By Mathews Nthinya

 

Former South African president Nelson Mandela was celebrated through knowledge-sharing at the Barratt lecture theatre at Rhodes University on 18 July 2023.

Special guests were Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies Nkiru Nzegwu from Binghamton University in New York and two discussants, Political and International Studies Honours student Lihle Manene and Masters student Omphulusa Nengwekhulu. Prof Nzegwu has been a Visiting Professor at Rhodes University since the end of June.

After welcoming guests, the Dean of Humanities, Professor Enocent Msindo, was followed by the Head of Political and International Studies, Professor Siphokazi Magadla, who was the Programme Director for the event.

“It is such a privilege for us to have the professor with us,” said Prof Msindo.

Prof Magadla introduced the Visiting Professor by summarising her research interests, which include African studies, feminism, the African diaspora and African intellectuality. Prof Nzegwu is also an author and editor of seven books, including Family Matters: Feminist Concepts in African Philosophy of Culture (2006) and Onitsha at the Millennium: Legacy, History and Transformation (2013), among others.

Prof Nzegwu is currently teaching a postgraduate course called Sankofa Epistemology, which was the subject of the evening. She delivered a 45-minute lecture to a room of primarily Politics 1, 2 and 3 students, who were invited to the lecture to learn more about African Studies in politics. She mentioned that Sankofa Epistemology is a book project on the knowledge system that draws extensively on African philosophy. It began from the awareness of the contemporary global knowledge system and how its production pivots on the racialised Western-European axis.

“However, a new pathway exists that requires centring ourselves, discovering who we are, and projecting that being outward,” she said.

Professor Nzegwu believes that capitalism must work for people, not vice versa. Instead, capitalism was created to produce a lot of money off people. She reiterated that trading also doesn’t necessarily mean capitalism. She has been able to come to this material information through the vast data she has been working on for the past two years.

At the end of the presentation, her discussants were welcomed on stage to comment on the lecture.