NOTE FROM THE EDITOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS EDITION The University of Johannesburg acquired The Thinker in April 2019 f rom Dr Essop Pahad. Over the last decade, The Thinker has gained a reputation as a journal that explores Pan-Af rican issues across fields and times. Ronit Frenkel, as the incoming editor, plans on maintaining the pan-Af rican scope of the journal while increasing its coverage into fields such as books, art, literature and popular cultures. The Thinker is a ‘hybrid’ journal, publishing both journalistic pieces with more academic articles and contributors can now opt to have their submissions peer reviewed. We welcome Af rica-centred articles f rom diverse perspectives, in order to enrich both knowledge of the continent and of issues impacting the continent. - All contributing analysts write in their personal capacity Prof Ronit Frenkel Ashraf Jamal is a Research Associate in the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg (UJ). He is the co-author of Art in South Af rica: The Future Present (1996) and co-editor of Indian Ocean Studies: Social, Cultural, and Political Perspectives (2010). Jamal is also the author of In The World: Essays on Contemporary South Af rican Art (2017); Predicaments of Culture in South Af rica (2005), Love Themes for the Wilderness (1996), and the award-winning short f iction, The Shades (2002). Jamal’s latest book, Strange Cargo: Essays on Art, was published by Skira in 2022. Sven Christian is a writer, editor, and curator. In 2022, he was appointed curator of the Villa- Legodi Centre for Sculpture at NIROX Sculpture Park. He is the editor of Ashraf Jamal’s Strange Cargo: Essays on Art (2022); and co-editor of Coral Bijoux: Dreams as R-evolution (2020); Why Should I Hesitate: Putting Drawings to Work (2019); and Five Bhobh: Painting at the End of an Era (2018). He holds an MA in Contemporary Curatorial Practices f rom the University of the Witwatersrand, which focused on the curation of Dumile Feni’s scroll. The accompanying project, ‘You wouldn’t know God if he spat in your eye: impressions f rom Dumile Feni’s scroll’ was published through Ellipses: Journal of Creative Research. His work has also been published by The Garage Journal, and OnCurating, amongst others. uVusi Nkomo is a writer, educator, musician, media practitioner, and political-cultural organiser based in Cape Town, South Af rica. uVusi is the founder and researcher at iLiso Magazine. Phumzile Nombuso Twala is a writer and independent arts practitioner. An Independent Curators International (ICI) alumnus, her research interests are in heritage and the intersection between community engagement and museum practice. She is developing an interdisciplinary praxis based on this. As a practitioner, she has been aff iliated with Funda Community College in Soweto, through the Creative Arts Incubator Programme, and has been actively developing social interventions through Soweto Museums. She is completing a BA Honours degree in History of Art at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), and is a recipient of both the 2020 Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) Heritage-related Studies Bursary and the 2020 Robben Island Museum Bursary. Hlonipha Mokoena eceived her Ph.D. f rom the University of Cape Town in 2005. She is currently an associate professor and researcher at WiSER (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Her articles have been published in: Journal of Natal and Zulu History; Journal of Religion in Af rica; Journal of Southern Af rican Studies; Ufahamu: A Journal of Af rican Studies; Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies; Image & Text and Critical Arts. Phokeng Setai is a doctoral fellow at the Centre T H E T H I N K E R | J o u r n a l I S S N : 2 0 7 5 2 4 5 8 for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape. He investigates the socio-political dynamics that constitute the landscape of contemporary Af rican cultural production. His vision is to develop radical Pan-Af rican methodologies for the advancement of Black studies, and to foster collaborative, interdisciplinary f rameworks in the expanded Af rican cultural landscape. Setai’s passion for archiving is evident in his enthusiasm for vinyl record collecting and his bent for book and art connoisseurship. He is a self-confessed foodie and football lover. Nkgopoleng Moloi is an arts writer based in Cape Town, South Af rica. Her work has been featured in Artthrob, Elephant Magazine, The British Journal of Photography and post (The Museum of Modern Art’s online resource), among others. Thulile Gamedze is a Johannesburg-based writer and otherwise undisciplined practitioner working between images, text, and history. Her work is moved by the pedagogical, social, and creative potential of radical Queer positions and Black Consciousness politics. She has an M.Phil in Fine Art f rom the University of Cape Town, and has published extensively for international art publications, including Documenta 14, the 10th Berlin Biennale, and iterations of Recontres’ de Bamako, as well as for local platforms like Mail & Guardian and Artthrob. She has also published in academic journals Radical Philosophy and South Atlantic Quarterly (as one of two parts of ‘gamEdze and gamedZe’) and has a forthcoming diagrammed essay in MARCH journal’s issue on ‘Black Ecologies.’ Stacy Hardy is a writer, an editor with pan Af rican collective Chimurenga, and a lecturer in creative writing at UCKAR. Her writing has appeared in a wide range of publications and a collection of her short f iction, Because the Night, was published in 2015. She regularly collaborates with Angolan composer Victor Gama on multimedia works that have been performed around the world and her experimental performance piece, “Museum of Lungs,” created together with Laila Soliman, Neo Muyanga, and Nancy Mounir, toured globally. She is a research fellow at Chicago University and is currently working on a research and performance-based collaborative endeavour exploring biographies and geographies of breath. She is also the librettist for a new opera which won the prestigious Fedora-Generali Prize for Opera 2020 and will premier at Festival D’aix- En-Provence, France in 2022. Abel Mputing holds a Masters of Arts in Fine Art and an honours degree in history f rom the University of Cape Town. Before that he was a f reelance arts writer for various South Af rican national newspapers. And a columnist for Top of the Times, a weekly Arts Supplement of Cape Times. He lectured on part-time basis a module on South Af rican Art Narratives at Michaelis School of Fine Art and was also enlisted as a research fellow at The Centre for Curating the Archive, UCT. He is interested in South Af rican art history with a special emphasis on South Af rican documentary and art photography with particular reference to the black body, its archival record and the contemporary artistic practices thereof. David Mann is an award-winning writer, editor and arts journalist f rom Johannesburg. His reviews, essays and journalism have been published in the Mail&Guardian, ArtFormes, Business Day, Sunday Times, Daily Maverick, ArtTimes, The Con Mag, ArtThrob and more, and his f iction and creative non- f iction have appeared in AFREADA, The Kalahari Review, ITCH Creative Journal, Sunday Times Books, New Contrast and Imbiza Journal (forthcoming). Nolan Stevens has had careers as an independent curator, art teacher , as well as an award-winning artist and arts writer. His written work has been published in- a wide range of renowned print and online arts publications both locally and internationally. Stevens’ subject of interest interrogates the complexities surrounding modern day af ro-urban life. CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS EDITION V o l u m e 9 1 / 2 0 2 2 | J o u r n a l I S S N : 2 0 7 5 2 4 5 8