This Conference is being hosted by the Department of History, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg from 21-23 June 2017.

As southern Africa and the world nears the end of an especially turbulent decade, peoples, ideas, structures of power and institutions are being reconfigured in ways both uncertain and unpredictable. As public debates intensify, the past itself has become disputed, with historiographical orthodoxies, even the academy itself, questioned and sometimes abandoned. Yet, the work of history and historians – putting the past and present into dialogue – is vital for imagining possible futures for our world.

The 26th biennial conference of the Southern African Historical Society (SAHS) will raise questions about the potential of history and the production of historical knowledge to work with or against new economic, political and cultural forces. It asks what fresh perspectives are emerging from and about the discipline of history and how these may illuminate the particular crises of our current socio-economic and political moments.

Providing a reflective backdrop to proceedings, the Wits History Department will be marking its centenary year, and the Wits History Workshop its 40th anniversary. These institutions have made a significant impact on southern African scholarship and the wider public, charting new paths and breaking with tradition in often unpromising contexts. The conference offers an opportunity to consider these complex intellectual histories and its place in regional historiography.

For more information, please email Mucha Musemwa: mucha.musemwa@wits.ac.za or Prinisha Badassy: prinisha.badassy@wits.ac.za.

*The Southern African Historical Society is committed to fostering the development of young scholars in History and its allied disciplines.*