The Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation (CriSHET) will be hosting a roundtable entitled Beyond Decolonisation? on 3 June 2022, 14h00-16h00 SAST (GMT +2) as part of their [Re]Directions/Ukutshintshwa Kwendlela: Knowledge, Praxes and African-Purposed Curriculum seminar series.
The roundtable will feature Mthunzikazi Mbungwana, Nomalanga Mkhize and Tshepo Madlingozi grappling with the contestations, contradictions, tensions, paradoxes, fractures and cul-de-sacs of the contemporary 'decolonisation discourse'.
This will be a hybrid event, with both a mask-to-mask attendance option and the option to engage via livestream.
To RSVP, use this link and indicate preference for in-person or live-stream, or email Fortunate.Jwara@mandela.ac.za for more information.
Abstract
The 'decolonisation discourse’ has generated massive traction and energy in the South African Higher Education sector over the past seven years, since its reinvigoration by the #MustFall movement. With this has come contestations, contradictions, tensions, paradoxes, fractures and cul-de-sacs. Furthermore, the energies produced by this ‘project’ have not often translated into practical and productive decolonisation of the university and beyond.
This critical conversation intends to grapple with the complexities of the ongoing decolonisation discussion with the aim of proposing new avenues that might lead us out of the circularity of the dominant discourse on decolonisation and decoloniality. This means, in the context of higher education, engaging with: modes of political organising, Black identity formation, neoliberalism, queerness, Black modernity, African cosmopolitanism, matriarchy, parochialism, and South African histories, among others.
Speaker Bios
Tshepo Madlingozi
Tshepo Madlingozi is an Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is also a Research Associate at the Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation (CriSHET). He has master’s degrees in both Law and Sociology, and he received his PhD degree from Birkbeck, University of London.
Nomalanga Mkhize
Nomalanga Mkhize is a historian and acting Director for the School of Governmental and Social Sciences at the Nelson Mandela University. Her research interests are in African language historical literatures and she has a special interest in pre-colonial themes in early Xhosa writing.
Mthunzikazi Mbungwana
Mthunzikazi Mbungwana is a poet and storyteller who writes in isiXhosa, focusing on themes of home, dreams, and everyday black queer life. She self-published her debut chapbook, Umnikelo, in 2015, and a second book, Unam Wena, in 2021. She holds a Master’s in Creative Writing, in isiXhosa, from the University Currently Known as Rhodes.