Annual Cluster Conference "Spatialities": Keynote - Tendayi Sithole
Abstract
- Abstract
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As part of the Cluster's international conference on "Spatialities" Tendayi Sithole held a keynote lecture titled: "Azania: Extended Notes on Black Radical Thought - in Dialogue with Bruce Janz (UC Florida)".
Tendayi Sithole is Professor in the Department of Political Sciences, University of South Africa. He is also a Senior Research Associate at the Institue for Pan-African Thought and Conversation, University of Johannesburg. Sithole's scholarly books are "Refiguring in Black" (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2023), "The Letter in Black Radical Thought" (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2023), "Mabogo P. More: Philosophical Anthropology in Azania" (New York: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2022), "The Black Register" (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020), and "Steve Biko: Decolonial Meditations of Black Consciousness (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016). His book "Black X: Liberatory Thought in Azania" is forthcoming with Wits University Press in 2024. Currently, Sithole is conducting research for a biography provisionally titled "Vinny da Vinci: A Portrait".
Bruce Janz is Professor in the Department of Philosophy, co-director of the Center for Humanities and Digital Research, and core faculty in the Texts and Technology program, all at the University of Central Florida. He teaches and writes on African philosophy, cultural philosophy, contemporary European philosophy, digital humanities, and questions of place and space across many disciplines. He has taught in Canada, Kenya, South Africa, and the US. His most recent book is "African Philosophy and Enactivist Cognition: The Space of Thoght" (Bloomsbury, 2023).
Origins & context
- Title
- Annual Cluster Conference "Spatialities": Keynote - Tendayi Sithole
- Language
- English
- YouTube playlist
- Conference Spatilities 2023
- Date
- November 10, 2023
Identifiers & sources
Full text
- Transcript
- uh good evening I think we can start now so that we we stick to the time which we have been allocated my name is Sai I chair of epistemologies of the global South here with easis on Africa and I'm also the vice de for research in the Africa multiple cluster of excellence and it is my pleasure to introduce the second keynote we had the first keynote yesterday and this is the second one and my duty is very straightforward is to introduce the speaker and the discussion and then I moderate the session and the speaker is none other than Professor tend to whom I know very well I don't want to give you details of where we know each other from but he is a professor in the department of political sciences at the University of South Africa where I spent a decade he is also a senior research associate at The Institute of Pana African thought and conversation at the University of Johannesburg he is a very prolific scholar I thought the disease which affected me it looks like it transferred to him and I hope I will be better [Laughter] now he in 2023 alone he published two books refiguring in Black which is published by polity press and the letter in Black radical thought which is published by Lexington books and in 2022 he published a book entitled M philosophical anthropology in AIA published by lickfield International and in 2020 he published one of the books of the books which I like so much which is the black register published by po press and which is the book which met me really to propose his name as a keynote here I know for him all his books are like his children you can't say this one I like it this one I don't like it but as for me I have the freedom to say I like this [Laughter] one and there is also another book which he published in 2016 Steve B de Colonial meditations of play Consciousness published by Lexington books and in 2024 were looking forward to his other book Black X liberal thought in aania which is going to be published by vet University press and currently Professor sto is working on a a biography provisionally entitled Vin d a portrait and his lecture is entitled anania extended notes on black radical thought and I must say Professor sto has actually found a very interesting niche in Black radical thought and his application to South Africa and in this lecture tonight which I know having known him I know he has been writing and rewriting it up to today so the the abstract which is here might actually be outd but I can just pick two or three issues and in this lecture Professor St is going to deploy aania as a radical trans as a radical formulation of black radical thought and insist that there is yet to be Liberation and this Liberation will be driven by black insurgence which actually aims at ending anti Blackness and he says also that he's using this concept of anania as an affirmative stance of BL radical thought not only as a renaming of a country rather it is the radical insistence of having an altered reality the one which is not faulted in the fiber and infrastructure of anti Blackness and as you saw from his Publications this actually preoccupies his mind a lot and we're going to be a little bit different from yesterday in the sense that for this uh um key note address there is going to be a dialogue between Professor to and Professor Bruce ja who is a professor in the department of philosophy co-director of the center for humanities and digital research and a co- faculty in the text and Technology Program all at the University of Central Florida he teaches and writes on African philosophy cultural philosophy contemporary European philosophy digital Humanities and the question of place and a space across many disciplines we wanted him because of this other question the question of place and the space across disciplines he taught in Canada in Kenya in South Africa and the US so in terms of space they are not strangers to each other his most recent book is the African philosophy an activist cognition the space of thought published by bloomsberry in 2023 and I don't want to B you with so many other details I will then call upon Professor stoy to deliver his lecture then he will be followed by Professor Bruce Jaz and we begin to have the the dialogue and if there's time then we will open up to questions thank you so much enjoy thank you so much uh thank you so much uh uh Professor SA I'm I'm very proud that I was introduced ER by a man who mentored me and this is an extraordinary Feit and I must say that uh I'm delighted to be here ER Professor cesan ER I acknowledge you as well and also your dinary team in presence and absence and also uh professor ruthas H thanks for the patient H emails and and and and also kicking me like trying to drag me to come here kicking and uh screaming the conference organizing team uh thank you so much I think you deserve a round of an Applause H for doing this H Stella job uh ER Madame Crow she's been so amazing like I mean I I remember those emails like you know I will write an email and then she will respond now in two minutes like you know thank you for checking me out and thanks H for the care H my respondent professor JN ER and the facilitator and com scholar professor and thanks to those who are here and those are online and uh those who are not mentioned H please know that you are acknowledged I'll baate under eraser uh today I I I was thinking seriously about this notion of extended notes on thought so as the keynote uh was been delivered yesterday I was like everything has been said so so I made a plea not to say anything today but I was told that no you have to say something so uh in as a result of that I I had to make a liap uh to extend my notes to change the the title of this h of this keynote to H what is now H called but which is still in the same H Spirit the somatic thought of Mao p and I will explain what I mean by the somatic thought because I'm thinking about even the question of the space when we think from our bodies our bodies as a space through which we are thinking so today h you have a an awesome man with round lasses H the 7 year- old H it is his birthday in two weeks but he doesn't celebrate his birthdays his 78 his name is m Pim who is a a philosopher who has done H or who still doing beautiful work in what uh we call the azanian black existential tradition he is H the one who made me think about the rightful name of H South Africa but that name cannot only be changed in if the question of H land and anti- racism are not addressed so H I'm very glad H to be here to be giving H this keynote under this H new title of the somatic thought of I have to H advocate for a thought and standing by that thought H I must talk about about the bearer and the Vanguard of that thought and that comes as a huge responsibility this is the responsibility that can be costly in the context where the conditions are hostile toward what one is doing and actually what one is in particular what one is as a specific Target of anti Blackness being being black and standing for Blackness what is freedom becomes a matter of necessity so I'm here to engage about a black philosopher who is concerned about the question of freedom but that not only as a some form of philosophical abstraction but as a matter of necessity and I must say that that is a huge responsibility that is upheld to be in its own name which means also being embodied in it so being embodied in responsibility in short it is having to be responsible for responsibility itself thinking from the Locust of the black body and I must declare that I'm speaking from Blackness so speaking from this H black body and being responsible to this H body I am in affinity and in agreement with a a philosopher who is black in a world that does not want black people and such a philosopher is an existentialist philosopher of AIA and the one who Advocates philosophy in the name or the anals of what I will call black Consciousness as Steve P qu the term with his contemporaries a philosophy which Advocates what I propose as somatic thought so somatic thought is not only the thought that is about the body but the black body in a liberatory practice and this liberatory practice it is the one that allows the conditions of freedom to come into being even in the absence or the restraining of that freedom so somatic thought H is coming in that long historical act that h of course in the condition of H South Africa which H I'm mentioning under quotation marks but calling for AIA it's a somatic thought which is the thought of of blacks thinking from their embod from their embodiment in the face of ontological denial somatic thought that kind of black exist philosophy in its liberatory practice exact that of Steve Pico's black Consciousness that is why it is a concern of black people doing the thinking about the matters of their own existence that are coming from their bodies and these are the bodies which are marked in an anti world right those H who who know like as you walk ER in most of the streets H here like in Germany as a black you know that how you are a suspect how like you invisible and then there's that politeness of invisibilize you as if like you don't exist like you know even though like though that might come as unintentional so it is somatic thought because of like these bodies like they are inhabiting a space in which is claimed that you're not supposed to be here like you know right from the point of entry like you know what you going to do in Germany how long are you here for blah blah blah and then you give them the invitation letter you know or sometimes you get pulled right H in what I will call Aviation racism where like you'll be pulled on the side sir can you please H step aside blah blah this a random say like you know and then you'll be interrogated nicely like you know if you're wearing a scarf can you please take it off like you know no no no we are not we're just trying to see these are security measures that we are doing oh welcome to Germany they St you and then you must come in right so that not that is happening in lot of settler Colonial conditions as well where in which even conditions like South Africa like I had a presentation about town where like black they know that when they arrive in Cape Town their bodies change right when they walk in those structures like you must like walk in a certain way like you know don't be suspect don't loyer all of those things so those things are Maring so somatic thought comes from those uh conditions but with as a philosopher I will make a case just to be specific about the black body in Black Consciousness to make a case about what I would call somatic thought and to make a case for somatic thought I'll only have two propositions and this is what h i will frame H this H paper on one will be on being one with the body and then the second one will be thy Freedom come so those are the two H H centers where I will frame the the the this H this lecture in being one with the body it is with Consciousness thata thought is more gerine pointed and also where he makes a case for a discourse of embodiment that one must think from one's body right so because of he is a philosopher who is faced by a a different set of conditions and philosophical dilemas as black like you know because like as you know even today we are still even question that can black people be philosophers do they have canons blah blah blah like even if like they are philosophizing they are still having their Humanity being questioned but it is interesting that him taking black Consciousness H in its origin and Dev vment as a discourse of a somatic thought Mur is arguing that black Consciousness is a political and philosophical project of blacks those who are thinking from the conditions of their bodies in order as as P has insists of black people coming back to themselves so somatic thought is when black people are coming back to themselves because of like they've been conditioned to be alienated from themselves like they've been conditioned to edit themselves like I don't want to offend I must say everything that is inclusive to everyone I must please everyone at my own expense H if I do it h i will repent to my black colleagues that I didn't mean it but it was a strategic move we're not we're not we're not saying yes to that like you know so here it's a condition of having to think about the very idea of being black in an anti-black world so if you are thinking about H those conditions you have to raise the stakes like you know there's no this thing of oh I'm thinking as a universal subject I don't see race we are all human let's pull together those who are talking about race are taking us backward we're not interested in that we are saying we are raising the issues that are addressing the ontological conditions that we are facing so the condition of being black in an anti black world is the one of thinking about ways that are creating affirmative means of coming to the self it is the black rewriting the script of what it means to be embodied and this stems from from Blackness as the black condition has to change right the black condition has to change to be a situation I I need us to be clear here the black condition has to change in order to become a situation because a condition has been created to be that which is permanent that which must be accepted as oh there's nothing that we can do this is how things are please get along or else you'll be left behind but we are calling for a situation where we are saying things have to change and this change does not mean that no let's put Black Faces in the there and there let's open the diversity ofies no we are changing everything so when the situations change we raise the stakes and then the change that we want is not cosmetic change but fundamental change right and this change it is a change that must even scare the very person who is pushing for that level of embodiment and why is this change necessary it's a change that H is necessary because H in having to come back to themselves H blacks have to be responsible for responsibility itself because freedom is a necessity and that is why Consciousness in having to think about about who says I quote it is the consequences of a questioned and denied humanness of being treated as subhuman sub subers or animal inevitably which leads to the profound experience of existential threat and anguish in the face of n being close coat so it is having to think from that condition of having been dehumanized where you are going to engage in the affirmative registers that are going to make an effort H which comes from Blackness as a matter of operation so when Blackness is operating things things are becoming like they must become different and blacks as notes become human in the terms that resonate with their lived reality the terms which they embody right because the black body is marked it's not a matter of it stays here that's where it will experience racism even if like you can say I'm not black I don't see race go to the US and see you'll be reminded right go to New Zealand you'll see you'll be reminded right go to South Africa you'll see you'll be reminded right even if this racism is not happening in an explicit way but you will feel it right so these are are the things that call for a a way of understanding this H dilemas and how to H H confront them and it will also mean also concretizing things at the level of the body which as he points out there there is a need to dwell on the meaning of the body as lived and experienced right because this body is being marked by anti racism so it is how it is lived and and experienced in an anti-l world right because this is the world that H operates on the basis of uh the violation of the black body is that which is without consequence like you know died they were 2,000 yeah but if two US dies like they even send people to come and rescue them like you know so because of they have ontological value so in having to think about H knowing the condition of being dehumanized and thus affirming themselves H blacks who are in Black Consciousness as shows they don't have to prove to whiteness that they are human beings the very idea of being human it is according to their own temps it is according to their own Temple as well so they are the ones who are determining a the the modes of being a human and they are the ones who are in constant struggle for Freedom right and in this struggle even if they get told ah but you've been complaining about racism things have changed why are obsessed with race they don't need need that like they don't need to to be told they know it because of like they can feel and experience it at the somatic level poses a very simple rhetorical question which is twofold the first one I quote if a person's humanity is questioned and Deni what else can that person do except to asset his or her Humanity the second one that is tied to that is how could it be otherwise so there is no way of being otherwise of trying to H you know like deny this reality it can't be otherwise right because of their humanity is questioned they have to asset their humanity and of course in the first instance of this uh question having to think about play Consciousness it is what has come in h from those who asset their Humanity because of their Humanity has been questioned right and if they humanized it is logical that this Humanity must be a accepted and they do so from Courage as a fundamental principle and they we know like the you will receive a backlash like you know you are supposed to stay in your you are undisciplined like you know so how dare you question this like you know you have to be grateful we invited you to come to our table like you know behave properly why are you doing that like you know after all we've done for you H how dare you criticize us like you know so we know those liberal interpolative uh questions which are not Advanced but they appear as a backlash so having to talk about H this condition of having to Have Courage as a matter of a principle it is from this condition that embodiment would only come to assume the politics of H courage and the politics that refuse to buy to the dictates and Logics of whiteness right because whiteness is there to discipline whiteness is there H to put you in your own place but there there must be that refusal so the two affirmative modes that appear in the question that has illuminated they are indeed those that are located in somatic thought and it is in this two modes that precociousness in its radical expression and as a black point of view becomes authorized so here simply it is black people who are seeing the world from their own point of view hence the the the adarian formulation that we know of being in the world like you know is a different reformulation from a black point of view it is being black in an anti black world so from that standpoint of being black in an anti black world this is where the philosophy of a black Consciousness Finds Its a expression because it is the one that has always been a an embodied form of thought and indeed it is a philosophy of black people being embodied in themselves which is the matter because of they are refusing now to be alienated like you know they thinking from their own standpoint right they're not now like running away from their bodies in bad faith in order to please ER the whiteness which has nothing to do with them and indeed in this line Mur goes on to amplify I quote the proponents of black Consciousness described their Consciousness in the world as black Consciousness close quote this is the consciousness of those who are embodied in their Blackness and it is this Blackness which to them it is not only a form of exteriority but interiority too right because of they've come back to themselves those who are resisting and fighting for Freedom they will always come back to themselves and it is clear on how Mor shows that that this coming back to themselves it it it means that they coming back to their bodies right because anti- racism has made them to flee from their bodies to adopt ER the false cons Consciousness like you know oh I don't see race I'm the only black at the table H blah blah blah so and then you are the one who's even been asked so what do you think of black people no I think they they need to be like like now you become the spokesperson of whiteness But after when you leave that platform you know the anguish that will will hit you right then you play this H double Persona so when when you come back to the body you you you come H back to yourself and indeed it comes with consequences that is why I mentioned the issue of the principle of Courage it's not a matter of sloganeering making noise it is the everyday violence like you know you know how you'll be punished how privileges will be withdrawn or how austerity measures will be put to you so that you can be in line You Must Fall back in line but those who constantly refuse they know the stakes of having to fight H for freedom because freedom is not just a giv it is fful for the reality to be altered by blacks in Black Consciousness they must be those who are in charge of themselves they must come to the realization that they are black and it is through their Blackness that they will engage in their phenomenological practice to challenge the antiblackness that tries to normalize itself while it is just a mere invention that must be obliterated blacks must do so from their embodiment their Liv experience and that as a matter of necessity it will mean that they take the operation of black Consciousness to its concretized manifestation the issue here as it has been clear in St Picos thought in terms of this concretized embodiment thus authorizing play Consciousness is rendering it to a practice which is a naming things for what they are so I'm not using practice in a romantic comfortable language I know that the word is just being used but why like you name things for what they are right uh we don't say these things that no it is H not Disobedience give it another name no want it to be Disobedience right name things for what they are and this that is where this concrete H manifestation is coming clear because St P has been clear as has shown in having to foreground the authorization of Blackness and Blackness as the locast standi to be that force of those who as a matter of disposition are against anti Blackness right it is those who are against anti Blackness they don't say oh if I say this my bre and brother will be affected let me keep quiet but I'll speak them out outside like you know said oh I support you but in the face of whiteness you couldn't do that right so so so so so yeah like there is a need to authorize a a Blackness and and and to even to name anti Blackness for what it is so anti Blackness is not some mental Quake of mental disorder ignorance and so forth no it is what is foregrounded in structures and this the structures they even inform reality right you look at the healthare like you know how black people cannot afford healthare where do they stay how many funerals like you go to symmetries like you know black people like even needs to have to make appointments to to go to the funerals of black people right you must split yourself oh my wife you'll go to this funeral I'll go into this like you know and how do we explain that right so that's the reality of anti Blackness that H has been H called for so H I will say that H where somatic thought finds expression is in the second part h of this lecture which is thy Freedom come right as it is on earth like this Freedom like it must be now you you're denying this us this Freedom we will not wait for the event for this freedom to to come we'll fight for it like you know even in in the condition of its absence like you know we'll make those struggles like we are not waiting for opportunities to come even in the moments of defeat disappointment and betrayal right this Freedom has to be realized in the very Act of Having the courage and the discipline of doing it now even in the midst of fear like you know there is that insistence because there is the that a principle of being responsible for responsibility itself now the emphasis of H of freedom is how as m P Mor notes that H black people experience their bodies and they willing to put those bodies on the line it's not some heroic Act of matom like you know H and as you know H you will see about him that he got popular because of he received the France Fon life Achievement Award from the Caribbean philosophical Association all this time the philosophical Association in South Africa he experienced racism in 1971 and he took a courageous step to say I'll not be a member of this racist philosophical Association in South Africa right and uh it's unfortunate that the general of this Association next year is doing a special issue on on him so when he got the France for non left Achievement Award in7 ER I was in the privilege of of seeing that he was hired by eight universities in two weeks eight universities they hired him and he showed me the dossiers of how some universities they denied him a appointment like you know even if he was applying for a lower post H they denied him and then he had to go to the US but it is because of now all these unities they wanted to be on the good history and then unfortunately he went to his Alma mat the University of limo like you know H that's where it did said like no where I was appreciated I'll go back there but unfortunately there was a backlash like which I would not go into but because of principle and him being tied to his body he refused to forget right so we have to have those ethics of having to refuse to forget so that H the colonial crimes they have to be solved like you know H in in in in in in in in this radical insistence it is black people having to be authentic with themselves and having Fidelity to Freedom right if you don't have Fidelity to Freedom well anti Blackness is going to continue right we are going to even make it hard for the following generation right you know and betraying uh this necessity H for Freedom it means that we are abdicating from this responsibility but we know that we are going to suffer like even if like in this H you know mode of having to avoid that responsibility it will linger at the back of your head so shows that H freedom is tied to the black body because the manner of the demands of the black body have to do with the conditions of H the impossible so the the conditions of the impossible they shortly h mean that H black people when they make H the existential demands the world is going to come to an end in this sense if we were to calculate the amount of reparations uh that must be H ACR rightfully so to black people you know that the economic infrastructure can collapse in one day there won't be Stock Exchange there won't be currency like because of H that is a the amount of money that is uncountable right no matter the years that we can spend or or if we have those are doing accounting what you call the the Leisure book The Black demands do not fit even the length or the breadth of any Leisure books like you know it is it is the ontological crimes that we don't even have the language to articulate right so the debates that you seeing about the reparations they are nothing right if there were going to be the actual debates on reparations like there W be language that we will have what you call agosia like you know the absence of language itself so in having to make the demands that are in line for the demands of Freedom which are impossible demands it is clear how black Consciousness serves as the exis and anchor of the of the black body to be present in the world and it is where things are rallied in the direction of freedom and there is no room for concessions to perpetuate unfreedom so if you take this path like it's a clear path like you you can't go back you've come back to yourself and then you Leap Forward like you know and when the body is in Freedom it is obvious that that body H should H be in Fidelity to freedom and it is clear in terms of a the two questions that is posing the first one is I quote but what does the adoption of black Consciousness entail in the anals of Freedom close quote the second question is open quote what kind of liberatory practice is involved in the adoption of black Consciousness in the conditions of freedom CL cold Mur answers these questions by stating the need for self- recovery and radical conversion the two questions are obviously entwined that being of course black Consciousness is a philosophy of fundamental change and not cosmetic change right you know cosmetic change like they change without change like you know we know that it's business as as usual but fundamental change it is that scary a change like where like you will say that's impossible right South Africa like we know that when we H call for the land question they're like what people are going to do with the land things are going to collapse going to be like Zimbabwe like you know and my answer is yes we going to be like Zimbabwe so what why is it your concern so what so I I think we need that boldness of the so what h question and it is clear of course that when Freedom comes with the cost it is that cost that we should not fear right because of like we are even there this scared tactics like you know that are being used oh black po are in charge things are going to collapse standards are going to drop and you usually you'll find it's a black person who says that like you know H and and and and please H if if you're doing that H step off from that train like you know it will crash like you know so you need to call for this h a fundamental change and to be one with the body it is black according to M who are having to live and act in Freedom even in the conditions of its absence by insisting on it and making their insatable demands in their own terms and this will mean that they will always raise the stakes of this demands and it is important H H to note H that this Freedom has to exist at whatever cost right because if you want freedom even in the conditions of its absence you must sumon it to presence that is why blacks have to be come back to themselves and be present in the world so calling for the existence of this freedom is having to H struggle H for for it and to argue for the modes of its actualization in the moment of its unfolding whether it fails whether it does not happen whether it becomes def it does not matter the issue is having to insist on it right as if it is going to be realized tomorrow right it's not a matter of oh I was betrayed by my comrades I'm giving up no let me settle to H H the H the comfort so uh just to conclude a somatic thought it is very clear that it's an affirmative mode of being black in an anti black World from a disposition of a black Consciousness and ma somatic thought is the larger configuration of radical thinking where black bodies refuse to be H dissolved in the world that does not want a their presence so it is a a mode of having to come into being and that is why privileges the black body as a sight of thought and that can be traced and projected in the long black radical tradition where black Consciousness is one H exponent of it lend peace and bread I thank you [Applause] well thank you so much for that that was a claran call um you know Professor satle has in a number of papers and books over the past few years articulated a version of black radical thought that clarifies the incipient anti-blackness that remains in Africa and around the world more than that though he improvises with a wide range of thinkers to show that th the thought does more than remain uh thought does more than just remain in the F face of anti-blackness but it becomes more subtle more insistent and more hopeful so my interest and this should not come as a surprise to anyone is with place in space uh it is the place that is not that is not yet but keeps calling it is the minor literature not in the sense of being unimportant or tangential but in Duo's sense of speaking to what we can find in a place both the act of overcoming the shifting regime we call anti-blackness and also on the way to that goal even when as in the case in the place I live Florida USA and I know in many other places as well even when we seem to be taking steps backwards back to an obliteration of place in favor of a fantasy where there was never any racial disharmony and it is those who insist that there was are they're the that are the real racists so the story we told in the fantas in the fantasy place that I live some want us to believe that slavery wasn't so bad because the slaves you learned useful skills those same people are passing laws to control what we teach to adults in universities about race gender sexual orientation and anything else they can use to stoke their base these fantasy places that shock me a white Canadian working in the US are the place that my black colleagues have lived in their whole lives I gasp at the brazenness of the cruelty and naked racism they say welcome to my world these are the places that Sato describes even though they're of course historical and cultural and plal differences between them in his most recent book refiguring in Black which I by the way highly recommend I got him to sign my copy of it just yesterday um he describes the Spectre of an africanis presence which is and I quote the uh is the existential struggle to become be uh become being and to resist all forces of dehumanization this is an effort of struggle of self-de africanis presence is the struggle of the dehumanized the nature of this struggle is the refusal to be subjected to the dictates of the colonial Library end quote the colonial Library continues in South Africa in the US in Germany what were those elections y all had in bararia just a few days ago um but of course it's not just the news makak events that make up the library those deliberate provocations the reactionary votes those are just the most obvious parts of this library in critical circles at least we also know about the homogenizing pacifying effects of the liberal order the volumes in this section of the library are full of words like peace freedom equality law justice but it doesn't take very much to show how these are all built on the tamed black person the subservient woman the gay person who never makes waves and doesn't make anyone feel uncomfortable The Immigrant with no accent who maybe even likes baseball like I do those who have fabricated an existence adequate to the acceptable narrative in this section of the library this colonial Library it's tempting to stay on the issue of the inadequacy of this place the ways in which it stands in the way of realizing another place a truly liberated place this is the easy story to tell although not the easy task to complete the colonial Library like every library is not static it morphs to reconstitute itself Whenever there is a challenge to its core narrative the old forms of racism are long no longer socially acceptable no worries we have new forms we have code words we have metaphors analogies memes traditional Christian values Thin Blue lines Law and Order won't somebody think of the children and everything else we need to M maintain an epistem while convincing ourselves that we are the rational ones and it's those deviants the same ones as always who are the real problem we have University administrators politicians religious leaders and others who are willing to go along with these stories in the colonial library because to do otherwise would be too disruptive too likely to generate hate mail or too likely to land them in hot water this comfortable Colonial library with its leatherback chair and its curated displays showing how much good its proponents do for the less fortunate is always predicated on the disposability and inferiority of non-whites in general and blacks in particular and it always finds a way to reinscribe its brutal story updated for a new age so this is the space in which seole is writing and thinking he says enough enough is enough this colonial library has no news stories just the same old ones rebooted for a new demographic and he finds the resources satle does in black literature Jazz philosophy so many other places where he can live in the vital present that calls forth a once in future place and so we're here for a discussion not to listen to me so I want to start that discussion now and uh I am so glad that he started off with the title that he did because that's where I want to start so we're gonna sit down and talk is that all right you know this is not this is not going to be a you know I talk and you talk it's conversation so right on hello oh there we go all right so so your new title um the thought and I'm really interested that you went that direction uh the sematic um you know uh not the embodied but the sematic although it is embodied of course and I guess I want to I want you to talk a little bit more about that you know when I think of the sematic I think of U of of uh of our nervous system I think of of a c a certain kind of embodiment that's not just how we move through the world but how how our bodies learn to react to things and and and and and you know we we we can Flinch even before you know uh uh you know in anticipation of something we can see something on TV and feel it in our gut even though you know it's just on TV you know and and so the sematic is a very rich sort of notion so I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about about about that kind of embodiment uh this is a a very interesting question because of like when I was thinking about H the somatic thought I I I have been troubled H for years by a the question of France fanon's muscles like you know uh when he speaks about the contractions of muscles like you know H spasms all those things they they never spray down like you know and and and and and including also the of breath itself like you know and as a result of that he was thinking about the very question of combat breathing like you know and then how that speaks to the very notion of H for us to insist h on living thinking about somatic thought it's a very notion of having to steal air so black people must steal air because of they in the choke hold like so those gasps that are happening they still but if you think about that breath like it is the whole sensorium of the body like you know and how even H this body H gets reactivated every time it has to assume a presence in a place right you know ER blacks know that in New York you can't jwalk like you know you discipline yourself you go to the to the robots like you know or traffic lights for you to to come but as well having to to to think about H somatic thought as the very idea of having to to to to mobilize all senses of the body like you know in having to generate thought like that thought is not there the body is not there like there's no this cartisian formulation everything is embodied even though like we know that there are there's a question of Som techniques like now like which seems to make that this body is automatic but it is not like the the there are this forces that we cannot even explain H how we do it like you know how H for us to say something we need to make particular hand gestures my my foot has to stand on hold and H I'm thinking about also H to think about somatic thought I'm thinking about M Davis oh as well yes that H we know very well that M Davis used to wear tight shoes like one size beneath because like he wanted to be a like standing grounded that's like he didn't move H when he played and secondly H they said H but M Davis why are you not moving you're supposed to sweat and he said no I'm sweating on my brain so that for me like it was a beautiful yeah con that the sweat inside the brain that he's refusing to play to the white spectacle audience kind of a thing like so that somatic thought it is that kind of a like it's it's it's it's it is it's a kind of thought that creates other conditions of possibility well you know as you talk about it I mean it seems to me there's a kind of Disconnect between and I'm going to use the term Colonial library because you used it um you know between the logic of the colonial library and what you're describing here and I guess I would put that contrast in terms of the difference between epistemology and cognition by what by which I mean in epistemology often we are are asking about what justifies an idea like how how do we justify ideas uh what what processes do we use for that in cognition it's about how does knowledge enter the body how does knowledge become part of the person right and you know even a lot of philosophers are starting to take Notions of cognition more seriously precisely because of the kinds of things you just talked about and if we it seems to me if we took that seriously you know some some of the kind of rationals for the colonial structures just fall by the wayside I mean you know they they just they just don't hold any water anymore because the fact is it's not just the alienated black body which is in this process of cognition it is all of us it is all of us and and so so yeah there just seems to be something that that you know the entire colonialist apparatus was based on that uh it just does not describe us as human beings period you know yeah and like just to be H short on that like I I have been thinking about even this H if you think about somatic thought what does it mean to exhaust exhaustion I know that it might sound topological by that I mean when everything is been depleted everything has been taken away from you like you know H how do you think from that like how do you start from exhaustion where you supposed to abandon everything and that as a beginning like you know when you mobilize other senses like you know like let's think about even the issue of thought itself like you know that when thought is no longer that object or I must Engage The CH on but what if I see a love letter right as an epist local [Music] text what you've been saying Prof like the issue of posters like you know like how do we think without deputizing them to say well according to the fan mode the poster is no but when we say the poster is in itself right you know a Justified text and in this way we will not say how is the poster Justified but we'll say how is the poster a justification in itself so it it will mean that we will have to have other modes of the refiguring how we think like you know and and and if we mobilize uh the body as a a side of thinking like you know H how do we see H the body itself as a text like you know I know that performance studies has been ahead of us like you know in terms of this dramatic and so forth but how is the body itself a text like you know because of H we're talking about H many other things like the older generation that sometimes when they die they they die with their whole knowledge that they left with them and then we get to interview their next Generations and then we've lost a lot so there there is a need to reconfigure that whole totality itself like to take seriously that which has been relegated to the majins and to say this is the thing in itself like you know if you can start there will start to generate H different H questions do you know do you know who Jean Amory is have you heard that name before Jean Amry no Jean Amory was a holocaust Survivor um and he wrote a book called uh at the mind's limit um and and if you've not looked at this book it's absolutely stunning I mean from from every level philosophically you know just viscerally all the rest of it but what Amory does in that book you you're talking about exhaustion which is what made me think of it um you know he talks about the exhaustion of of place like having lost place but not just having lost his place but having lost the ability to have a place in the world right so because he realized that not only had he been driven out of his home and all of that but he realized that he had to look back on his whole life and realize he was never at home like as you said before he was always being politely tolerated or or boxed in or something like that and so this whole book is about what it means to not be able to find a place anymore and and for him that was the ultimate torture and he ultimately committed suicide actually but um but it it just reminds me that this notion of exhaustion is is so important and and I think it Maps over onto what you've been talking about because that that notion of alienation is also being unhomed right that that home that home that is not that is once was and is anticipated but is not yet right I mean I sometimes talked about the difference between colonialism and slavery as in slavery you are taken from your home and in colonial colonialism your home is taken from you and maybe both happen to to some people but in both cases it is what does it mean to rehome and that's what I hear you calling for in insisting on on on just not cosmetic or superficial changes because that doesn't bring you back home yeah and you know like you're making me think about a gem session in jazz you know that when the gig is over when everybody has left uh there'll be these guys who are coming with their instruments like they're already ready like they come with their tenner sex yeah or sticks and then they go on to the stage and then they throw things at each other like you know that they exhausting H that night and uh also what they do in terms of having to H play what I will call a blue note like you know it's a blue note that is not there on the notation scale but it is there like you know you can't touch it like you and then when they when they improvise like when they throw this they they do this in in a way of a creating other homes like because of like the initial gig what you saw on the poster it's over you've all left like it's only some of us we don't have a place to sleep at we stay at the club like you know they they'll continue to exhaust like you know and this exhaustion not as a limit but this exhaustion as a condition of possibility like you know and I think uh this is what H we've been H seeing like even in the work of the work of of of who a just lover of note like when he was telling me about what they did in in David that they they used to wear the American clothes H they were poor but h on Saturday people will wear their best clothes they'll hold those H records and then there'll only be one person who will purchase a Down Beat magazine and the magazine will circulate amongst many whether they could read or not it didn't matter and H the magazine as well it had advertisements like you know of the sloes and so forth so so so so the very idea of making home exhaustion and and it shows how the cultivation of many weals is coming into being in a condition where this world is being denied yeah you know I mean that's such a great example of of of the the Jazz combo because I think it gets at something pretty core to what I heard you saying about Freedom right I mean one could listen to you talking about freedom and think well okay so freedom is what happens after we get rid of all the barriers right after we get rid of the things that stop us then Freedom happens and my question then naturally is well so what is it then what what is it but but you see the the Jazz combo gives the answer to that right first of all it's cognitive by the way it's about expertise but what happens when you're throwing stuff back and forth in that combo is that you are you are doing things you didn't even know you knew could you could do right you have ideas you didn't even know you had and all of a sudden somebody else is reacting to them boom boom boom you're in the zone you know you're you're you're and and that seems to me to be a pretty good vision of Freedom right you know yeah and and the beauty that comes is how did they do that how do they know that like the call and response H improvisation like creating a community like you know and sometimes like you'll not even hear a wrong note like from an era oh yeah something comes and this is where like you know the beauty of Black Thought is uh that is why it does not have to justify itself because in itself it is a justification H it has to be done as a matter of necessity as a commitment we know that it comes with cost but it has to be done right and why it has to be done it has to be done because it has to be done anyway like you know so H if you are asked no this not important why are you concerning yourself with this your question must also be a m Davis song So What like you know yeah well and so you know I mean not only does somebody else say you know how did you do that I mean you may say yourself like what what just happened you know um but you know what's interesting here is that Miles Davis and you know a lot of those groups in the in the 60s were doing this under the conditions of pretty you know rampant racism in the US still right I mean in other words this the the conditions of racism had not gone away before they could do that they were doing that in spite of that and and and you know they were doing something that made Beauty out of pain I don't know how to put it and that's no justification for the pain right but it is a certain sense that you know I mean you talk about uh you know the existential side of this the kind of coming back into Consciousness you know but it's not coming back to the same Consciousness that you had before it's coming back to a Consciousness that's been earned in a in a profound way and so and and I think miles is such a great example of that yeah take some questions uh and you can direct to not to me of [Laughter] course to Bruce and also to Oh yay than thank you um I've just been sitting here and then and enjoying myself but do please allow me um I'm so glad you brought up France Fon combat breathing and I'm so glad you brought up the business of how Jazz can actually also profer uh this this this site of somatic thought in uh generating visions of Freedom um I'd like to ask you to please well being the gender person that I am I'm going to bring women into this also because Professor JN you said that it concerns all of us it affects all of us not just black bodies and here uh being yeah the person that I am and the scholar that I am I'm going to say does it really affect all of us in the same way I want to then please ask if you could address the question of black breathing as set out by Christina sharp which also brings in the idea of of um how black bodies as spaces within themselves you talked about the nervous condition um I want to also consider in a post pandemic if we are in a post-pandemic moment as well the question of breathing as a citizenship right yeah and and how that basically also shapes the idea of of mobilizing black bodies uh and and in generating these uh uh moments of freedom and here uh I'd like to move away from Miles Davis and come to Nina Simone and how and how black breathing also as a black feminist citizen Right comes into the mix I would want to then look at Billy Holiday the types of of uh somatic resistance before she has to sing Strange Fruit right um I I I just like to ask you to please talk about those particular sites because especially when we talk about a somatic Norm I'm also thinking about Nal puar's reading of whiteness as a somatic Norm yeah so we are in the body we are with the body please if you could uh take this up I'd be so grateful thank you touched a uh let's think about Christina sh just for a moment like if we see recent text ordinary notes right how she writes about and you will see that a text as vignard of some diary entries it is not that like it's a it's a serious like she she she writes H what what spoke about Stuart Hall writing in complete Essence to to leave you having to H think from the limit like you know and in ordinary notes H from my reading I'm thinking about H what she's been doing in terms of somatic thought through wake work like wake work in in a book in the Wake how how are we engaging in this wake work in our Quan practices right and how do we engage also in the act of refusal in doing that like you know how how do we refuse that which has been refused to us as well right of course this not a toy like in that I will take like you will take away from me but I will give myself in my own ways and you've you've mentioned H all these figures like that are interesting but H let's think about zor H right the first the first black female Anthropologist the first black film maker right the 1920s when she wrote in her her own like when she went to travel the the halem Renaissance she's one of the founding figures of the halem Renaissance right and whom even Alis Walker did a very beautiful wake work in having to write a beautiful text in search of our mothers and that has a somatic thought like that how do I go to wake another body I'm going to find her grave whether that's a wrong grave or not it doesn't matter but I I found it I'll put a tombstone to it like you and then this will give H the Resurgence of a black w of H doing things and when you mentioned the issue of H somatic thought within the the the feminist framework I I was very sort of puzzled even to come through the works of defy Brooks when she wrote L notes for a revolution that she took H things that will ignore music reviews H and then let's say this uh black female wrote maybe four articles only but that exhaustive reading that happens and how do you produce these things at the limit like the voice of Nina Simone her having been denied even though she went to Juliet right the prestigious music school and then she wanted to be a classic music musician but she came like you know mississipp God Dam like you know that making those H de Colonial moves H in the work and how even she turned a piano to like you know a shouting voice like you know and her raspiness coming to the level of beauty like you know and and and and you know like when you mention the the music scene H think about the dresses of Billy Holiday right yeah even though she was H clothing herself elegantly those SCS those cigarette BS Bend but when she goes on stage like you know wearing that those flowers there what does that mean so I want us to go back to that in terms of having to understand somatic thought like you know there there's a whole lot and thank you for for for bringing that as like I'm saying you're touching a ner like I'm mind now yeah I mean I don't have much to add to that I want to take it out of the context of music though and you know I want to think about somebody like Suzanne cir um you know who who you know edited uh uh tropique uh the journal and wrote in it um for its short run it was like 3 years uh runs and when you look at the stuff that she did and I mean everyone everyone knows Amy cesir you know everyone knows his Brilliance no undoubted Brilliance and all of that but but suzan say there brings something interestingly different and and I think of it as a a certain vision of of a of a possible future that uh I I some times struggle to see um I mean it's in Amy suzar too but but suzan CER has this passion and this you know she sees the things that I think a lot of the other people writing in you know in that area were not seeing as as clearly as she was and so you know I think there is a There's an opportunity you know in every way of being in the world and I am interested in those who are able to bring bring something to the surface bring something to attention that could not be could not be given to us in another way let's put it that way how many minutes do we have okay I hope they are questions not presentations sharp straight so AIA uh it's I'm very happy to remember here Stevie boo so thank you for this peace be upon him uh so what about the friendship between him and Donald Woods you know I think there is philos philosophy there too and maybe to to enlarge the Horizon of black philosophy um what would we say for for for for the people who are black in separate thank you black and I didn't catch that black in secret in secret so I I saying that Donald W is a black in secret secret secret spirit in secret in in secret years I I I I I I I no in no no no still so are you saying that to in regards to Donald Woods yeah well well I back to defa with regards to that H since we know that it was a kind of a liberal paternal relationship like you know speaking on behalf like I mean see like his articles in Grand daily May and also how he represented like you know and I'm not saying like don't go by the Philly like you know see what what what he does in his but of course I'm not denying that the fact that he risked his life he he was there he set him as an equal and we can say the same with the likes of Richard Turner R STS and many others like you know but uh we cannot H not name and call out liberal paternalistic tendencies that have been H continuing and the most H person who was very extreme in that it was Alan Pon like you know who wrote In His H Journal a piece called black Consciousness saying what are they doing are they crazy so I did a project where like I I did a systematic criticism of him because the tendency again of the liberal consensus like there is a there's a project which which which has been done now to say that sto was not harsh on white liberals he didn't mean it he was young then but when he matured close to his death he had the open relationship as if like he was wrong I'm making a very radical push back against that liberal consensus which has a lot of H paternalism in it and also to deny the fact that p is a philosopher it's like he had a deputized speech like you know that or white assisted him that's why he was able to work at spast and so forth but yeah we'll take that outside as well like you know because it's a very interesting debate now ra we can take one in the end okay one yeah oh no um maybe I make it quick and you can take two yeah uh thank you so uh when you were talking about being one with the body you talked about this um assertion of the humanity and I was thinking around how that can enable us to analyze or understand things that are happening so I'm thinking of the burning fire so when you talked about using the somatic to incorporate all senses of the body so there's this burning in Service delivery protest in South Africa in the students Must Fall movements and in that way you are mobilizing the body senses of the body because there's the smell of fire but what does the fire do as you resist and how can that also enable us to understand when fire pops up in other context I mean now we are looking at what is happening in Palestine and there's fire and then there there's bodily experiences so I just thought I was just thinking about how when we see these assertions of humanity that um invoke Terror in the other how do we use what you have given us this assertion of humanity to sort of unpack just because there will be a labeling of this assertion of humanity as Terror um or yeah I don't know how to finish that but how can we use somatic understandings to sort of take away that kind of labeling that is particular yeah as a kind person I will take the last one after the my God now they become three if it becomes a question not a presentation then we will quickly take that one as well let's start with you then we end with you thank you so much for this presentation I really really um like I really really liked it um I have a question um concerning like black Consciousness like the like the philosophy and like because Blackness is actually um like if Blackness is not a homogeneous category right so it's multi-layered it's complex and like it like the articulation of Blackness um differs like um and like in terms of time in terms of locations Etc like if that that is the case like is there than one like Consciousness or is there like several like consciousnesses and if so how and um the other question um is oh no sorry okay sorry about that yeah thank you so much for giving me possibility to uh just I have a quick question I don't I hope I will read it in your book but did you uh work with Kar check off uh and Ubuntu together it's what I feel by listen to to you because um I think in somatic situ we need a doctor and um if the doctor is not outside it should be inside so maybe by Ubuntu the doctor is inside this is the first uh question one one one okay this is a comment I'm going I'm giving I'm just giving a comment which is very important I suggest uh like Bru is Delian I suggest this idea of Blues instead of Jazz because Blues is a site that generate all this music jazz because when you have a blues you sing a blues and uh I think Blues is maybe will fit better than Jazz from what you said well I disagree with that okay we have discussion after we can no I I disagree with that H in in in terms of H having to yes we we know like the conditions of Blues how it happened but I disagree with this H notion of er it's better than Jazz like you know and I I'm coming from a a different H tradition of also having to critique this notion of just being understood in a linear sense or like you know or it's it's from Blues it's like H Jazz existed before Jazz happened like you know H that condition of taking Western instruments and bended them otherwise like you know so I don't see it as uh a a sort of like you know what comes after like you know but H black people when they were in those slave ships like speaking in different languages being kidnapped already like it started like because of there were those who resisted like you know but we we will engage that uh I I didn't engage in K check off like I was thinking this somatic thought from Consciousness as a philosophy itself coming from the condition of having to think from being black in an anti black world like how do we start from there from the embodied experience in order to do a critique of the world so so that we can change the conditions to become situations because remember a condition is assumed as permanent but a condition like it can be changed so those are the kinds of the moves that I've been making specifically and it comes to the issue of black Consciousness H philosophy ER well I wouldn't say that oh there are multiple blesses blah blah blah because this is the existential condition yes uh the markers of race and racism they shift like you know time and space geography and so forth but anti Blackness the way it operates it's consistent like you know there is the line of H superiority and inferiority and then it applies in many context like you know but I would say there is conscious not it's plurality like you know yes I know that L Gordon is making a distinction between the lower case and the in the in the but for me like having to think of it as an affirmative stance of having to look at the world from the black point of view it makes uh something H different how people are thinking from their bodies to come to themselves in order to asset H their humanity and it livs very very well with the the issue of H this fire that that that comes but but the issue is that this fire should not be misdirected right because of like when this rage happens it's happening with our own immedia we misdiagnose the problem like we must learn to name things for what they are we must say this is Disobedience not otherwise this is Disobedience we call it for what it is so this fire has to be directed where it has to go and then we know that after fire we can turn the soil and then we'll have manure and then other plants will grow so I want us to think of of it in that way thank you so much [Applause] EX