Repolla Reading Series, Session V
Nov
6

Repolla Reading Series, Session V

“Sudan, TX”, with Safia Elhillo

House C, in the cosy lounge
Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS)

Join us in-person for Session V, with Sudanese-by-way-of-Washington, DC. poet Safia Elhillo (joining remotely) and South African poet and series curator Maneo Mohale. As space is extremely limited (max 20) RSVP is essential. Participants are asked to enbgage with the poem in advance.

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JIAS is thrilled to announce the first iteration of the Repolla Reading Series - (Close)Reading & Ritual’ - curated by feminist writer, poet and RGC Research Associate Maneo Mohale. 

In each of the five sessions (July-October) participants will engage with the work of one poet, and one poem, from one region currently affected by genocide and imperialist violence. In these close gatherings, we hope to foster rituals of solidarity, care, rage, hope and imagination within the otherwise spaces poetry affords us. Each session will be further supported by a curated selection of transdisciplinary resources and associated practices of black-being-well.

Click here for more information.

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Repolla Reading Series, Session IV
Oct
23

Repolla Reading Series, Session IV

“PALESTINE IS A FUTURISM: PANDEMONIUM”, with Fargo Tbakhi & George Abraham

House C, in the cosy lounge
Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS)

Join us in-person for Session IV, with queer Palestinian poets and performance artists Fargo Tbakhi & George Abraham (joining remotely) and South African poet and series curator Maneo Mohale. As space is extremely limited (max 20) RSVP is essential. Participants are asked to engage with the poems in advance.

- - -

JIAS is thrilled to announce the first iteration of the Repolla Reading Series - (Close)Reading & Ritual’ - curated by feminist writer, poet and RGC Research Associate Maneo Mohale. 

In each of the five sessions (July-October) participants will engage with the work of one poet, and one poem, from one region currently affected by genocide and imperialist violence. In these close gatherings, we hope to foster rituals of solidarity, care, rage, hope and imagination within the otherwise spaces poetry affords us. Each session will be further supported by a curated selection of transdisciplinary resources and associated practices of black-being-well.

Click here for more information.

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In conversation: David Scott & Black Intellectual Praxes
Oct
3

In conversation: David Scott & Black Intellectual Praxes

David Scott, in conversation with Black Intellectual Praxes
with vinyl selections by Nombuso Mathibela & friends

The Library of Things we Forgot to Remember
44 Stanley Avenue

Don’t miss this community gathering and listening session at the Library of Things we Forgot to Remember! The Black Intellectual Praxes collective will be in dialogue with Prof Scott, unpacking his intellectual project and method of scholarship, and its impact on young intellectuals in the Black Radical Tradition. With vinyl selections from Nombuso Mathibela and friends, the session will extend work started in the Radical Praxes Reading Group. This is an ongoing conversation, grounded in multiple temporalities and trans-generational labour of the Black Radical Tradition. This coming together marks a significant moment in radical Black journal publishing, as the collective prepares to launch its first edition of the Black Praxes Journal - a project in many ways inspired by the emergence, actualisation and continuity of Small Axe, founded by Scott in 1997. Those attending are asked to engage with the set readings in advance (download)

Watch the video! (forthcoming)

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"On Walter Rodney" - with David Scott
Oct
2

"On Walter Rodney" - with David Scott

Public lecture with David Scott
Facilitated by Prof Victoria Collis-Buthelezi

JIAS, 1 Tolip Rd, Westdene

Join us with Jamaican academic, curator and Small Axe founding editor Prof David Scott for a deep dive into the radical political thinking and praxis of Walter Rodney, grounded in his seminal text, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972). We’ll be thinking through context, how the text has travelled, and how it registers now, as we navigate the afterlives of colonisation and apartheid and a global order of anti-Black violence.

Those joining for the lecture are encouraged to engage in advance with Prof Scott’s text, Between Revolution and Repair: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa in a Caribbean Intellectual Tradition.

David Scott is the Ruth & William Lubic Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University. He is also the founder and editor of Small Axe and director of the Small Axe Project. Scott is currently completing a book (tentatively titled), Irreparable Evil: New World Slavery in Moral History and working on a biography of Stuart Hall.

Watch the video! (forthcoming)

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Repolla Reading Series, Session III
Sep
11

Repolla Reading Series, Session III

“Poem for the Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere”, with Danielle Legros Georges

House C, in the cosy lounge
Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS)

Join us in-person for Session III, with Haitian American, Black poet, translator, and editor Danielle Legros Georges (joining remotely) and South African poet and series curator Maneo Mohale. As space is extremely limited (max 20) RSVP is essential. Participants are asked to engage with the poem and set readings in advance.

- - -

JIAS is thrilled to announce the first iteration of the Repolla Reading Series - (Close)Reading & Ritual’ - curated by feminist writer, poet and RGC Research Associate Maneo Mohale. 

In each of the five sessions (July-October) participants will engage with the work of one poet, and one poem, from one region currently affected by genocide and imperialist violence. In these close gatherings, we hope to foster rituals of solidarity, care, rage, hope and imagination within the otherwise spaces poetry affords us. Each session will be further supported by a curated selection of transdisciplinary resources and associated practices of black-being-well.

Click here for more information.

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Queer Photo Practices
Sep
7

Queer Photo Practices

Conversation & Sharing Session with Haneem Christian & friends

“Holding community as sacred, divine and critical to (queer) photographic ethics” - Haneem Christian

Join us in the Market Photo Workshop gallery for a conversation and sharing session around queer photographic modalities and community practices with artist Haneem Christian. Joining Haneem will be RGC curator Danielle Bowler and Karin Tan, Culture & Media Coordinator at GALA Queer Archive. Light refreshments will be served :)

This session is collaboratively presented by GALA Queer Archive and the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class. Learn more about GALA here

Haneem Christian (b. 1994) is an artist and filmmaker from Cape Town, South Africa. Working through lens-based media, their practice centres and archives Queer and Pan-African narratives, histories and storytelling – holding community as sacred, divine and critical to their photographic ethics. Christian has exhibited in notable exhibitions such as International Cape Town Art Fair, 1-54 New York, AKAA, Latitudes, Unseen photo Fair, and Taylor Wessing at the National Portrait Gallery, London. In February 2022, Christian was announced as the winner of the Pride Photo Award 2022. After completing a residency with Magnum Photos, Christian was awarded the National Portrait Taylor Wessing Portrait Award 2022. Bubblegum Club Magazine states, “Haneem is one of the leading forces of the South African future”.

This programme forms part of the exhibition, Reflections, on Black girlhood, curated by Danielle Bowler.
Click here for more information on the exhibition.

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REFLECTIONS: on Black girlhood
Sep
2

REFLECTIONS: on Black girlhood

Exhibition opening

Join us with our participating artists for the opening of Reflections, on Black girlhood at the Market Photo Gallery, with sounds from Nombuso Mathibela.

Market Photo Workshop
138 Lilian Ngoyi St, Newtown

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Woven into this group exhibition are reflections on Black girlhood from five contemporary South African artists across multiple generations. Collectively they sing “a black girl’s song” (to cite Ntozake Shange), exploring themes of memory, biography, performance, the body, community, care and “being in public”, through creative practices of waywardness, play and (insistently) joy.

Curated by Danielle Bowler
Participating artists: Haneem Christian, Ruth Motau, Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi, Motlhoki Nono & Lebogang Tlhako.

Learn more about the exhibition programme here

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Haiti as Empire’s Laboratory
Aug
19

Haiti as Empire’s Laboratory

A Workshop with Dr Jemima Pierre

JIAS Seminar Room
1 Tolip St, Westdene

“The uses and abuses of the first Black republic as a testing ground of imperialism
offer stark warnings. Haiti still struggles to be free.”

Join us for a workshop on ‘Haiti as Empire’s Laboratory’ with Professor Jemima Pierre. In this small group session, we trace the coordinates of the current and ongoing crisis in Haiti, as ‘a crisis of imperialism’ and explore what we mean when we say ‘Free Haiti’.

Beyond the singular study of the Haitian Revolution in isolation, Professor Pierre will draw on her work, ‘An Archive of Occupation’, to draw a timeline of key moments from 2004 to the present, that ask not to be understood as singular happenings, but as a historically rooted series of connected events that has led to ‘the complete destruction of the Haitian state’. This includes 2004’s coup d’etat, backed by the involvement of the United States, Canada and France – and life under occupation since then.

Framing the present crisis, against decontextualised ideas of violence and sudden happenings, we contextualise it within Haitian’s fight for sovereignty and the restoration of their democracy, while considering the links between South Africa, Haiti, Kenya and Palestine, and the need for transnational solidarity and our interconnected liberation.

Participants are asked to engage with the set readings in advance.

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Repolla Reading Series, Session II
Aug
15

Repolla Reading Series, Session II

“A Burial Hymn”, with Sarah Lubala

House C, in the cosy lounge
Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS)

Join us in-person for Session II, with Congolese-born, Johannesburg-based poet Sarah Lubala and South African poet and series curator Maneo Mohale. As space is extremely limited (max 20) RSVP is essential. Participants are asked to engage with the poem and set readings in advance.

- - -

JIAS is thrilled to announce the first iteration of the Repolla Reading Series - (Close)Reading & Ritual’ - curated by feminist writer, poet and RGC Research Associate Maneo Mohale. 

In each of the five sessions (July-October) participants will engage with the work of one poet, and one poem, from one region currently affected by genocide and imperialist violence. In these close gatherings, we hope to foster rituals of solidarity, care, rage, hope and imagination within the otherwise spaces poetry affords us. Each session will be further supported by a curated selection of transdisciplinary resources and associated practices of black-being-well.

Click here for more information

View Event →
Izimpabanga Zomhlaba
Aug
13

Izimpabanga Zomhlaba

Book Launch: isiZulu translation of “The Wretched of the Earth”

Book Circle Capital
27 Boxes, Melville

Gather with us at Book Circle Capital for the launch of “Izimpabanga Zomhlaba” - Makhosazana Xaba’s groundbreaking isiZulu translation of Franz Fanon’s seminal work, “The Wretched of the Earth”. Joining Makhosazana in conversation will be Nosipho Mngomezulu.

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UFrantz Fanon waba ngenye yezincithabuchopho ebaluleke kakhulu yekhuluminyaka lama-20 lekholoniyalizimu ukwehlukana kwezihlanga, kanye nalokhu, umsebenzi wakhe obabazekayo, ongedlulelwa nkathi okanye neOrientalism kanye ne-The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Izimpabanga Zomhlaba ilucwaningo oluhlabahlosile lwesimongqondo sabakholonayiziwe kanye nendlela yabo eya enkululekweni.

Inkani Books

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Other Universals Summer/Winter Institute
Aug
12
to Aug 16

Other Universals Summer/Winter Institute

Convened by the Other Universals Consortium

Anti-colonial Internationalisms
Identity, identification & cultural citizenship
The comparative method

Join us for the Other Universals Summer/Winter Institute open sessions - a programme of keynote lectures, roundtables, workshops, screenings and book launches, running from the 12th to 16th August 2024.

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The Other Universals Summer/Winter Institute revolves around the ways in which equality and likeness-in-difference, universality and particularity have been imagined, lived and argued from anti-imperial vantage points in Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle-East and South Asia.

Central to Other Universals’ concerns are political debates, discussions and aesthetic and literary practices of the late-colonial period that continue to articulate and animate desires for equality and solidarity across multiple subaltern locations in postcolonial spaces. The summer/winter school in Johannesburg will especially focus on three interrelated themes that iterate these concerns:

1. Anti-colonial Internationalisms
2. Identity, Identification & Cultural Citizenship
3. The Comparative Method

Circling these three thematics, we think of the summer/winter school as an opportunity to speak from particular locations, and from within particular ‘traditions’ of anti-colonial, nationalist, emancipatory, and intellectual formations - with their own predicaments and lineaments, points of friction and questions of consternation - and yet, with a shared investment in thinking about intellectual formations and aesthetic practice across these worlds, that speak to and beyond the emancipatory or inhibitive contours the framing of ‘the nation’ has given us.

Click here for more information.

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Repolla Reading Series, Session I
Jul
24

Repolla Reading Series, Session I

“Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying”, with Noor Hindi

House C, in the cosy lounge
Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS)

Join us in-person for Session I, with Palestinian-American poet Noor Hindi (joining remotely) and South African poet and series curator Maneo Mohale. As space is extremely limited (max 20) RSVP is essential. Participants are asked to engage with the poem in advance.

- - -

JIAS is thrilled to announce the first iteration of the Repolla Reading Series - (Close)Reading & Ritual’ - curated by feminist writer, poet and RGC Research Associate Maneo Mohale. 

In each of the five sessions (July-October) participants will engage with the work of one poet, and one poem, from one region currently affected by genocide and imperialist violence. In these close gatherings, we hope to foster rituals of solidarity, care, rage, hope and imagination within the otherwise spaces poetry affords us. Each session will be further supported by a curated selection of transdisciplinary resources and associated practices of black-being-well.

Click here for more information

View Event →