About

herri 9 has been made possible thanks to a funding grant from the Social Impact Initiative at Stellenbosch University.

herri is an attempt to answer the question: What
does decolonization sound like in this age of techno hybridity?
We discovered that there is not just one answer.
herri is a soundmine of narratives, mythologies,
ideologies, statements, ambiguities and ideas
just waiting to be excavated. herri is merely
one option among many. discontinuity is
the continuity. disconnection is the con-
nection. incoherence is the coherence.

In terms of a teaching and research resource that demonstrates the possibilities of new media and integrated technologies in interrogating musical practices, herri is imagining a future South African music studies. It endeavours to facilitate critical and artistic engagement with a variety of South African musics in discursive registers ranging from poems to extended critical essays, films, recordings and newly commissioned compositions.

In doing so, it situates these concerns as embedded in international intellectual arguments and artistic practices, proposing that decolonial thinking in South African music studies should never be a parochial affair. We have now become aware of the possibility of arranging the entire herri environment as a work of art, as a teaching machine designed to maximize perception and to make everyday learning a process of discovery.

herri is conceived, curated and edited by Aryan Kaganof
published by Stephanus Muller for Africa Open Institute
designed by Andrea Rolfes,
Jurgen Meekel and Martijn Pantlin

herri 9 has been made possible thanks to a funding grant from the Social Impact Initiative at Stellenbosch University.

herri 8 has been made possible thanks to a funding grant from the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS). The AI in Africa Theme section is Guest Edited by Vulane Mthembu.

Cover: Dzata Prototype (2022-2023). Sculpture and image by Francois Knoetze for DZATA: The Institute of Technological Consciousness.

herri 7 has been made possible thanks to a funding grant from the National Arts Council (NAC) and the Social Impact initiative at Stellenbosch University.

herri 6 has won the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences HSS Award for BEST DIGITAL HUMANITIES 2022.
herri 6 has been made possible thanks to a funding grant from the programme in African Digital Humanities at WISER. Special thanks to Keith Breckenridge, Hlonipha Mokoena and Adila Desmukh.