Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse joined the Philosophy department in August 2024 and is currently teaching Introduction to Feminist Philosophy ; and Experience, Language and Knowledge courses. They also serve as the co-ordinator and moderator of the African Feminist Initiatives Virtual Dialogues at The Pennsylvania State University. 

Zinhle earned their dual Ph.D. in Philosophy & Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies from The Pennsylvania State University in August 2024. Their dissertation, entitled “Towards an Existential-Standpoint Reading of Blackwomen’s Autobiographies Under Apartheid South Africa” was supervised by Nancy Tuana and Robert Bernasconi. 

They also hold a Masters Degree in Philosophy from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa earned in 2017 and their thesis, entitled “African Conceptions of Personhood as Ableist, Gendered and Anti-Queer” was supported by the  Mandela Rhodes Foundation. Additionally, Zinhle has a Bachelor of  Arts Joint Honors  Degree in Philosophy and Politics also from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa earned in 2016. They received their undergraduate degree in Political Sciences and Philosophy  in 2015 from the University of Johannesburg,  South Africa which was supported by the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation. 

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Forthcoming: “In Conversation with Mamphela Ramphele on the Urgency of Storytelling for Blackwomen in South Africa”. Feminist Formations.

2023 “Being Black and a Woman in a Racist and Sexist Society: Locating an Existential Standpoint Philosophy in Mamphela Ramphele’s Autobiography”. Critical Philosophy of Race 11.2. 356-377

2021 - co-authored with Ashley Lamarre, “Marginal Disclosures: sisterhood, standpoint, community and thriving”. APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy. 20.2. 24-27

2018 “Menkiti’s normative communitarian conception of personhood as gendered, ableist and anti-queer.” South African Journal of Philosophy 37.1. 18-33

2017 “Reflections on the presence of police and private security at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.” Agenda 31.3-4. 78-88

Book Chapters

2020 “The Othering of Persons with Severe Cognitive Disabilities in Alexis Kagame’s Conceptualization of Personhood.” In Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference, Elvis Imafidon (ed.). 379-392

2019 “African Environmental Ethics as Southern Environmental Ethics.” In African Environmental Ethics: A Critical Reader, Munamato Chemhuru (ed.).111-123

Book Reviews

Forthcoming. Nathalie Nya, Simone de Beauvoir and the Colonial Experience: Freedom, Violence, and Identity, 2019. Simone de Beauvoir Studies

Abosede Priscilla Ipadeola. Feminist African Philosophy: Women And The Politics of Difference. 2023. Philosophia

2023 “Lauretta Ngcobo: Writing as the Practice of Freedom.” Barbara Boswell. AfricaIsACountry.com, https://africasacountry.com/2023/09/black-women-write

2020 “Memoirs of a Black (Male) South African Philosopher.” Mabogo P More. Journal of World Philosophies 5.270-273

2019 “Race Otherwise: Forging a New Humanism for South Africa.” Zimitri Erasmus. Critical Philosophy of Race. 218-221

Selected Public Writing

2018 - co-authored with Zinhle Mncube, “Identity by race does matter”. Mail & Guardian Online. https://mg.co.za/article/2018-05-25-00-identity-by-race-does-matter/.

2017 “Aesthetics of power and questioning what a ‘good’ university is”. Mail & Guardian. https://thoughtleader.co.za/aesthetics-of-power-and-questioning-what-a-good-university-is/.

2016 “Presence of police and private security at WITS triggered PTSD”. Daily Maverick. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2016-10-26-presence-of-police-and-private-security-at-wits-triggered-ptsd/#.WE_zbaJ97GI

“The Remember Khwezi protest has shone a spotlight on our societies patriarchal nature”. Mail & Guardian Thought Leader. https://thoughtleader.co.za/the-remember-khwezi-protest-has-shined-a-spotlight-on-our-societys-patriarchal-nature/.

Journal Editorials

forthcoming A special issue on “Writing African Feminist Subjectivities”. Edited with Maha Marouan and Alicia Decker for Feminist Formations

Refereed Conference Presentations

2023 “Writing as rioting, rioting as writing: Contours of a South African Black Feminist Standpoint Epistemology”, National Women Studies Association, Baltimore DC, October 26-29

2022 “Locating an existential standpoint approach in the autobiographies of South African Blackwomen”, Caribbean Philosophical Association. Michigan, October 26-30

“An ‘ignorance that is active’: If #NotAllMen, then which #menaretrash? Understanding Violence Against Women in South Africa through the lens of Epistemic Injustice and the Epistemologies of Ignorance”. Dealing with violence – resolving conflicts in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Hanover, July 24-27

Shifting the geography of imagination: A cartography of South African Black Feminist Imaginating”, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Graduate Conference. Penn State (Virtual), February 25-24

2021 Co-presentation “In sisterly scholarship: Friendship and collegiality”, Collegium of Black Women Philosophers (CBWP). Penn State (Virtual), May

2020 “Writing as rioting, writing as survival: Drawing on Black feminist scholars mid-covid”, Collegium of Black Women Philosophers (CBWP). Penn State (Virtual), April 24

 “Marginal Disclosures: standpoint, sisterhood, survival and stipends”, American Philosophical Association (APA) Eastern Division Philadelphia, January 12-10

2017 “Menkiti’s normative communitarian conception of personhood as gendered, ableist and anti-queer”, Philosophy Society of Southern Africa (PSSA) Conference. Rhodes University, January 18-16

Invited Talks

2023 “The racial and gendered taxonomies of Apartheid qua system.” The Department of Philosophy at the University Kwa-Zulu Natal (virtual), May 24

2022 “Unveiling ‘their evil system: Locating an existential standpoint approach in the autobiographies of South African Blackwomen.” The Department of Philosophy at Stellenbosch University, May 19

“Locating an existential standpoint approach in the autobiographies of South African Blackwomen.” The Department of Philosophy at University of the Witwatersrand, May 12

“Being Black and a Woman in a Racist and Sexist Society: Locating an Existential Standpoint Philosophy in Mamphela Ramphele’s Autobiography.” The Department of Philosophy at Santa Clara University, April 15

2017 “African Environmental Ethics as Southern Environmental Ethics”. The Department of Philosophy at the University of Fort Hare, October 3

“Feminism and Africanism as coexisting ideologies”. Keynote address at the University of the Free State; Golden Key International Honour Society, August 30

 “African Conceptions of Personhood as ableist, gendered and anti-queer”. University of the Witwatersrand Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER). March 17

Symposia/Conference Panels and Workshops

2024 “An Intersectional Analysis of Apartheid Praxis”, Virtual presentation, Apartheid as Method for Worldmaking after Empire: Encountering histories, presents, and continuities of Apartheid in South Africa, University of the Witwatersrand, September 17.

2022 Invited panelist, “Surfacing: On being black and feminist in South Africa”, National Women Studies Association, Minnesota, November 12-10

Invited respondent to Yolande Bouka’s talk, “Black Women in the African Postcolony” by the Centre for Women and Gender Studies and the DSI-NRF SARCHi Chair in African Feminist Imagination, Nelson Mandela University, May 24

Invited Special Plenary Session, “The autobiography as a critical register of a (South African) Black Feminist Philosophy”, American Philosophical Association (APA) Central Division, Chicago. February 26-23

2021 Invited respondent at the Political Emotions Virtual Workshop. The Department of Philosophy at WITS, November 12

discussant to African Book Worlds (Virtual) by the Centre for Women and Gender Studies and the DSI-NRF SARCHi Chair in African Feminist Imagination, Nelson Mandela University, October 22

2019-20 Time Management Workshop at the Cultivating Underrepresented Students in Philosophy (CUSP) summer school, August, July, and June.

2018 “Black Women and Academic Activism”. Chaired session at the “Dreaming Feminist Futures” Symposium – University of Cape Town, April 20