Time, Thought, Materiality: Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Concept Note (intro .. for more .. click here)

The seminar forms part of a project that assesses contemporary issues situated within the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) era under the rubric of Humanities and Social Sciences Disciplines. The major focus of this seminar is to assess the prospects for, and problems and challenges of, Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the academic field of Humanities, with a view to strengthening their inter-disciplinary approach in providing robust academic research on contemporary issues. This seminar, therefore, is concerned with the most pertinent question: “What place for Humanities in the 4IR in Africa and the real world?” Also, as opined by UJ’s Faculty of Humanities Executive Dean, Alex Broadbent, while guarding against “hedgehog thinking”, students, ought to be guided in the scholarly academic research debates that ultimately provide research outputs that are focused on the problems in the real world. The seminar similarly, is congruent with the UJ’s 2020 Strategic Framework to becoming more interdisciplinary and socio- economic and politically relevant, and being more accessible to society and the world at large. Since 2011, the University of Johannesburg’s track record in this area, builds on almost a decade of work that pertains to critical research about the 4IR, including academic publications: scholarly articles, opinion editorials, briefs and a book, the latter notably, Artificial Intelligence and Economic Theory: Skynet in the Market in 2017; and among several others. Of critical concern, therefore, to this seminar, is critiquing contemporary issues situated within the 4IR under the rubric of South Africa’s Humanities Discipline.