Date:
Thursday 9 April 2026
Time:
1:00pm – 3:00pm
Venue:
Iyatsiba Lab,
66 Greatmore Street, Woodstock
(enter via Regent St)
A Conversation in the Humanities in Session Series at the Centre for Humanities Research, part of the Advanced Research Seminar.
Synopsis
In a meditation on the relationship between queer aesthetics and politics, I inquire, what happens when “queerness”, “blackness”, and “performance” come into view? What does the exploration of queerness in popular culture give us? While cognisant of the “metrocentric” Global North characterisation of LGBTI identities, I argue that in the postcolony these urban queer formations articulate a time that is “not yet here” (Muñoz, 2009), they pronounce a queer African futurity that is beyond the tired-yet-ubiquitous assertion that queerness is “unAfrican.” In looking at the work of queer black artist Nakhane, and Desire Marea, my analysis focuses on how these two artists have created work that centralises black queer aesthetics, and this is important because “the aesthetic, especially the queer aesthetic, frequently contains blueprints and schemata of a forward-dawning futurity” (Muñoz).
Bio:
Lwando Scott holds a PhD in Sociology, and is currently a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape. Scott is an interdisciplinary scholar with a focus on gender and sexualities and has written on the intersections of sexuality, gender, and African cultural practices in post-apartheid South Africa. Between 2023 and 2026, Scott has been part of the Realising Girls and Women’s Inclusion, Representation and Empowerment (RE-WIRING) project, working on contemporary representations of gender in the media and in the arts.