CONTRIBUTORS

Wanelisa Xaba

is a gender activist and decolonial education scholar from South Africa. She is passionate about the decolonization of the education system so that it is human, affirming, free and accessible. She believes education should be a vehicle for psycho-social growth and it should liberate. Xaba obtained a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Gender Studies and Politics in 2012. She completed an Honours degree in African Studies in 2014, Masters in Social Development in 2018 and a PhD in Women’s and Gender Studies at University of the Western Cape. As an activist, Xaba’s scholarship seeks to bridge the colonial dichotomy between academia and activism, that places academics as “knowledge producers” and activists & disadvantaged communities as “case studies”.

Makhosazana (Khosi) Xaba’s

poetry, fiction and academic work reflects a lifetime actively involved with politics. Born in Greytown, Kwazulu-Natal, Xaba is trained as both a midwife and a psychiatric nurse, has worked with national and international NGOs and media organisations in the areas of women’s rights, gender and anti-bias training and violence against LGBT communities, and, during the second state of emergency in 1986, went into exile, returning to South Africa in 1990 with the African National Congress Women’s League. Xaba began writing poetry in 2000, and has an MA in Writing from Wits University. Xaba states that ‘[w]e must write as much as possible for future generations to understand. How else can I explain to my child why we couldn’t use the same toilets as white people, and answer her when she asks how could we allow that to happen?’ Xaba has published two collections of poetry, these hands (Timbila, 2005) and Tongues of their Mothers (UKZN Press, 2008), has featured in numerous anthologies. Xaba is a STIAS Fellow.

Sylvia Vollenhoven

is a writer, award-winning journalist, playwright and filmmaker. Commissioned by the Volksoperahuis of Amsterdam to write Krotoa Eva van de Kaap, a play that premiered in the Netherlands to standing ovations before sold-out runs in South Africa.  Stellenbosch University Project Manager for the 2023 Krotoa Building renaming process. A Knight as well as STIAS Fellow (Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies). Awarded Sweden’s main journalism prize by the Publicistklubben, the prestigious Nordic academy of writers and publishers. Her short film | XAU on the profound nature of intellectual erasure and linguistic loss was selected for the Hollywood African Cinema Connection Film Festival in 2023. Nomination: Cinema for Peace Award 2021 for Jozi Gold (Co Director & SA Producer). Commissioned by the District Six Museum and Artscape to write Dance of the La Gumas: Revolution, Rumba & Romance, a play about the renowned writer Alex La Guma. The Keeper of the Kumm, her historic non-fiction novel cum memoire about KhoeSan identity, won the Mbokodo Literature Award. The NAF main programme also selected another of her plays, Cold Case – Revisiting Dulcie September. The latter won both the inaugural Adelaide Tambo Award for Human Rights in the Arts as well as a Standard Bank Audience Award.

Ben Watson

(born 1956) is a British writer on music and culture of Marxist views, known especially for his writings on Frank Zappa. Watson is well known as a regular contributor to The Wire, as well as the author of numerous books, often entailing studies of popular culture from the perspective of Marxist aesthetics. His first full-length book, Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play argued that Zappa’s work was part of the protest against capitalist society. Since 2003 Watson has broadcast a weekly radio show on Resonance FM called Late Lunch with Out To Lunch.

Dylan Valley

is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and educator. He is currently a Lecturer at the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town, and a PhD student in media studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Dylan has directed various documentaries for South African and international television, namely the award winning Afrikaaps (2010), The Uprising of Hangberg with Aryan Kaganof (2010). His PhD research explores how the internet is shaping new methods of filmmaking on the African continent, and in the diaspora.

Dick Tuinder

born in 1963 is a film maker, fine artist, cartoonist, novelist and, more recently has been a Consulent for the Netherlands Film Fund. His feature films as director include Afscheid van de Maan (2014) and Winterland (2009). He is the subject of Aryan Kaganof’s documentary film Civilization and Other Chimeras Observed During the Making of An Exceptionally Artistic Feature Film (2009).

Tenzin Tsundue

after graduating from Madras, South India, braved snowstorms and treacherous mountains, broke all rules and restrictions, crossed the Himalayas on foot and went into forbidden Tibet! The purpose? To see the situation of his occupied country and lend a hand to the freedom struggle. Arrested by China’s border police, and locked up in prison in Lhasa for three months, he was later ‘pushed back’ to India. Born to a Tibetan refugee family who laboured on India’s border roads around Manali, North India, during the chaotic era of Tibetan refugee resettlement in the early seventies, Tenzin Tsundue is a writer-activist, a rare blend in the Tibetan community in exile. He published his first book of poems, Crossing the Border, in 1999 with money begged and borrowed from his classmates at Bombay University. In 2001 he won the ‘Outlook-Picador Award for Non-Fiction’. His second book, Kora, is already in its eighth edition, and his third title, Semshook, is in its third edition. In January 2002, while Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji was addressing Indian business tycoons in Mumbai’s Oberoi Towers, Tsundue scaled scaffolding to the 14th floor to unfurl a Tibetan national flag and a FREE TIBET banner. In April 2005 he repeated a similar stunning one-man protest when Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was visiting Bangalore. Because of these daring protest actions, Tsundue is often detained and is under police surveillance whenever Chinese leaders visit India.

Robin Tomens

has been making art since producing zines in the Punk era. His multimedia collages and visual poetry have been featured in the exhibition Visual Poetry on the Page: With, Within, and Without the Word and with The Tunnel collective in London. Timglaset (Sweden) and Redfoxpress (Ireland) have published his booklets; his work has also appeared in Le Monde Diplomatique and Explorations In Media Technology. His art has been used for album covers, and he makes his own artist’s books, most recently a collection of typewriter art called Yes I No. He has also written a book on Jazz, Points of Departure: Essays on Modern Jazz (Stride, 2001) and contributed to Cut Up! (Oneiris Books, 2014). He lives in London.

Simon Taylor 

graduated at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, with a PhD in artistic research directing the multilingual group Minus Theatre. He is the recipient of the 2017 Design & Creative Technologies Outstanding Doctoral Award from AUT. Since then his explorations and experiments continue in the nexus between practice  and research, most recently in the field of  moving image. He also writes and makes the pieces, works and series which go to make up squarewhiteworld.com, a weblog started in 2007 as venue and as clearing-house for both original and research material. These include scripts for theatre (before Minus, he founded and directed Stronghold Theatre) and film (he and his brother, Dominic, directed music and art videos), creative works in many forms and genres, gleanings and critiques (of  political and artistic practice). When not working in the pedagogic-artistic war-machine, he lives and works as librarian at the local library on Waiheke Island.

Bongani Tau

is a fashion researcher, writer, and creative consultant in the advertising industry. His work features in multiple international publications. His creative endeavours include Abengoni as a research and outreach project to empower South African township youth through critical fashion education and multi-media studies.

Warrick Swinney (Sony)

is a recording artist and sound theorist who doubles as a fictional music collective known as the Kalahari Surfers. He was a founder and formative part of the Shifty mobile studio and record company based in Johannesburg during the turbulent years straddling the collapse of apartheid and South Africa’s transition to democracy (1984-1997). With an interest in sound and politics, Swinney’s approach to the sonic arts is rooted in a solid DIY post-punk aesthetic. After working in music composition, production and sound design at Milestone Studios for eighteen years he moved into academia completing an MFA (with distinction) from the University of Cape Town (2018) and secured a Mellon Fellowship for a PhD through the University of the Western Cape (completed in 2024). He exhibited two video works at the 64th Venice Biennale and during the Autumn of 2022 Radio Art Residency (Bauhaus University), he exhibited 15 video/sonic art works under the title Mutant Farmyard Activities. These were at the Eigenheim Gallery in Weimar in Germany. He taught sound and glitch-art based courses at the Michaelis School of Art and is currently working on software based solutions for the hard of hearing.

Space Afrika

are Joshua Inyang & Joshua Reid. With their slow-stepping, spacious urban dubscapes, Space Afrika harness the sounds of ambient, trip-hop, Detroit techno, modern classical, and shades of early nineties Sheffield. The duo are producers, visual artists, performers, and hosts on NTS Radio. Heavily inspired by the industrial architecture of Northwest England and notions of travel, their sonic framework evokes images of rust and disintegrating concrete, and sensations of movement and redemption — exuding a distorted analogue soul offering escape into their overcast skies. Space Afrika collaborated with photographer, filmmaker, and poet Tibyan Mahawah Sanoh on the short film, Untitled (To Describe You), which they described as, “a living, breathing study of the duo’s Northern working-class Black British reality.” In 2022, Space Afrika were nominated by DJ Mag as “Best Live Act”. In 2023, they scored Dior’s Haute Couture Spring Summer 2023, and signed to Warp Publishing.

Kelwyn Sole

is a South African poet, born in Johannesburg in 1951. After studying English at the University of Witwatersrand, and taking an MA from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, he began a career teaching English and History in Botswana. He would later take a PhD from Witwatersrand on the subject of the South African Black Consciousness Movement of the 1970s. Sole is the author of six collections of poetry—including The Blood of Our Silence (Raven, 1988) and Absent Tongues (Hands-On Books, 2012)—for which he has received several awards, including the Olive Schreiner Prize and the Thomas Pringle Award for Poetry. As well as a poet, he is also a prolific and acclaimed critic, and is Professor Emeritus (of English) at the University of Cape Town.

Dr Charla Smith

is a post doctoral fellow at Professor Ratele’s Centre for Critical and Creative Thought at Stellenbosch University.

Douglas Reid Skinner

was born in Upington in 1949. After graduating from Selborne College in the mid-Sixties, he worked briefly in accounting and retail before attending Rhodes University, working in retail and on a gold mine to pay his way. In the early 1970s, he worked in drilling, mining and prospecting in the Northern Cape for a number of years. He has published many books of poems and is co-editor of the Cape Town-based poetry magazine, Stanzas.

Eugene Skeef

is a South African percussionist, composer, poet, educationalist and animateur who has lived in London since 1980. He also works in conflict resolution, acts as a consultant on cultural development, teaches creative leadership and is a broadcaster. As a young activist he worked alongside the anti-apartheid leader Steve Biko and co-led a nation-wide literacy campaign teaching in schools, colleges, and communities across South Africa. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and has served on the board of directors of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO). In March 2005 Eugene performed with his Abantu Ensemble at Buckingham Palace and was presented to the Queen as part of the historic Music Day to celebrate the diversity of culture in Britain. In June 2008 Eugene and Richard Bissill’s, Excite! an orchestral commission by the LPO, premiered at the Royal Festival Hall at Southbank Centre, London. Eugene is the Artistic Director of Quartet of Peace which uses music to bring about peaceful resolutions to conflict and poverty, with a special focus on young people.

Sophia Olivia Sanan

holds a master’s degree in Sociology (from the Universities of Freiburg, Germany; Jawaharlal Nehru University, India and the University of Cape Town, 2014) and a PhD in Sociology through the University of Cape Town (2024). Her doctoral dissertation investigated politics of identity, loss and heritage through a study of the African art collection at the Iziko South African National Gallery. She has a professional background in African cultural policy development, education and art related research and has taught university students in South Africa, as well as travelling academic programs in Uganda, the USA, Brazil and India. Since late 2020, she has worked with 12 museums in Africa, South America and South Asia, exploring ideas and practices of museology from Southern perspectives. She publishes on themes related to museology in the Global South; race and arts education; race, inequality and visual culture.

Bárbara Rousseaux

is an economist who works in the creative field. Throughout her career, she coordinated several cultural projects, human rights initiatives, and worked as an arts journalist. In 2018, Bárbara moved to South Africa to work at the Embassy of Argentina and coordinate their cultural programme. Since then, she has been harnessing cultural ties between Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. She currently works at the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation (JCAF) as Project Manager for Latin America and Managing Editor for the JCAF Journal. Bárbara is also the co-founder and Director of drift, a literary agency that represents African authors in Latin America and Spain. Her texts on contemporary art, film and politics have been published by Le Quotidien de l’Art, Sunday Times, Mail & Guardian, artthrob and others.

Andrea Rolfes

makes stuff, taps away at her computer keys, plays with paint and other things. Gazes out of the window and dreams and is part of the herri team.

Kopano Ratele

is professor of psychology at the University of Stellenbosch and head of the Stellenbosch Centre for Critical and Creative Thought. He is the former director of the SAMRC-Unisa’s Masculinity and Health Research Unit and former research professor at Unisa where he ran the Transdisciplinary African Psychologies Programme. Ratele was a member of the second Ministerial Committee on Transformation of South African Universities, former chairperson of Sonke Gender Justice, and past president of the Psychological Society of South Africa. He is on the national advisory board for the Future Professors Programme. Ratele has published extensively and his latest books are Why Men Hurt Women and Other Reflections on Love, Violence and Masculinity (2022) and The World Looks Like This From Here: Thoughts on African Psychology (2019). Prof Ratele is also Guest Editor of the African Psychology Theme Section of herri 10.

Lesego Rampolokeng

is a poet, novelist, playwright, filmmaker and writing teacher who rose to prominence in the 1980s, a turbulent period in South Africa’s history. He is the author of several pioneering collections of poetry including Talking Rain (1993), The Bavino Sermons (1999), Head on Fire (2012) and A Half Century Thing (2015). He is also the author of three novels, two plays, screenplays and has collaborated in performances and recording with several musicians.

Richard Pithouse

is a scholar, journalist, editor, teacher and activist working from Johannesburg, South Africa. He has taught philosophy and politics in South African universities since 1995, and published widely in academic journals and books with a particular focus on Frantz Fanon and popular struggles in South Africa. He has been a regular contributor to the media in South Africa for more than twenty-five years, and has held positions as a columnist and editor-in-chief.

Mario Pissarra

is director of the Africa South Art Initiative (ASAI) and an Honorary Research Associate at the Durban University of Technology.

H. J. (Henning) Pieterse

(gebore 1960 in Wageningen, Nederland) studeer, ná diensplig, tale en musiek aan die Universiteit van Pretoria en die Universiteit van Suid-Afrika. Hy behaal die grade BA, BA(Hons) en MA al drie cum laude en die graad DLitt et Phil in Afrikaanse taalkunde (1995). Hy doseer sedert 1983 by onderskeidelik die Universiteit van Pretoria, die Universiteit van die Witwatersrand, Vista-Universiteit, die Universiteit van Suid-Afrika, die Universiteit van Johannesburg en die Universiteit van die Vrystaat. Hy ontvang die Van Schaikprys vir Taalkunde (1983), die Tafelbergprys vir Honneursstudie (1984), toekennings van die Duitse Ambassade vir prestasies in Duits II en III en die “Toekenning vir uitstaande referaat” van die Suider-Afrikaanse Vereniging vir Linguistiek (1993). In 1989 verskyn sy digdebuut, Alruin, wat bekroon word met die Eugène Maraisprys (1990) en die Ingrid Jonkerprys (1991). Hy is Hoofredakteur van Tydskrif vir Letterkunde tussen 1992 en 2002. In 1998 publiseer hy ’n bundel kortverhale, Omdat ons alles is, en in 2000 ’n tweede digbundel, Die burg van hertog Bloubaard, wat bekroon word met die Hertzogprys in 2002 en op die kortlys was van die Helgaard Steynprys (2006). Sy vertaling van Rainer Maria Rilke se Duineser Elegien uit Duits na Afrikaans (Duino-Elegieë) is gepubliseer in 2007 en word in 2008 bekroon met die Nedbank-Akademieprys vir Vertaalde Werk. Sy vrye, berymde vertaling van Van den vos Reynaerde (c. 1260) verskyn in 2023 as Reinaard die vos. In 2009 skryf hy ’n libretto vir ’n opera oor die Nama-leier Hendrik Witbooi, 1894 (’n werk-in-wording).

Njabulo Phungula

is a composer from Durban, South Africa. Drawing on his engagement with literature, film, the visual arts, his music documents the exploration of convoluted forms, inspired by the concepts of time, memory, gesture, and the creative process itself. He was named as a laureate of the impuls Composers Competition for 2025, received the 2023 Henri Lazarof International Commission Prize from Brandeis University, as well as the 1st prize at the inaugural SASF Composers Competition for his work Bound objects. He holds a BA Hons degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal where he studied composition under the supervision of Jürgen Bräuninger, and later with Clare Loveday.

Marko Phiri

is a Zimbabwean writer. His work had appeared in numerous platforms that include Mail and Guardian (South Africa), Kalahari Review, Chimurenga, herri, African Arguments among others.

Uhuru Phalafala

has a PhD in English literature from the University of Cape Town (2016). Her research interests include Cold War-era material cultures and archives, black internationalism, and African and diasporic intellectual traditions. She is a recipient of a NRF Thuthuka Grant and the Andrew Mellon ‘Unsettling Paradigms’ Grant (2020). Dr Phalafala co-edited Collected Poems: Keorapetse Kgositsile (1969-2018), published by the University of Nebraska’s African Poetry Book Fund. She is a fellow of the University of Michigan African Presidential Scholar Program, and the American Council of Learned Society’s African Humanities Program. Her monograph, Keorapetse Kgositsile & the Black Arts Movement, reframes often unseen and unaccounted-for Black women as the bedrock of Black revolutionary thought.

Martijn Pantlin

is a full stack web developer specialized in making custom web experiences. He has more than 20 years of IT experience, working in the fields of 3D animation, art direction and executive management of video games before switching to web development 10 years ago. With roots in Amsterdam, Martijn is a free roaming world citizen and based everywhere the web goes.

Desmond Painter

is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Stellenbosch University, a founding member of the Stellenbosch Centre for Critical and Creative Thought and associated with the psychosocial services provider Camissa Communication. He has co-edited three books, Doing Psychology Under New Conditions (with Athanasios Marvakis, Johanna Motzkau, Rose Ruto-Korir, Gavin Sullivan, Sofia Triliva and Martin Wieser), Interiors: A History of Psychology in South Africa (with Clifford van Ommen) and Research in Practice: Applied Methods for the Social Sciences (with Martin Terre Blanche and Kevin Durrheim); a special edition of the journal Theory & Psychology on Klaus Holzkamp and German Critical Psychology; and three issues of the Annual Review of Critical Psychology (ARCP 10: Critical Psychology in a Changing World: Building Bridges and Expanding the Dialogue; ARCP 12: Marxism & Psychology 2; ARCP 16: Kritische Psychologie). As author he has published scholarly chapters and articles as well as essays, opinion pieces and book reviews for the popular media (websites, magazines and newspapers). His poetry (in Afrikaans) has been published on literary websites and in a joint volume, Nuwe Stemme 5 (2013).

Khulile Nxumalo

was born in Diepkloof, Soweto, in 1971. He lives in Johannesburg with his partner and their two children, and pays the rent by working in television as a writer, researcher, and director. His poems have been published in South Africa, Canada, UK and the USA.

Augustine Nwoye’s

work focuses on African Psychology as a postcolonial discipline. Professor Nwoye has held distinguished teaching positions in several universities in Africa, along with visiting fellowships and lectures at many international universities including the Universities of Cambridge, Toronto, Stockholm, Howard, and the Holy Cross.

Mphuthumi Ntabeni

contributes to various national and international publications, including The Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa and The Johannesburg Review of Books. His historical novel, The Broken River Tent,  won the University of Johannesburg’s Debut Prize for South African writing in English. Ntabeni was also one of six writers from the African continent included in the collection of short stories, Africa Fresh! New Voices From The First Continent that was published in the US. He has worked with the Rhodes University Drama department to stage two plays which he wrote about the life and times of the Xhosa chiefs, Maqoma and his half brother Sandile that were featured on the South Africa’s National Arts Festival.

Muziwakhe Nhlabatsi

b 1954, Johannesburg, South Africa; lives in Johannesburg. Muziwakhe Nhlabatsi is a graphic artist and illustrator, best known for his representations of political themes, published in progressive media in the 1970s and 1980s. Flexible across drawing and print media, Nhlabatsi’s images have accompanied works by Es’kia Mphahlele, Chabani Manganyi and others, have appeared in texts by Black publishing House Skotaville, and have featured multiple times in anti-apartheid publication Staffrider. The artist currently runs a digital art studio in Soweto.

Vuyokazi Ngemntu

is a writer-performer situated in Cape Town, South Africa, whose praxis uses poetry, song, physical theatre, storytelling and ritual to navigate ancestral trauma, confront inequality and inspire healing. She also has a publication history in art writing, fiction and creative non-fiction. Recent highlights include having her short story, ‘Binnegoed’ selected as the overall winner of Ibua Journal’s 2022 ‘Bold: Food’ regional. Another milestone includes having her short story ‘The Serpent’s Handmaiden’ shortlisted for the Share Africa Climate Change Fiction Award. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Kalahari Review, herri, Ibua Journal, Ake Review, The Culture Review, Short.Sharp.Stories, Aerodrome and elsewhere.

Professor Njabulo Ndebele

is Chairman of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation. He holds an MA from Cambridge University and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. His leadership in South African higher education has seen him serve as Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of the Western Cape, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the North (now Limpopo) and two terms as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town. He is also the former Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg. He also served as Chair of the South African Universities Vice-Chancellors Association; President of the Association of African Universities; and founding Chair of the Southern African Regional Universities Association.He chaired three South African government commissions: on broadcasting, the teaching of history in schools, and the use of African languages as media of instruction in South African universities. An award-winning author, he has published fiction and essays to critical acclaim.

Thembile Ndabeni

is a former History tutor and assistant-researcher at the University of Western Cape and Mayibuye Centre. He moved on and worked at Western Cape Archives and Records Service in the Reading Room and Outreach units.

Dathini Mzayiya

is former artist-in-residence at Greatmore studios in Woodstock, Cape Town, who was born in Queenstown in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa in 1979. After studying advertising and marketing at the Advertising College of South Africa, Cape Town, in 1999, he enrolled at the Peninsula Technikon (Pentech), Bellville, Cape Town, in 2000, where studied graphic design and advertising. He then registered for the Advanced Programme in Visual Arts at the Community Arts Project (CAP), Cape Town, in 2001. He participated in a project for the South African Human Rights Media Centre in Liberia and Kenya, where he worked with survivors of torture and war. Using oil paint and charcoal, Mzayiya’s critical art depicts the socio-political landscape of the postapartheid, with particular focuses on racialised structural violence and the plight of the poor and downtrodden. Mzayiya is a founding member of Western Cape branch of the Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA); Africa South Arts Initiative (ASAI); CitySkin, a public space design firm; and Gugulective, an arts, culture and open education collective intent on making “the history and legacy of apartheid visible again and to combat it with artistic methods.”

Addamms Songe Mututa

is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Johannesburg and a co-editor of the Journal of African Cinemas. He researches African cinema cultures and theory. He holds a joint PhD in Film Studies / African Literature from Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen – Germany – and the University of the Witwatersrand – South Africa. He broadly researches postcolonial cinema / literary cultures in Global South.

Elmi Muller

is a transplant surgeon and the dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Stellenbosch University (SU) – the first female to occupy this role. She is an international leader in the healthcare sector and the president of The Transplantation Society (TTS), the largest international society in the transplantation field. Elmi’s groundbreaking research on the transplantation of HIV-positive donor organs into HIV-positive recipients has not only saved numerous lives in South Africa, but has also had an impact on healthcare policies globally. Her research has appeared in leading medical journals such as The Lancet, Nature Medicine and the New England Journal of Medicine. She has been awarded two esteemed U01 grants from the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate the impact of utilising HIV-positive donors with different viral strains. In addition, Elmi has extensively studied issues relating to organ trafficking, regulation, ethics and training. In this regard, she is a former chair of the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group and a member of the World Health Organisation’s Transplantation Taskforce. Elmi’s academic and scholarly impact also extends beyond the field of transplantation. She is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and an honorary member of the European Surgical Association. She previously headed up the Transplant Unit at Groote Schuur Hospital and was the first woman to be appointed chair of General Surgery at the University of Cape Town. Elmi holds a prestigious A1 rating with the South African National Research Foundation. In 2023, she received a gold medal from the South African Medical Research Council for her outstanding contributions to health research.

Ezekiel Mphahlele

(born Dec. 17, 1919, Marabastad, S.Af.—died Oct. 27, 2008, Lebowakgomo) was a novelist, essayist, short-story writer, and teacher whose autobiography, Down Second Avenue (1959), is a South African classic. It combines the story of a young man’s growth into adulthood with penetrating social criticism of the conditions forced upon black South Africans by apartheid. His early career as a teacher of English and Afrikaans was terminated by the government because of his strong opposition to the highly restrictive Bantu Education Act. In Pretoria he was fiction editor of Drum magazine (1955–57) and a graduate student at the University of South Africa (M.A., 1956). He went into voluntary exile in 1957, first arriving in Nigeria. Thereafter Mphahlele held a number of academic and cultural posts in Africa, Europe, and the United States. He was coeditor with Ulli Beier and Wole Soyinka of the influential literary periodical Black Orpheus (1960–64), published in Ibadan, Nigeria. In 1977 he returned to South Africa and became head of the department of African Literature at the University of Witwatersrand (1983–87). Mphahlele’s critical writings include two books of essays, The African Image (1962) and Voices in the Whirlwind (1972), that address Negritude, the African personality, the black African writer, and the literary image of Africa. His later works include the novels The Wanderers (1971) and Chirundu (1979) and a sequel to his autobiography, Afrika My Music (1984). Es’kia (2002) and Es’kia Continued (2005) are collections of essays and other writings.

Fikile-Ntsikelela Moya

is a former editor of Sowetan, The Witness, The Mercury and Pretoria News Weekend, and deputy editor of City Press and Pretoria News. He currently prefers to describe himself as a social commentator and media practitioner. He is an Orlando Pirates supporter who earns a living as an associate editor/sports editor for the Mail & Guardian

Naomi Mòrgan

lecturer at the UFS Department of Afrikaans and Dutch; German and French, received the prestigious Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres award at the French Embassy in Pretoria on Monday 26 January 2015.The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and its supplementary status to the Ordre national du Mérite was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is the recognition of significant contributions to the arts, literature, or the propagation of these fields. Prof Morgan is being recognised for her translation work of plays such as ‘Oskar en die Pienk Tannies’, as well as translations of Afrikaans songs to French for the popular Afri-Frans compilation. The fact that the French Government gives such a highly-acclaimed award in recognition to the ‘art of translation’ is even more of an overwhelming honour to her than the personal achievement in itself.

Palesa Mokwena

(born in Pretoria 4/6/1990) is a visual artist and poet. She holds a Master’s degree in Art History (Cum Laude) from Rhodes University and works as a part time lecturer. Mokwena is currently pursuing her PhD studies at Stellenbosch University and her work mainly focuses on Black Existentialism in visual culture. Her interests include Black Feminism/Womanism, The Black Consciousness Movement, African Spirituality and Performance Art.

Kneo Mokgopa

is an artist living and working in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their current works explore scenes of identity-making in Black queer, post-Apartheid, South Africa in oil paints and collage on enamel and plastic bowls and basins commonly used in South Africa for eating, bathing and other domestic uses by many Black people in Southern Africa. Kneo is also a burgeoning writer with a regular column in the Daily Maverick where they explore South African socio-economic politics. They host the Unthere podcast and work at the Nelson Mandela Foundation as the Advocacy and Communications Manager. They are a graduate of the Jules and Wilfred Kramer Law School at the University of Cape Town and are currently writing their Masters dissertation on Human Rights and Africanist political movements.

Sabata-mpho Mokae 

is an academic, novelist and translator. He is the author of a biography The Story of Sol T Plaatje (2010) and novels Ga ke Modisa (2012), Dikeledi (2014) and Moletlo wa Manong (2018). He has won the South African Literary Award (2011), M-Net Literary Award for Best Novel in Setswana (2013) and the M-Net Film Award (2013). He has translated two children’s books by Gcina Mhlophe, Dinaane tsa Aforika (Tales of Africa) and Semaka sa Dinaane (Our Story Magic), from English to Setswana. He teaches Creative Writing at the Sol Plaatje University in Kimberley.

Andiswa Mkosi

is a multifaceted artist, encompassing the roles of a Documentary Photographer, Filmmaker, and Visual storyteller. Her areas of expertise lie in Behind The Scenes and Black & White Photography, showcasing her dedication to these specific genres. However, her creative vision extends far beyond the camera lens, as she endeavours to unveil the narratives of everyday life and explore thought-provoking social commentary. Notably, ANDYMKOSI’s talent as a photographer has been recognized through her contribution as the cover photographer for the award-winning poetry anthology, Collective Amnesia. This accomplishment speaks to her ability to capture the essence of the written word through her evocative visual storytelling.

Lerato Lavas Mlambo

explores the intersection of music, memory, and space through collective thinking, blending various genres and influences to create a playlist that is both familiar and fresh. As a DJ, she is interested in music as it pertains to memory and accessing parts of herself she’s had either unexplored or hidden from herself and the world. At this stage, she plays music that helps situate her in the world, offering these moments with audiences to contemplate with her. Lavas is a co-founder of a kool, dry place studio. a kool, dry place is an expansive exercise in, and location for cultivating enriching, ongoing creative studio practice. One of the studio’s projects is Love Ethic, a music experience  focused on exploring community and connection through a love ethic; creating a space where all dimensions of love can unfold their potent dance. She is also a resident at Oroko Radio where she produces and hosts a show called Mother Tongue.  Mother Tongue is a music research project exploring music lineages and influences passed down from, and shared by mothers and maternal figures in people’s lives. This project seeks to explore the profound impact of maternal guidance on the musical expressions of individuals, unveiling the interconnected threads that shape our musical identities.

Dilip M Menon

is Professor of History and International Relations at the University of Witwatersrand. For the past decade he has been engaged in the intellectual project of thinking from the global south which has resulted in a series of edited volumes on early capitalisms, generating concepts from Africa and Asia, thinking with the ocean as method, and most recently on theorizing cinema and visual aesthetics.

Jurgen Meekel

is a multi media artist who studied audio-visual art and sculpture at the Rietveld Academy of Fine-Arts in Amsterdam where he graduated cum laude in 1989. In 2018 he recieved an MAFA with distinction from Wits University. He works and collaborates on contemporary art installation pieces, sculptures, animation, motion graphics, film and video work that he exhibits/broadcasts nationally and internationally. He currently teaches Post Production at the Wits School of the Arts in Film & TV in Johannesburg. He is also part of the design team of herri.

Mbe Mbhele

is an illegitimate child of Dambudzo Marechera and Brenda Fassie. He is nostalgic for a past he has never experienced and as a result listens to Jazz and drinks Zamalek. He is 20′ something but in his head he was born in 1976 a second before Hector Peterson was shot. He is a co-founder of Black Thought Symposium which is an art movement based in Johannesburg. He is committed to scholarship and the black radical tradition. He runs an art blog and participates in social justice projects. His favourite two words are ”Biko Lives”. He is currently studying towards his PhD at the University of Pretoria.

Wamuwi Mbao

lectures in English studies at Stellenbosch University. He writes short fiction, and his research interests are in South African post-apartheid literature, architecture and popular culture. He is a SALA-winning literary critic with the Johannesburg Review of Books. His short story ‘The Bath’ is included in Twenty in 20, a collection of the twenty most significant short stories post-1994.

Mtutuzeli Matshoba

was born in Soweto in 1950 and six years later began school as one the first of the Bantu education generation at a Salvation Army school in Orlando East. He attended secondary school in Lovedale in the Eastern Cape and in Vryheid in the then Natal, before being expelled from Fort Hare University in 1976 for what he admits was general insubordination. Matshoba wrote protest literature as one of the founding members of Ravan Press and was also a contributor to the frequently banned Staffrider Magazine. In 1978, Ravan Press published his collection of short stories Call Me Not A Man. This landmark and strident collection addressed urban black and migrant worker experience after the 1976 uprisings. Matshoba also appeared in anthologies like Forced Landing and To Kill A Man’s Pride and, in 1980, won the English Academy Pringle Award in the Creative Writing category. His short stories eventually attracted the attention of film makers, which resulted in him moving into scriptwriting. In a long and distinguished career Matshoba has been involved in the creation and writing of famous television productions such as Soweto, The History, Yizo Yizo, Stokvel, Scoop Scoombie, and Zero Tolerance. He graduated to feature film with the much acclaimed comedy Chikin Biznis (directed by Ntshaveni wa Luruli), which won Best Film in FESPACO in Burkina Faso.

Pumeza Matshikiza

studied at the University of Cape Town and the Royal College of Music. Roles at the RCM included Marenka (The Bartered Bride), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus), Concepcion (L’heure espagnole), Poppea (L’incoronazione di Poppea) and Contessa (Le nozze di Figaro). The soprano also participated in masterclasses with renowned artists such as Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Thomas Allen, Renata Scotto, Joan Rogers, Paul Farrington, Philip Langridge and Ileana Cotrubas. In 2010 Pumeza was awarded with the 1^st Prize in the Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition and became an Associate Artist of the Classical Opera Company, singing the title role in Mozart’s Zaide for which she was awarded with the Patrick Fyffe-Dame Hilda Brackett Prize. Described as “one of today’s most exciting new operatic voices” (Independent), she is an exclusive Decca Classics recording artist: her debut album Voice of Hope, featuring arias and traditional and popular African songs, and Arias with a selection of operatic arias and songs from her current repertoire.

Sam Mathe

is an award-winning South African journalist, researcher, archivist, historian, author and publisher. He has written two books – From Kippie to Kippies: Group Portraits of South African Artists (2021), a biographical history of South African music and When You Are Gone and Other Poems (2023). He’s the founding editor of Jazz Life Magazine and contributing author of South Africa’s Greatest Entrepreneurs (2010), Brenda Fassie: I’m Not Your Weekend Special (2014), Joburg Noir (2010) as well as Culture and the Liberation Struggle in South Africa (2021).

Khahliso Matela

born on August 25th 1979, is a South African video artist and documentary filmmaker, whose work deals with a variety of social and aesthetic concepts. His artistic practice is not bound by convention and dogmas of traditional methodologies. Matela, who also refers to his craft as that of a video poet, has shown a keen interest in the liminal spaces of visual creativity, and independently produces his challenging and psychologically engaging video poems. An avid blogger and critical thinker, he publishes his writing on anirrationaldiary.

Napo Masheane

is a multi-award winning playwright, director, poet and acclaimed performer on both national and international stages. Napo is one of the leading South African black female theatre-makers, constantly crossing geographical, academic and artistic borders, through cultural exchanges, guest-lecturing, and with her provocative plays, ‘My Bum Is Genetic Deal With It’, ‘A New Song ‘, ‘KHWEZI… Say My Name’ and ‘My Vagina Was Not Buried With Him’, to name a few. A founding member of Feela Sistah! Spoken Word Collective and Village Gossip Productions and previously the Deputy Artistic Director at the South African State
Theatre, with qualifications in Marketing Management, Speech & Drama and
a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing.

Denis-Constant Martin

obtained several degrees in sociology, political science and African linguistics (Kiswahili) and holds both a Ph.D. (Doctorat de Troisidme Cycle) and a Doctorat is-Lettresfrom the Sorbonne (University Paris 5-Rend Descartes). He is now retired after having been an outstanding Senior Research Fellow of the National Foundation for Political Science (France). Martin has done extensive field research in Eastern and Southern Africa as well as in the Commonwealth Caribbean. He is a member of the French Society for Ethnomusicology and the francophone branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. His research focus on the comparative study of the relationship between culture and politics, with a particular interest in popular festivals and popular music, and an emphasis on the political expression of communal identities. He has published many articles on South Africa and Cape Town’s cultures and has authored three books on CapeTown’s musics and festivals.

Ruth Margalit

studied English Literature and History at Tel Aviv University and earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She is a contributing writer to magazines and newspapers including The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Columbia Journalism Review, Harper’s, Haaretz, Tablet and Slate.

N. Chabani Manganyi 

is one of South Africa’s most eminent intellectuals and an astute social and political observer. He has had a distinguished career in psychology, education and in government, and has written widely on subjects relating to ethno-psychiatry, autobiography, black artists and race.

Slovo Mamphaga

Malaika Mahlatsi

is the bestselling author of Memoirs of a Born Free: Reflections on the Rainbow Nation; Corridors of Death: The Struggle to Exist in Historically White Institutions and Why We Vote For The ANC: Conversations With Young ANC Voters. She is a researcher at the Institute for Pan African Thought and Conversation. Malaika holds a Masters in Public Affairs; a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning and a Masters in Water Resource Science. She’s a PhD in Geography candidate at the University of Bayreuth in Germany.

Lwazi Siyabonga Lushaba

did part of his tertiary education at the University of Transkei, where he obtained a B.A. and a B.A (Hons) in Political Science. As a student he was actively involved in youth and student politics, an involvement that saw him occupy a number of leadership positions. Dr Lushaba obtained an MA in Philosophy from the University of Ibadan, an MPhil from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Kolkata, and a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand. He has taught at Fort Hare and Wits, and he has held a Visiting Fellowship at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Aakriti Kuntal

aged 28, writes from India. Her work has been featured in various literary journals. She was awarded the Reuel International Prize, was a finalist for the RL Poetry Award, and has received a nomination for the Best of the Net.

Oswald Kucherera

is an avid reader, short story writer, poet, novelist and pan-Africanist activist currently residing in Cape Town. He is an author of the best-selling self-published novella, The Exodus Down South (2016) and Washing Dishes and Other Stories (2018). His work is published in various publications including Sleeping Giants Awakes (2018) and Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers (2021). He is a contributing writer for FUNDZA an online publication.

Lou-Marié Kruger

obtained a M.Soc.Sci. (Political Studies) from the University of Cape Town (1989) and a M.A. and PhD (Clinical Psychology) from Boston University (1996). She completed an American Psychological Association accredited internship for Clinical Psychology at Massachusetts Mental Health Centre, Harvard Medical School in 1996. A runner-up for the national award, Distinguished Women Researcher in 2016, she also was awarded a B-2 rating by the NRF in 2017. She is currently Professor and Chair of the department at the Department of Psychology of Stellenbosch University. In her research, she focuses on the emotional worlds of low-income South African mothers, utilising mainly psychoanalytic, feminist and postmodern theoretical frameworks. In 2020 her book Of Motherhood and Melancholia: Notebook of a Psycho-ethnographer was published by UKZN Press.

Karabo Kgoleng

is a broadcaster and facilitator who works with writers and academics in the humanities to give their work a public life. She believes that engagement in social and cultural issues contributes significantly to the transformation of individuals and society. Karabo is a recipient of the South African Literary Award for Journalism and is a sought-after speaker on storytelling as central to public intellectual and cultural life. She has also adjudicated prestigious literary awards and worked on selection panels for short story anthologies. She has worked as Books Editor for City Press, talk show host at SAfm and 702, and at the Department of Arts and Culture as Deputy Director: Books and Publishing. She holds board positions in media, NGO and international cultural organisations.

Adam Keith

is an artist based in New York. He performs music under the alias Cube and publishes the magazine Baited Area.

Nyokabi Kariuki

(she/her) is a Kenyan composer and sound artist. Her sonic imagination is ever-evolving, spanning from classical contemporary to experimental electronic music, explorations in sound art, pop, film, (East) African musical traditions and more. She performs with the piano, voice, electronics, and on several instruments from the African continent, particularly on kalimbas, the mbira, and djembe. She seeks to create meaningful and challenging art, illuminated by a commitment to the preservation and reflection on African thought, language and stories. Nyokabi’s debut EP, ‘peace places: kenyan memories’ (SA Recordings, February 2022), was marked as The Guardian’s 10 Best Contemporary Albums of 2022 and Bandcamp’s Best Albums of Winter 2022, with additional praise from Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, The New York Times, and more. Nyokabi holds a BM in Music Composition and a minor in Creative Writing from New York University (2020), where she studied composition with Dr. Jerica Oblak, songwriting with David Wolfert, among others. She is currently an artist-in-residence at the Helsinki International Artists Program, where she is working on a new record.

Ashraf Kagee

is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Stellenbosch University, co-Director of the Alan Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health, and a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. His research has focused on common mental disorders among persons living with HIV, psychological and structural factors influencing adherence to antiretroviral therapy, and public mental health. Ashraf teaches cognitive psychotherapy and research methods in the Department of Psychology. He serves on the Board of Trustees of the Trauma Centre for Survivors of Violence and Torture in Cape Town and does capacity building work at the Gaza Community Mental Health Centre in Gaza, Palestine.

Aryan Kaganof

conceived of, and is curator and editor of herri.

Fortunate Jwara

is a writer currently based in Gqeberha. She’s a PhD candidate in English Literature at Mandela Uni where she also teaches Creative Writing.

Sisca Julius

won the inaugural 2019 K and L Prize for fiction. She is a Bachelor of Arts student, studying at Sol Plaatje University in Kimberley, South Africa. Her majors are Afrikaans, Creative Writing, Anthropology and Heritage Studies. She writes in Afrikaans and English. Speaking about her prize-winning story Honey Bee, Sisca stated that the story comes out of her own fears that the Nama language will become extinct in South Africa. “if you lose your language, you lose your culture,” she stated.

Shaun Johannes’

musical career started in late 1996 when he started teaching himself how to play piano and to read music. His development on the bass guitar started in 1999. Shaun graduated from the University of Cape Town in 2010 with a M. Mus Degree in ‘Performance & Dissertation. He has worked in the capacity of Musical Director with many different artists, including Freshly Ground, Hugh Masekela, Elvis Blue, Jonny Clegg, Gloria Bosman to name a few. He is currently employed as the ‘Electric Bass Guitar’ lecturer for the Jazz Studies programme at the University of Cape Town and is the owner/Recording Engineer at ‘Mahogany Recording Studios’.

Aleksandar Jevtić

was born in 1978. He graduated illustration in 2002 and worked in the advertising industry till 2008. He is active in the Belgrade art scene, using his illustrator background to create highly improvised mixed media storytelling drawings that reflect his relationship with urban spaces and local communities, their everyday life and mythology that surrounds them. He does his research, exploring the city on foot, discovering abandoned, forgotten and liminal spaces, taking pictures and talking to the people who live there and other urban explorers. His work deals with relationships of people, animals, animate and inanimate objects, cybernetics, imaginary and mythological entities, deliberately blurring the definitions and borderlines of all of these.

Khadija Tracey Heeger

is a highly regarded poet, actor, cultural activist and playwright who hails from the Cape Flats. Her work has been characterised as stark and unapologetic. Khadija’s debut poetry collection Beyond the Delivery Room was published in 2013. Thicker than Sorrow (2023) is her much anticipated second collection. More recently Khadija has focused on her acting career as her artistic expression. She has featured in many movies and series such as: Arendsvlei, Alles Malan, Afgrond, Sewende Laan, Recipes for Love & Murder, Krismis van Map Jacobs. She was the lead actress opposite Thsumano Sebe in Down so Long, a movie shot in 2019 in Hangberg, Hout Bay.

Shafinaaz Hassim

is a South African author and sociologist. Her more than a dozen publications span a wide range of genres, and her works have been commended in various awards. She was first recognised on the scene of literary works in 2007 with her ground-breaking publication, Daughters are Diamonds: Honour, Shame and Seclusion – A South African Perspective which interrogated the autonomy of women in traditional settings. In 2011, she launched the Anthologies for Social Change with the edited collection Belly of Fire. Her novel SoPhia (2012) documented gender-based violence and was shortlisted for the UJ Prize for Creative Writing in English in 2013 and the K Sello Duiker Award at the SA Literary Awards 2013. In 2020, she published a collection, The Pink Oysters and other stories. Hassim’s well-received novel on human-trafficking, The Economics of Love and Happiness (2019) was recently long-listed for the National Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) awards 2021. Her latest book is The Darlings of Durban.

Ursula Hartzenberg

is Office Manager in the Department of Psychology at Stellenbosch University. Her responsibilities include Human Resources duties within the Psychology Department; Administrative support with the selection process of the MA Clinical Psychology programme; Administrative support for the Welgevallen Community Psychological Clinic; Line Manager to support staff. She is also Financial Administrator of herri.

Noncedo Gxekwa

completed her studies at Cape Peninsula University of Technology and currently lives in Cape Town, South Africa. Her practice engages with collaborative forms of photography, individuals and nature. She collaborated with Resonance Bazar on the Moonsoon Project – a performative research project looking into decolonizing cultural practices emerging in South Africa. In 2016 a residence with Amplify Studio led to the solo exhibition “To Love and Not To Love: A Street View”. A project that helped her rethink her use of the camera. An ongoing project is Carbon Copy which initially interrogated the lives of twins and has evolved into a creative space for explorations of multiple artistic expressions.

Steven J Fowler

is a writer, poet and performer who lives in London. His work explores an expansive idea of poetry and literature – the textual, visual, asemic, concrete, sonic, collaborative, performative, improvised, curatorial – through 50 publications, 400 performances in over 40 countries, 4 large scale event programs, numerous commissions, collaborations and more. His work has been commissioned by The National Gallery, Tate Modern, BBC Radio 3, Somerset House, Tate Britain, London Sinfonietta, Southbank Centre, National Centre for Writing, National Poetry Library, Science Museum and Liverpool Biennial.

Diana Ferrus

is in Worcester in die Wes Kaap gebore. Sy voltooi haar skoolloopbaan aan die Hoërskool Esselenpark. Sy begin in 1973 aan die Universiteit van Weskaapland studeer, maar gaan werk nadat die universiteit sluit. Sy begin deeltyds studeer en behaal ’n honneursgraad in Vrouestudies. Haar eerste verhaal, Die Kind word in 1994 in Die Suid-Afrikaan gepubliseer. Sy het sedertien gedigte en kortverhale in verskeie bundels gepubliseer. Diana is egter meer bekend vir haar gedig wat aan Sara Baartman opgedra is. Hierdie gedig het deel van ’n Franse senator, Nicholas About se vertoë gevorm in sy poging om die oorskot van Sara Baartman terug in Suid-Afrika te kry. Die gedig is in Frans vertaal en vorm deel van die wetgewing wat die terugkeer van Sara Baartman moontlik gemaak het. In 2006 verskyn haar eerste digbundel, Ons Komvandaan, en ’n kortverhaalbundel, Slaan vir my ’n masker, Vader. Diana is een van die stigters van die Afrikaanse Skrywersvereniging (ASV), Bush Poets en Women in Xchains.

Veit Erlmann

holds the Endowed Chair of Music History at the University of Texas at Austin. He studied musicology, sociology, anthropology and philosophy in Berlin and Cologne, where he obtained a Dr.phil. in 1978 and did a Habilitation in musicology in 1989 and in anthropology in 1994. He has done fieldwork in Ecuador and in several African countries such as Cameroon, Niger, Ghana, South Africa and Lesotho. Currently he is doing research in West Sumatra, Indonesia. Among his publications are African Stars, Studies in Black South African Performance and Nightsong, and Performance, Power and Practice in South Africa, both published by the University of Chicago Press. His most recent book, Music, Modernity and the Global Imagination, published by Oxford University Press won the Alan P.Merriam Prize for the best English-language monograph in ethnomusicology.

Thomas Hylland Eriksen

is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and the author of many books including monographs, textbooks, polemical essays,  general nonfiction and two novels. His research, spanning four decades, raises questions concerning the shifting and contested meanings of the word ‘we’ in an era of accelerated change. Among his academic books are Small Places, Large Issues, Ethnicity and Nationalism and Overheating: An Anthropology of Accelerated Change. He used to play tenor saxophone, but to the considerable relief of his neighbours, he now plays a bit of clarinet instead.

Haidar Eid

is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Postmodern Literature at Gaza’s al-Aqsa University. He has written widely on the Arab-Israeli conflict, including articles published at Znet, Electronic Intifada, Palestine Chronicle, and Open Democracy. He has published papers on cultural Studies and literature in a number of journals, including Nebula, Journal of American Studies in Turkey, Cultural Logic, and the Journal of Comparative Literature. Haidar is the author of Worlding Postmodernism: Interpretive Possibilities of Critical Theory  and Countering The Palestinian Nakba: One State For All.

Ismahan Soukeyna Diop

founder of Tampsy Optoa, is a Doctor in Clinical Psychology. She practices at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, in the Department of Psychology. Since the beginning of her practice as a psychologist, Ismahan has used storytelling as a projective material, and this has allowed her to observe how personal issues could be expressed through this medium. In her research, she explored the symbolic dimension of tales’ characters and African mythology.

Dick el Demasiado

nació en 1954 en Eindhoven, Países Bajos.​ Su padre fue empleado de la fábrica Philips.​ Vivió en Guatemala, Argentina, Francia y África del Sur.​ Armó en su país de origen, en la década del 90, el Instituto de Lunatismo Abordable (IBW sus siglas en inglés), cuyas actividades multimediáticas fueron muy conocidas en Europa. También creó en España el Centro Periférico Internacional. ​En Honduras comenzó a mezclar música tropical con electrónica, a la que llamaron cumbia experimental, cumbias lunáticas.

Dominic Daula

was born in East London, where he began piano lessons aged 12 under the tutelage of Dr Widor du Toit. Dominic elected to study music at the University of Cape Town, where he is currently a late-stage PhD candidate in Musicology under the supervision of James May. Accolades from this institution include the prestigious Harry Crossley Research Fellowship and the Robert Andrews prize for piano performance. In 2019, Dominic was awarded an MMus in solo piano performance with distinction by the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. In April 2018, whilst studying at the RNCM, Dominic was invited to take up the editorship of British Music: The Journal of the British Music Society (ISSN 0958-5664), a position he relinquished in February 2022. Dominic’s research outputs have been published by TEMPO (Cambridge University Press), the Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa (Taylor & Francis), and the Royal Musical Association.

Wilfred Damon

Nadine Angel Cloete

is an independent filmmaker from Cape Town, South Africa. Her work focuses on themes of identity and history. Nadine’s work has screened on national TV, online platforms, and global film festivals. Her documentary Miseducation premiered on the New York Times Op-Doc site and IDFA. Action Kommandant is Nadine’s first feature documentary, it tells the story of liberation hero, Ashley Kriel. Her film Net Ons/Just Us premiered at the Silwerskermfees in 2022 and was nominated as Best Southern African Short Film at Sotambe Film Festival, Zambia. Nadine is currently working as the Production and Development Manager for Non-Fiction at the National Film and Video Foundation.

Mwelela Cele

is a Researcher at the Johannesburg Office of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research in South Africa. He visits archive repositories in search of old images and other archival material. He is actively involved in dossier and working document launches in-person through panels at The Commune Bookshop and organising Colloquiums at The Forge, discussing politics and a wide range of issues that affect us. Mwelela is also involved in organising online discussions/webinars as well as accessing archival material online, conducting oral history interviews, and researching images for dossiers.

Hugo ka Canham

is a Professor at the Institute for Social and Health Sciences, University of South Africa. His work is located along the fault lines of black studies, African feminism, African queer theorisations and necropolitics. He studies the phenomenology of living at the margins of human value, suffering and death. His work is invested in detonating the binaries between the human and the natural, multispecies world. It may be understood within the transdisciplinary rubric of Black Planetary Studies. His latest book, Riotous Deathscapes is published by Duke University Press and copublished by Wits University Press.

Zethu Cakata

currently works as a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Africa. She has extensive experience in the field of research and has worked as both an academic and a researcher in institutions in several institutions including, Statistics South Africa, Department of Psychology at the University of Pretoria and Human Sciences Research Council, Reproductive Health Research Unit and the University of the Western Cape. Zethu Cakata’s scholarship is in the field of African Epistemologies and has produced work that advocates for the usage of indigenous languages for epistemic purposes. Zethu’s work has earned her the Unisa Scholarship Award in 2022 and the Association for Black Psychologists Scholarship Award in 2019.

Mphutlane wa Bofelo

is a poet, essayist, and playwright who is also a political theorist focusing on the interface of Governance, Development and Politics.

Jannike Bergh

holds a master’s degree in Languages and Cultural Studies from the Université de Franche-Comté (France). Her research interests include postcolonial cultural analysis, art history and sociolinguistics. She has worked in cultural diplomacy, translation and music promotion. In her free time, she enjoys writing about South African music.

Sergio Henry Ben

To write is to create. To write, truly write, is to submit to what a story has to say. To write is to leave a mark of Relevance on the world. I write to make sense of the who I am, the what I am, the where I am, the why I am, the when I am … and of course, the how I am. Sometimes the words get in the way. I am working on my book, Notes from the quiet corner. It is a collection of short stories, essays, poems and a few observations. Consider this fair warning.

Christopher Ballantine

a National Research Foundation ‘A-rated scientist’, is Emeritus Professor of Music, and a Lifetime Fellow, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His academic career has been built around a fundamental interest in the role that music can play in the struggle for a better, more egalitarian society, and his research has broached a range of theoretical and disciplinary fields, including the sociology of music, musical meaning, and the philosophy of music. Working as a radical musicologist, he has written extensively about issues related to endogenous music in Africa, and varieties of 20th- and 21st-century popular, Western-classical, and operatic music. His philosophically-grounded writings are widely published internationally; they explore the meanings and social implications of music and the forces that shape it. In addition to a large number of peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, his books include Music and its Social Meanings; the award-winning Marabi Nights: Jazz, ‘Race’, Society in Early Apartheid South Africa; Twentieth-Century Symphony; and the co-authored Living Together, Living Apart? Social Cohesion in a Future South Africa. Recent publications include chapters in Sound and Imagination (Oxford University Press) and The Routledge Companion to Jazz Studies, and ‘Against Populism: Music, Classification, Genre’ in the journal Twentieth-Century Music (Cambridge University Press).

Gwen Ansell

is a freelance writer, researcher and trainer. She writes about jazz (for The Conversation, the Financial Mail, M&G Friday– and more) and reviews books – mainly science fiction & fantasy (these reviews have appeared in the Johannesburg Mail&Guardian and the Chimurenga Chronic, among others). As a Research Associate of the Gordon Institute of Business Science, she has researched and published on jazz and music policy in the creative and cultural industries sector. A former Louis Armstrong Visiting Professor at the Center for Jazz Studies, Columbia University, she is the author of Soweto Blues: Jazz, Politics and Popular Music in South Africa and the textbook Introduction to Journalism,, as well as various book chapters and journal articles.

Marimba Ani 

(born Dona Richards) is an anthropologist and African Studies scholar best known for her work Yurugu, a comprehensive critique of European thought and culture, and her coining of the term “Maafa” for the African holocaust.

Siemon Allen

Chris Albertyn

collects 78rpm shellac records of African music from South Africa and beyond. He is fascinated by the assimilation and fusion of multiple musical influences in the development of local music over time. Along with Matt Temple in London, Chris is the Durban-based partner in Matsuli Music.