Amina Mama
University of California (Davis)

‘Thetha Sizwe,’ or ‘Let your voice be heard’ is an audacious and timely scholarly intervention. It presents a rich collection of philosophical reflections that celebrates the resistive, subversive and creative role of cultural workers in critiquing heteronormative colonially and patriarchy. It begins by exploring African cultural expressions which contribute aesthetic forms and cultural tools for the critical interrogation of coloniality, demonstrating the resistive potential of indigenous ideas of gender and sexuality characterised by fluidity. The material examples, include Yoruba oriki praise singing, Zulu philosophy of umsamo, and Izingane zoMa’s Zulu women’s songs, among others, which provide the basis for theoretical advances in cultural decolonisation and expand the terrain for radical inventiveness. Taken as a whole, this collection opens new political and philosophical spaces for the ongoing engagement with the challenges of creating theories and intellectual practices that can respond to the enmeshed realities in which African people find themselves.

Mogomme A Masoga
Dean: Faculty of Humanities (UFS)

This is a fresh and tantalising offering! One likes how all three areas – African languages, gender and sexualities – have been drawn together to address our understanding of the present. The collection boasts enormous scope; the deftly written chapters offering vital insights and timely takes. To address issues of gender and sexuality is no easy task and gets even tougher when one looks exclusively at African languages. Yet the present volume pulls it off with aplomb. The editors and authors should be congratulated for presenting a forceful, brave, and beautiful plethora of influences and perspectives. They are unflinching and undaunted in tackling a variety of topics: African languages and languaging, history, meaning, decoloniality and a compelling mix of lived experiences, both personal and shared. What a delicious miscellany!