Shows
Hell to Pay8. The fall of Apartheid and South Africa's satanic panic Teenagers, rock music, pentagrams... and a country on the brink of collapse. In this episode, we dig into one of the strangest moral panics in South African history — when fears of Satanism swept through churches, schools, and headlines during the final days of apartheid. But this wasn’t just about devil worship. It was about white fear, gender violence, and a society terrified of change. From American conspiracy theories to remote town exorcisms, we unpack how a global panic took on a very South African shape — and why its legacy still haunts us today.2025-04-2756 min
Weird Little GuysThe White WolfIn 1989, four Afrikaner nationalists and one German mercenary killed a security guard at a United Nations outpost in Namibia. After escaping from custody, they fled home to South Africa. A possibly non-existent group called The White Wolves took credit for the wave of bombings that followed. Sources: Du Preez, M. (2010). Pale native: Memories of a Renegade reporter. Zebra Press. Rotberg, Robert (1988). The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Enigma of Power. Oxford University Press. Falkof, Nicky. The End of Whiteness: Satanism and Family Murder in Late Apartheid South Africa. Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2016....2025-03-2056 minWeird Little GuysThe White House Weighs in on White GenocideIn February of 2012, racist skinheads in California rallied at the capitol building in Sacramento. They were trying to raise awareness for an imaginary problem - an ongoing genocide against white South African farmers. In February of 2025, the President of the United States signed an executive order stripping foreign aid from South Africa as punishment for that same imaginary problem. Sources:Falkof, Nicky. (2022). Worrier state: Risk, anxiety and moral panic in South Africa. Manchester University Press.Whiteness, Afrikaans, Afrikaners: Addressing Post-Apartheid Legacies, Privileges and Burdens. The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA), 2018. ...2025-02-2747 min
Surviving Society ProductionsS2/E2: Murder in Melville with Nicky FalkofOn New Year’s Eve 2019, a drive-by shooting took place in the popular Johannesburg suburb of Melville. Two people were killed and six injured in this shocking and as-yet-unsolved case. Almost unheard-of in this crime-ridden city, the drive-by horrified local communities, provoking surging anxiety in everyone from middle class home- and business owners to student renters and informal workers. To unravel the “true crime” beneath the sensational headlines, Nicky Falkof speaks with Antonette Gouws, who was present at the drive-by, as well as local “character,” Danny Nunes, and filmmaker and academic, Dylan Vally. As we’ll hear in this episode, the...2024-09-101h 10
Womanity - Women in UnityProf Nicky Falkof – Media Studies Wits University: Emotion Directs Behaviour and Constructs SocietyThis week on Womanity-Women in Unity, Dr. Amaleya Goneos-Malka talks to Prof Nicky Falkof, who is a cultural studies scholar based in the Media Studies department at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Media is ubiquitous and takes multiple forms, that impact how individuals perceive themselves and others, construct their identities, and navigate their social worlds. Prof Falkof shares some insights into the themes of her academic qualifications; studying a Masters in critical theory with a dissertation on race and masculinity in 1980s action films and then studying an interdisciplinary PhD at the London consortium, which was a collaboration between the...2024-04-1240 min
culturalstudiesNicky Falkof on Gaza, Jewishness, apartheid, moral panic, and South AfricaNicky Falkof on Gaza, Jewishness, apartheid, moral panic, and South Africa. You can read more about Ncky's work here:
https://nickyfalkof.com/
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/governing-intimacies-in-the-global-south/
2024-01-1852 min
Uncommon SenseAnxiety, with Nicky FalkofAnxiety is part of contemporary life, yet rarely seen as anything other than personal and intimately psychological. Cultural Studies scholar Nicky Falkof joins us to discuss her work on fear and anxiety in South Africa, and how such negative emotions are often collective and collectively constructed – and relate deeply to our identities. Indeed, as Nicky tells us, if you ask yourself what or whom you’re scared of, you quickly face the question of who you think you are. Hear about Nicky’s teenage engagement in goth culture as South Africa approached the end of apartheid, and how it...2023-11-1746 min
The C.O.W.S.The C. O. W. S. w/ Dr. Louise du Toit: Sexual Abuse of Black Males in South AfricaThe Context of White Supremacy welcomes Dr. Louise du Toit live from South Africa. She is classified as White, a Racist Suspect. "Dr. du Toit is a Professor of Philosophy. She taught at the University of Johannesburg since 1997, before moving to Stellenbosch in 2010. Her main research interests include a wide range of themes within feminist philosophy, especially in the interface between African and European traditions. She is interested in sexual violence, Critical Theory, political philosophy, hermeneutics, philosophy and literature." We recently spoke with Dr. Nicky Falkof about White Supremacy and black males in South Africa. She recommended Dr. du Toit's...2023-10-0200 minThe C.O.W.S.The C. O. W. S. w/ Racist Suspect Dr. Nicky Falkof: White Supremacy & White Manhood in South Africa #WhiteAdjacent #JoyceInseleThe Context of White Supremacy welcomes Racist Suspect Dr. Nicky Falkof live from Mexico. A White Woman born in South Africa, Dr. Falkof is on an academic/business trip to the western hemisphere, although her research focus investigates Racism in South Africa. A writer and academic based in Johannesburg, Dr. Falkof "works in the Media Studies department at Wits University. Her research is concerned with race and anxiety in the urban global south, with a particular interest in whiteness." Importantly, Dr. Falkof was reared by a black female maid, Joyce Insele. That should be at the center of any White's...2023-09-2100 min
Between the LinesIntimacy and injury: In the wake of #MeToo in India and South AfricaIn this episode of Between the Lines, Priya Raghavan, Post-Doctoral Researcher in the IDS Governance Cluster, interviews Nicky Falkof, Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. Priya is part of the IDS project Sustaining Power for Women’s Rights, which works with women’s movements in South Asia to study and help develop strategies against backlash. Nicky is co-editor of the book: Intimacy and injury: In the wake of #MeToo in India and South Africa.Through the lens of the #MeToo moment, this book and podcast tracks histories of femi...2022-11-2444 min
Open Book PodcastOBF2022: Collective AnxietyThis is a live recording of an event that took place at Open Book Festival in September 2022. In this discussion Haji Mohamed Dawjee, Nicky Falkof and Melinda Ferguson speak to Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela about the impact of fear on their own and their characters' lives.
This event was made possible by the support of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, the City of Cape Town and the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
2022-10-111h 06Open Book PodcastOBF2022: Power of CultsThis is a live recording of an event that took place at Open Book Festival in September 2022. In this discussion Ben Booysen, Mlilo Mpondo, Erika Bornman talk to Nicky Falkof about secret societies and isolation.
This event was made possible by the support of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, the City of Cape Town and the Heinrich Böll Foundation.2022-10-101h 05
New Books in Urban StudiesNicky Falkof, "Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa" (Manchester UP, 2022)Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa (Manchester University Press, 2022) looks at the pervasive culture of fear in South Africa. It reveals how narratives of fear manifest in contemporary media forms and the people they serve, and how these are impacted by race, class, gender, space and identity. Through an interdisciplinary body of work, and using a case-based study approach, media analyst Nicky Falkof investigates how risk, anxiety and moral panic show up in media portrayals in modern South Africa. Her main intervention in this approach is through ‘affect’: how do South Africans feel about living under...2022-08-1936 min
New Books in AnthropologyNicky Falkof, "Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa" (Manchester UP, 2022)Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa (Manchester University Press, 2022) looks at the pervasive culture of fear in South Africa. It reveals how narratives of fear manifest in contemporary media forms and the people they serve, and how these are impacted by race, class, gender, space and identity. Through an interdisciplinary body of work, and using a case-based study approach, media analyst Nicky Falkof investigates how risk, anxiety and moral panic show up in media portrayals in modern South Africa. Her main intervention in this approach is through ‘affect’: how do South Africans feel about living under...2022-08-1938 min
New Books in African StudiesNicky Falkof, "Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa" (Manchester UP, 2022)Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa (Manchester University Press, 2022) looks at the pervasive culture of fear in South Africa. It reveals how narratives of fear manifest in contemporary media forms and the people they serve, and how these are impacted by race, class, gender, space and identity. Through an interdisciplinary body of work, and using a case-based study approach, media analyst Nicky Falkof investigates how risk, anxiety and moral panic show up in media portrayals in modern South Africa. Her main intervention in this approach is through ‘affect’: how do South Africans feel about living under...2022-08-1938 min
Surviving Society ProductionsE132 Nicky Falkof: Joburg, anxiety & whitenessNicky joined us to discuss her scholarship on race in both London and Johannesburg and what can be learnt from future and existing anxieties in the largest and wealthiest city in South Africa as a case study for the contemporary global south city.
Useful links:
https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/anxious-joburg/
https://nickyfalkof.com2021-07-1357 min
The Empty Chair by PEN SAJournalism in the PandemicIn the second episode of The Empty Chair, PEN SA Board Member Nicky Falkof chairs a conversation with three astute journalists: Zandile Bangani, Khadija Patel and Mia Malan. They assess the health of the South African media landscape and stand in solidarity with Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, a novelist and journalist from Uganda2021-04-2948 min
VOW MomentsTransgender Politics: Interview with Dr B CammingaAn interview with Dr. B Camminga. They are a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of the Witswatersrand in South Africa. Their work explores the interrelationship between the conceptual journeying of the term 'transgender' from the Global North and the physically embodied journeying of transgender asylum seekers from the African continent.
They have recently written an extract in a book called Anxious Joburg; The Inner Lives of a Global South City, edited by Nicky Falkof & Cobus van Staden. Their extract is titled Marooned: Seeking Asylum as a Transgender person in Johannesburg.2020-12-0412 min
ASEN PodcastASEN-CARR Podcast #2 Racial Mythologies of the Far RIght<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 0.4px; text-align: justify;">In the second episode of the ASEN-CARR’s podcast series, CARR Doctoral Fellow </span><a href="https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/fellows/nicholas-james/" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #333333; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.4px; text-align: justify; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">Nicholas James</a><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 0.4px; text-align: justify;"> speaks to <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/staff/academic-a-z-listing/f/nickyfalkofwitsacza/"><span style="color: black;">...2019-11-2152 min