Siseko Kumalo
Lecturer
PhD and M.A. (University of Pretoria) and BSocSci Honours and BSocSci (Rhodes University)
email: skumalo@ufh.ac.za
Academic Background
Siseko H. Kumalo, is a political theorist whose work focuses on Blackness/Indigeneity in South Africa. His Ph.D. examined belonging and national identity using the scholarship of two historical Black intellectuals, i.e., William Wellington Gqoba and SEK Mqhayi. He read for his Master of Arts (which was awarded Cum Laude) in Political Philosophy at the University of Pretoria’s Department of Political Sciences. Formatively, Siseko trained at Rhodes University where he read in Political and International Studies, Anthropology and Philosophy. His research and teaching interests centre around Black ontology, national culture, and emancipatory epistemologies. He served as the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Decolonising Disciplines and has presented his research at world-leading institutions such as Duke University’s (USA) Center for International and Global Studies and Harvard University’s Center for African Studies. Siseko lectured, briefly, at Karolinska Institutet (Sweden), under their masters in Global Health, teaching on the subject of decolonising Global Health. He has edited books like Decolonisation as Democratisation: Global Insights into the South African Experience (HSRC Press), and co-edited Decolonising Curricula and Pedagogy in Higher Education (Routledge, UK), along with University on the Border: Crisis of Authority and Precarity (SUN Media Press). He serves on the Editorial Collective of Stilet, the Tydskrif vir Letterkunde Association as well as the Literary Association of South Africa’s Executive Committee.
Areas of Specialisation
Siseko teaches in the fields of Decolonisation, Social and Political Philosophy Epistemic Justice, and works on the Black Archive for his research and graduate supervision. He has published on the Black Archive and continues to do research in this area, where he is thinking about the social responsiveness of the discipline of Philosophy, while also keeping in mind the global trajectories of the discipline.
Publication Record
Monographs
Kumalo, S.H. 2022. Reclaiming African Intellectual Traditions in the Contemporary University - Challenging Racialised Thought in South African Higher Education. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, Contracted (June 2022)
Edited Books
Kumalo, S.H. (Ed.) 2021. Decolonisation as Democratisation: Global Insights into the South African Experience. Cape Town: HSRC Press,
Morreira, S., Luckett, K., Kumalo, S.H., & Ramgotra, M. (Eds.) (2021). Decolonising Curricula and Pedagogy in Higher Education, London: Routledge, UK,
Lange, L., Reddy, V., & Kumalo, S.H. (Eds.) (2021) University on the Border: Crisis of Authority and Precarity. Stellenbosch: SUN Media Press.
Zondi, N., Mkhize, G., Zungu, B., Kumalo, S.H., & Reddy, V. (Eds.) 2023. Thetha Sizwe: Contemporary South African Debates on African Languages and the Politics of Gender. Pretoria: ESI Press.
Selected Journal Publications
Kumalo, S.H. (2024). 'Pedagogic Obligations toward a Decolonial and Contextually Responsive Approach to Teaching Philosophy in South Africa', Journal of Philosophy of Education. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jopedu/qhae028
Kumalo, S.H. (2023). 'Can Iqaba Possess Ontological Legitimacy?', Critical Philosophy of Race, 11(2): 378—407.
Kumalo, S.H. (2022). 'Amaqaba nama Gqobhoka?: Working through Colonial Derision of Black Ontology', Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 69(173): 1—28.
Kumalo, S.H. 2021. 'Developing Epistemic Impartiality to Deliver on Justice in Higher Education South Africa', Education, Citizenship and Social Justice.
Kumalo, S.H. 2021. 'Contestations of Visibility - A Critique of Democratic Violence', South African Journal of Higher Education, 35(1): 143-160.
Morreira, S., Luckett, K., Kumalo, S.H., & Ramgotra, M. 2020. 'Confronting the Complexities of Decolonising Curricula and Pedagogy in Higher Education', Third World Thematics, 5(1&2): 1-18.
Kumalo, S.H. 2020. 'Resurrecting the Black Archive through the Decolonisation of Philosophy in South Africa', Third World Thematics, 5(1&2): 19-36.
Kumalo, S.H. 2020. 'Khawuleza - An Instantiation of the Black Archive', Imbizo, 11(2): 1-21.
Kumalo, S.H. 2020. 'Curriculating from the Black Archive - Marginality as Novelty', Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning, 8(1): 111-132
Kumalo, S.H. 2020. 'Justice through Higher Education: Revisiting White Paper 3 of 1997', Higher Education Quarterly, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12253
Book Chapters
Kumalo, S.H. (2023). 'Imfundo, Ubulumko, Nomthetho: A South African Philosophy of Education' in E. Imafidon, M. Tshivhase & B. Freter (eds.) Handbook of African Philosophy. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. pp. 596—617.
Kumalo, S.H. (2022). 'Revealing the Power of Language and Developing Theory from Historical Artefacts', in D. Boucher (ed.) Language, Culture and Decolonization. Cape Town: HSRC Press. pp. 113—134.
Book Reviews
'The Black Register', Tydskrif vir Letterkunde: (In press)
'Revatalising 'Stale Intellectual Debates'', Politikon, 48(3): 506-510.
'Distinguishing between Ontology and 'Decoloniality as Praxis'', Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, 58(1): 162-168
'Reading the Polis through Literary Aesthetics - Queer in Africa: LGBTQI Identities, Citizenship, and Activism', Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 34(3): 154-159.