The Academic Citizen The Academic Citizen

The Academic Citizen

An academic citizen is anyone who is part of the higher education community. They are engaged in pedagogy or research or both, and are committed to furthering knowledge, education and the advancement of society from their disciplinary position.

An academic citizen sees their work in higher education as a public project, both in terms of being partially funded by taxpayer money, and in terms of the contributions they wish to make to the world around them.

Although citizenship implies an exclusive form of belonging, here we use it to signal the role of academic work in collective life in a non-exclusionary way, and to anchor it in a public project to which all humanity belongs.

We create knowledge not only for our individual benefit but for the benefit of all.

The Academic Citizen is an independent podcast series produced and funded in its second iteration by the South African Research Chair in Science Communication in 2022. It was originally supported by the Academic Staff Association of Wits University (ASAWU) when it was first established in 2016.
Occasionally English South Africa Philosophy · Social Sciences Narrated by Victoria Landey & Taryn Mackay
24 Episodes
20 – 24

58. Blue

In this episode, we think about the other version of eluhlaza: Blue. This journey will take us into and below the ocean and beyond forms of earth-bound thinking. Listen to our guests, artist and oceanic academic Meghan Judge, zoologist and behavioural ecologist Professor Aliza Le Roux and artist and PhD…
30 Jun 2022 1 hr 04 min

57. Green

As universities grapple with what it means to take seriously the imperative to green our campuses and research practice, this episode explodes the colour green: to consider the importance of indigenous knowledge, the relationship between ecological and social diversity and how envy and competition shape our relationship to academic work…
25 May 2022 1 hr 07 min

56. Money

This episode explores the complexities that arise when considering the financial status of our universities and the higher education sector in general. Like any institution in a capitalist economy, universities revolve around money, income, and expenditure. We explore some aspects of the bigger picture of how money makes the university…
25 Apr 2022 41 min

55. Comebacks

Animating the Post-Pandemic Academic Experience After a 4 year break, the Academic Citizen podcast, has staged a comeback. In doing so, the team as led by Professors Mehita Iqani and Nosipho Mngomezulu are reanimating the commitment to growing space for the higher education community in South Africa and beyond to…
12 Mar 2022 48 min
20 – 24