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saidiya hartmanlatest news & developments
Gabriel Mehlomakhulu in Kartografi. (Photo: Oscar O’Ryan)
ANALOGUE

‘Kartografi’: The testing of our boundaries

Scott Eric Williams’s new art project challenges our ideas of mapping, moving into philosophical territory

  • Nkgopoleng Moloi
7 min read
Writer Sol Plaatje ‘constantly exploded the image created of him’. (SOAS Archives, University of London)
AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
Video

Sol Plaatje and the antinomies of writing against ‘South Africa’

The renowned author’s foundational anti-colonial work deserves more than a dogmatic reading

  • V Njabulo Zwane
5 min read
Polyhedra, still 5 from Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum’s book There Are Mechanisms in Place (2018), published by Michaelis Galleries, UCT
ART

The landscape of meaning: mechanism and memory in depictions of disaster

‘There Are Mechanisms in Place’ posits that the all-encompassing physicality of the landscape does not reference an ‘abstract’ danger, but one that is created by both nature and…

  • Amie Soudien
8 min read
Frank B. Wilderson III standing in front of Vista University campus in Soweto, where he was a lecturer. This image is taken from an article written by Wilderson and published by Tribute magazine in 1994. The article exposed links between Vista University and the Broederbond. (Supplied)
ACHILLE MBEMBE

Part I: ‘Afropessimism’ and the rituals of anti-black violence

Frank B Wilderson discusses ‘Afropessimism’, his memoir that analyses structural violence

  • Zamansele Nsele
15 min read
Defiant dreams: Pictures are used without captions in Saidiya Hartman’s book.
BLACK FUNGIBILITY
Video

Inside the circle: A review of Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

Saidiya Hartmanilluminates the perspectives of young Black women through a vividly cinematic narrative where we are positioned to view the world through their eyes.

  • Zamansele Nsele
7 min read