In contemporary political communities, race and culture still play an important role in structuring social identities and political possibilities. This call is an invitation to scholars and cultural practitioners to join us in thinking through questions of race, representation and cultural production.
Black political formations’ inclusion of culture as protest opens up ways to think possibilities and limits of culture as a tool for liberation. The political desire articulated within the race/cultural formation opens up an anxiety of accounting. This call is for such analysis of an anxiety of accounting, while also interrogating what counts as the representational infrastructure of Black political demands. We will therefore be thinking about the political infrastructures that open up through cultural practices as well as their limits.
On the 21st and 22nd October 2022, the Spaza writers’ collective, in collaboration with SWOP and the political studies department, will hold a two day workshop at Wits University. We are inviting scholars of culture and the political to join us in these discussions. If you would like to participate in the workshop and present an intervention in the discussion, please send an abstract to ahmed.veriava@wits.ac.za and cc lovejazzmuse@gmail.com. Presentations can take multiple forms.