Abstract
This lecture will focus on Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s meaning to South Africa and South Africa’s meaning to him. Long established as an influential force on South African activists and scholars for over fifty years, this lecture will map and trace Professor Ngugi wa Thiongo’s influence on South Africa, and South Africa’s influence on him based on his testimonies. It will principally focus on three interventions Professor Ngugi made in South Africa and particularly at the University of Cape Town: the Steve Biko Lecture in 2003, the Great Texts/Big Questions Lecture in 2017 and an interview he gave at UCT in 2021. Collectively, these insights provide rich points of meditation for the implications of his work on different fields in the humanities as well as youth activism in and around the Rhodes Must Fall student movement. The lecture will close with openings provided by Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s work for current and future generations of African scholars.

Bio

Shose Kessi is Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Cape Town and Professor in the Department of Psychology. Her work in the field of political psychology explores the complex ways in which individuals construct their identities and shape their behaviors within society, and how they join forces to drive change—whether through institutional reforms, social movements, or other forms of individual and collective action. She is co-founder of the Hub for Decolonial Feminist Psychologies in Africa, a space for research and academic work that embraces a decolonial and feminist aesthetic and praxis for psychological work in South Africa, Africa, and the diaspora. She is also the co-founder and first chairperson of the UCT Black Academic Caucus. Shose has published on the psychology of racism in higher education and other decolonial and African-centered approaches to psychology.