us at a time we most needed his leadership, his energy, his tireless work to understand our world, his example as an extraordinary teacher, his faith in a relevant public sociology, his openness to a global dialogue, his energy against injustice,” said Geoffrey Pleyers, the Belgium-based president of the International Sociological Association, on Bluesky.

Amongst his many publications, Michael Burawoy wrote with Karl von Holdt 'Conversations with Bourdieu : The Johannesburg Moment'. Published by Wits University Press in 2012, Burawoy constructs in this book a series of imaginary conversations between Bourdieu and Marx via Gramsci and Fanon. He also contributed to 'Marxisms in the 21st Century : Crisis, critique and struggle', edited by Vishwas Satgar and Michelle Williams, the first in the Democratic Marxisms series published by Wits University Press in 2013.

At the time of his death, Burawoy had just finished writing a new introduction to the re-issue of Eddie Webster’s book, 'Cast in a Racial Mould: Labour Process and Trade Unionism in the Foundries' (Ravan Press:1985). The new edition will be published by Wits University Press in May 2025.

04/02/2025

PODCAST: Hugo Canham's book Riotous Deathscapes, about riotous methods, rural Mpondoland, precarity, storytelling, death and life as well as the natural and ancestral worlds has garnered great acclaim and wonderful reviews since it was published in 2023. It was shortlisted for the African Studies Association's Best Book Prize in 2024, an award that recognizes the most important scholarly work in African studies published in English in that year.
Listen here to Hugo Canham's PEN South Africa interview with Grace A. Musila, Professor in the Department of African Literature at Wits University.
https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/theemptychair/episodes/S9-E7-Hugo-ka-Canham--Grace-A--Musila-Death--Life--Mpondo-Theory-e29rl3f/a-aadhoj4

03/02/2025

CONGRATULATIONS to Prof Tendayi Sithole for receiving the prestigious Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Outstanding Achievement Award from the The Caribbean Philosophical Association.
Sithole is a political theorist and author of amongst his many books, also Black X: Liberatory thought in Azania that he published with Wits University Press in 2024. This award is well-deserved acknowledgement of his work on Black intellectuals and political thought in South Africa.

President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association Jacqueline Martinez said about the award:
"Tendayi Sithole’s scholarship offers a penetrating and sustained examination of Black existence as it is lived within the brutality of South African “post-apartheid.” His work brings together Black thinkers from across continents and temporalities to offer a sober and penetrating examination the relationality of power as it has functioned in a past that is also present, and always with the commitment to creating a truly liberatory future. The Caribbean Philosophical Association is delighted to recognize Tendayi Sithole with this award."

The Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Philosophical Literature Prize The Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Philosophical Literature Prize “Pasan islas, islas, islas,muchas islas, siempre más;anda y anda el barco barco,sin descansar.” -Nicolás Guillén, Son para niños antillanos (1947)Th...

31/01/2025

PODCAST of Cape Talk radio interview with Casey Golomski - author of a new book, God’s Waiting Room: Racial Reckoning in South African Elder Care that examines the life stories and interactions among the older mostly white residents and the younger black nurses who care for them in a South African nursing home. Fascinating insights. Give it a listen .

Anthropologist Casey Golomski spent seven years in old age homes in South Africa & the USA speaking to residents & asked the question, do old racist change?Casey Colomski.

28/01/2025

CAPE TOWN! Thursday 30 January at 7pm. Join Uhuru Phalafala, poet and author of a book on Keorapetse Kgositsile at the Chimurenga Factory, 157 Victoria Road, Woodstock, Cape Town, celebrating the life of the late poet laureate, Keorapetse Kgositsile.
https://chimurengachronic.co.za/this-way-i-salute-you-a-gathering-for-keorapetse-kgositsile/

27/01/2025

NOW PUBLISHED! Award-winning South African writer, Nadia Davids' new play, HOLD STILL is available from online retailers and bookshops in South Africa.

When a refugee seeks shelter, a progressive London family must confront their principles and prejudices. Nadia Davids' Hold Still , set in contemporary London, examines the complexities of intercultural relationships and in*******al marriage amidst the backdrop of Brexit and rising xenophobia. A timely reflection on love and identity in turbulent times.

Find more info here: https://www.witspress.co.za/page/detail/Hold-Still/?K=9781776148844

27/01/2025

Read here a review in Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis, of a new book on Frantz Fanon, COMBAT BREATHING by Nigel Gibson.

"Gibson’s biography would serve as an excellent introduction to
Fanon’s historical context and political thought. I especially recommend assigning the fourth chapter, “Fanon in Algeria,” with A Dying Colonialism or The Wretched of the Earth, in undergraduate courses."

By Rose A. Owen, Published on 12/30/24

23/01/2025

How is it possible to write 145-page book about the history of a relatively minor river, 70 km in length – the Kowie River in the Eastern Cape – and keep the reader spellbound? This is what Jacklyn C**k did. Read more here and order your copy from online retailers.

For me the book encapsulates South African history between the early 1700’s and the present day and gives a much better understanding of it.

23/01/2025

INTERVIEW - podcast : Casey Golomski considers in his new book, God's Waiting Room: Racial Reckoning at Life's End (Rutgers University Press, 2024) what matters in the end for older white adults and the younger Black nurses who care for them. Basing his research on a nursing home in South Africa, thirty years after the end of apartheid, his book narrates the story of years of immersive resereach as a one-day, room-by-room tour.
This book's story is told in breathtakingly intimate and witty conversations.

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21/01/2025

Prof. Barry Schoub, the founding executive director of the NICD, talks here with Communications Manager at the NICD, Vuyo Sabani, about his new book Fighting an Invisible Enemy.

Senior Communications Manager, Vuyo Sabani, chats with Prof. Barry Schoub, the founding executive director of the NICD, whose new book Fighting an Invisible Enemy: The Story of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases was published in August. Besides the encouragement from Prof. Metz, your w...

21/01/2025

God’s Waiting Room: Racial Reckoning at Life’s End is a beautifully written and intimate book about the characters in an old age home in South Africa. To write it, anthropologist Casey Golomski spent seven years travelling between South Africa and the US.
Read here an interview with the author about the writing of the book.

The study of (mostly white) residents and (mostly black) workers in an old age home in South Africa took place over seven years and it upended stereotypes.

09/01/2025

Read here more about the remarkable changes in scholarly book publishing over the last 100 years in South Africa.

The JRB presents an excerpt from Publishing from the South: A Century of Wits University Press. The book is available in open access format, and can be read or downloaded free of charge here. Publishing from the South: A Century of Wits University PressEdited by Sarah Nuttall and Isabel Ho

18/12/2024

Watch here Polity.org.za Video interview with editors., Derek Hook and Leswin Laubscher of a book of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe's writings and testimonies.

A collection of Robert Sobukwe’s political writings, speeches and court testimonies supplemented by an account of his years in Kimberley following his release from Robben Island. There are several accounts of Robert Sobukwe’s courageous role in contesting South Africa’s system of apartheid and...

11/12/2024

"As we witness the colonial death drive smashing through Gaza, and now Lebanon too, Frantz Fanon’s work takes on a painfully urgent intensity."
Nigel C Gibson’s new book Frantz Fanon: Combat Breathing is published by Wits University Press

For Fanon the physical and psychological aspects of liberation were linked as liberation is not merely a political process but also a social and psychological o

09/12/2024

NEW BOOK is now FREE to download from https://www.oapen.org/ 'Publishing from the South: A Century of Wits University Press' has been made Open Access. Click on the LOCK on the page below to access the book.
https://www.witspress.co.za/page/detail/Publishing-from-the-South/?K=9781776149285

Featuring contributions from scholars, publishers and authors this multi-voiced volume offers a deep dive into the history, sociology and politics of the oldest South African university press. It explores the strategies deployed to professionalise global South knowledge making and supports the schol...

09/12/2024

"Today Sobukwe stands for decolonisation. And decolonisation understood not in a restricted or domesticated form (as the outcome of negotiated settlements, in the form of institutional concessions, and so on), but decolonisation as a mode of subjectivity and culture, decolonisation as a pervasive condition of political desire.
READ HERE AN EXCERPT FROM: Darkest Before Dawn : Writings, Testimonies and Correspondence from the Life of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe.

This is an edited extract from the book Darkest Before Dawn: Writings, Testimonies and Correspondence from the Life of Robert Sobukwe

05/12/2024

Celebrating - Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe was born on 5 December 1924 at Graaff-Reinet, Cape Province, today 100 years ago.