WED: UKZN–UNIZULU Philosophy Seminar Series, Wed 6 May 2026, 14:00--15:30: Ndumiso Dladla, 'An Azanian Explains Apartheid: Notes Towards an Azanian Political philosophy of history'
M. Whitaker
UKZN–UNIZULU Philosophy Seminar Series
Wednesday, 06 May 2026 @ 14h00-15h30
An Azanian Explains Apartheid: Notes Towards an Azanian Political philosophy of history
Ndumiso Dladla
University of Zululand
Abstract:
The aim of our discussion will be to defend the thesis that “Apartheid” is an (hegemonic) episteme – that is a guiding unconsciousness of our epoch which has established prohibitive boundaries of thinking about the present (and together with it the past and future) in the interests of upholding and defending the existing configuration of power. Drawing on the body of growing work in the Azanian Philosophical Tradition the talk means to establish (i) what Apartheid is (ii) that Apartheid is properly speaking a category in the historical and political imagination of conqueror thought (iii) that the primary function in promoting the hegemonic status of Apartheid as an episteme has been to occlude the establishment of “conquest of the indigenous peoples in the unjust wars of colonization” as the primary historico-political antagonism in the development of South African history. We ultimately uphold the position that the persistence of the constitutionalized historical, political, economic and cultural injustice in South Africa is a result of its successful trans-formation rather than the failure of it. What is required to resolve it is what the Azanian philosopher Mogobe Ramose has called trans-substantiation and this we maintain will remain impossible without the de-struction of “Apartheid” and the attendant abolition of conqueror South Africa.
Author Bio:
Ndumiso Dladla teaches philosophy at the University of Zululand’s Department of Philosophy and Applied Ethics. Before joining Zululand, he taught legal philosophy at the University of Pretoria’s Department of Jurisprudence, a position he held after almost 10 years at UNISA’s Department of Philosophy and Practical and Systematic Theology. In 2023 he taught philosophy at the Leiden University College in Den Haag during a year he spent as visiting fellow of the Global Justice Fellowship at the Institute of Political Philosophy at Leiden University. His research focuses on constitutional theory, legal and political philosophy as well as the philosophy of South African history and forms part of a collective effort towards the systemisation of the Azanian Philosophical Tradition. He has edited numerous special collections spanning the fields of political and legal philosophy and South African historiography. He is author of numerous scholarly articles and book chapters as well as a monograph Here is a Table: A Philosophical Essay on the History of Race/ism in South Africa, a revised edition of which was published in December 2020 by SUN Media Africa. He is a member of the Azanian Philosophical Society, the National Conference of Black Political Scientists and the Southern African Historical Society.
For any queries, please contact:
Gontse J. Lebakeng (Leba...@unizulu.ac.za),
Monique Whitaker (Whit...@ukzn.ac.za), or
Jason van Niekerk (vanNi...@unizulu.ac.za)