Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse was invited to give a virtual seminar with the Philosophy Department at Rhodes University in South Africa on October 1 to present their essay “Autographic Insurgency: South African Black Women’s Apartheid Autobiographies as Epistemic Refusal and Ontological Repair,” which draws on her current book project. ka’Nobuhlaluse decided to cancel the seminar in solidarity with Rhodes students protesting high tuition fees.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse published “The conditions of collective freedom: Reworking Black consciousness through Blackwomen’s praxis in Apartheid prisons” in The Southern Journal of Philosophy, one of the longest-running and most respected peer-reviewed journals in the discipline. Drawing on the autobiographies of Black women imprisoned under Apartheid, in this article, they point to Black women’s collective practices of survival and care inside prison and demonstrate how such acts offer a richer account of what collective freedom requires as per the South African Black Consciousness Philosophy. The article is open access and free to read here.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse has joined the Blog of the American Philosophical Association as co-editor of its Gender, Sexuality, and Women in Philosophy series. The blog marked the appointment with an interview conducted by her co-editor, Elisabeth Paquette of the University at Buffalo, published on August 19. In it, ka’Nobuhlaluse traces her path into philosophy from a first-year lecture hall in Johannesburg to a tenure-track post at Southwestern, discusses the questions about justice, race, and Apartheid’s afterlives that drive her research, and lays out her plans for the series: recruiting more contributors based outside North America and making room for creative essays, poetry, and photography as forms of philosophical work. The interview can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse, kinesiology major Jayden Dawson ’27, and anthropology major Raven Waugh ’26 published their co-written essay, “Reflections on Mapping an A–Z Philosophy BlackList,” on the Blog of the American Philosophical Association. In the essay, the authors reflect on their work on the A–Z Philosophy BlackList, an expanding archive of Black intellectuals curated by ka’Nobuhlaluse and shared every year during Black History Month since her appointment in the Philosophy Department at SU. The project has received funding from the Mellon Publicly Engaged Humanities grant. The essay can be read here.

A public philosophy essay authored by Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse titled “But, Is She (bell hooks) a Philosopher?” was published by APABlogWomenInPhilosophy. The piece can be accessed here.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse’s book review of Feminist African Philosophy: Women and the Politics of Difference by Abosede Priscilla Ipadeola was published by the journal philoSOPHIA. The review can be accessed here.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse was invited to workshop their work, alongside Texas A&M University Assistant Professor of Africana Studies & Hispanic Studies Benjamin P. Davis, at a Philosophy of Race Workshop during the 55th annual North Texas Philosophy Association (NTPA) Meeting, hosted by the Philosophy Department at the University of Texas at Dallas from March 27–28. Dr. ka’Nobuhlaluse shared a draft of their paper “Black M/othering, Prison, the Doek: the production of Black women’s fungibility under Apartheid.”

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse was invited to speak to the graduate students who are part of the Minorities in Philosophy (MAP) Chapter at Texas State University on February 24. Dr. ka’Nobuhlaluse shared about their research, graduate experiences (in South Africa and the US), and challenges and joys of navigating philosophy as a Black woman.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse had the essay, “An Ode to the Domestics, the Minors of Apartheid, My Grandmother Among Them,” published on the Caribbean Philosophical Association’s blog, Caliban’s Readings. It can be read here. The piece is a philosophical and personal meditation on Black women who worked as domestics under Apartheid, with a special focus on ka’Nobuhlaluse’s maternal grandmother. It explores how bureaucracy, racial capitalism, and patriarchal law rendered these women “minors,” even as their labour sustained families, homes, and the nation. Drawing on Black feminist and Africana philosophy, as well as autobiographical writing, ka’Nobuhlaluse thinks through archives not only as formal institutions but as living, intergenerational memory carried in bodies, stories, and ordinary objects. ka’Nobuhlaluse wrote this essay while teaching an FYS on Apartheid.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse was invited to comment on Hannah Bacon’s paper, “A Critical Phenomenology of Carceral Time,” presented at the 63rd annual Society for Phenomenology Existential Philosophy Conference. This year’s conference was held online over two weekends, October 17–18 and 24–25.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse presented a paper titled “Towards a Black Consciousness like Black Feminist praxis” at the 43rd Annual Spindel Conference, hosted by the Philosophy Department at the University of Memphis from September 25-27. The conference proceedings will be published in a special issue of the Southern Journal of Philosophy.

During the summer, Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse participated in a workshop on “African Voices in Global Intellectual History” in Konstanz, Germany from June 23 – 25. They presented their working chapter, which is a commentary on one of Mamphela Ramphele’s essays. The workshop aims to publish contributions into a book anthology that will feature African figures of the 19th and 20th centuries in annotated original documents. The reader aims to contribute to bringing African voices into the global historical perspective and thus stimulate new research.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse presented a paper titled “Living In Contemporarity: Towards an afro-fem ethic of sufficiency” and participated in a closed workshop on MJ Alexander’s book Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred  at the philoSOPHIA Conference held at Texas A&M University in College Station on April 10.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse was awarded the Kristeller-Popkin Travel Fellowship worth $4,000 from the Journal of the History of Philosophy  for a research project titled “Interrogating Apartheid’s Foundations through Alfred Hoernlé’s Philosophy.” Dr. ka’Nobuhlaluse is one of two awardees to receive the highly competitive grant.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse co-edited, along with Maha Marouan and Alicia Decker, and contributed a critical interview to the piece “In Conversation with Mamphela Ramphele on the Urgency of Storytelling for Blackwomen in South Africa,” in Writing African Feminist Subjectivities, the first-ever special issue on African feminism in the history of the journal Feminist Formations. This landmark issue, now live on Project MUSE, brings together a powerful collective of feminist scholars, activists, and artists, engaging with African feminist thought in profound and transformative ways. The Writing African Feminist Subjectivities  issue can be accessed here.

Professor of Philosophy Michael Bray discussed the crisis of democracy and populist politics as the guest for an episode of the limited podcast series Crisis Point, run by the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI) at the University of Sheffield, England. The series will air in March.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse presented at the first annual conference of the League of African Women Philosophers (LAWP) held virtually on January 25–26. The title of their paper was “Reading Makhoere’s Autobiography of Prison Under Apartheid South Africa via an ‘Existential Standpoint.’” The League of African Women Philosophers is important because it represents a vital step toward addressing the historical underrepresentation of African women in philosophy and the broader intellectual discourse.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse’s book review on Simone de Beauvoir and the Colonial Experience: Freedom, Violence, and Identity by Nathalie Nya was published online under “Volume 34 (2023): Issue 2 (December 2024): Special Issue: Sites of Coercion: Plantation, Colony, Metropole,” edited by Janine Jones, in Simone de Beauvoir Studies. In the review, Dr. ka’Nobuhlaluse unpacks Nya’s compelling arguments and discusses how this book challenges us to rethink Beauvoir’s relevance in today’s global struggles for liberation and justice. The review also critiques the use of phrases such as “non-white” within European and American scholarship by drawing attention to the problematic uses as seen in Apartheid South Africa. It can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse had a piece in public philosophy, titled “A Clothing Paradox Unbuttoned: Why We Should All Be Ethical Shoppers,” published in the Blog of the APA (American Philosophical Association) on November 21. In the work, Dr. ka’Nobuhlaluse explores the intersections of philosophy, fashion, and ethics, tackling the contradictions in our clothing choices and addressing the question, how do we reconcile the desire for self-expression with the pressing need for sustainability and justice in global supply chains? This essay is part of a larger work on thinking about an eco-feminist praxis. The article can be accessed here.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse virtually presented a working draft of a book chapter titled “The Interlocking Nature of Apartheid Praxis” at a workshop on “Apartheid as Method for Worldmaking after Empire: Encountering histories, presents, and continuities of Apartheid in South Africa,” held at the University of the Witwatersrand on September 17. The workshop aims to provide authors with feedback towards an edited volume on Critical Apartheid Studies.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy Gwen Daugs presented a paper at the 2024 Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association titled “Moral Panic and Gender: Michel Foucault, Toby Beauchamp, and the Safety of Children.”

Professor of Philosophy Michael Bray published an essay, “Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s Post-Marxism Can’t Give Us a Political Strategy,” on the Jacobin website. A Spanish translation, “Laclau, Mouffe y la estrategia política,” was also published on Jacobinlat.com.

In July, Assistant Professor of Philosophy Jorge Lizarzaburu presented the paper “An Extended Evolutionary Account of Human Nature” at the International Society for the History Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology at the University of Toronto.

The following individuals were recently recognized as award recipients for the 2022-23 academic year. Teaching awards: Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Chelsea Massaro, Assistant Professor of Philosophy Jorge Lizarzaburu, and Associate Professor of French Francis Mathieu. Assistant Professor of Art Ron Geibel won the Jesse E. Purdy Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Works Award. The Advising Award went to Associate Professor of Chemistry Michael Gesinski.

Lurlyn and Durwood Fleming Professor of Philosophy Phil Hopkins has completed a second 10-month contract with the Austin Police Department (APD), this time to develop guidelines and formal procedures for selecting and reviewing video training material for the Cadet Academy that focus on recognizing and addressing the ways video material can have unintended consequences and harms and may reinforce rather than disrupt larger cultural narratives and stereotypes. Hopkins has written and submitted a final report to APD and the Austin City Council. He remains under contract for the remainder of this year on the larger curriculum review committee whose task is to review and develop improved training curricula and content across the several training regimes for APD. This work was recently featured in a 60 Minutesepisode that noted its innovative (and largely unprecedented) approach but not the many and various difficulties it faces among entrenched institutional histories and competing political agendas. 

Professor of Philosophy Phil Hopkins has completed an eight-month process as part of a community panel reviewing materials used at the Austin Police Department (APD) Training Academy. The panel was the longest-serving component of the Austin City Council’s Resolution 66 (December 2019), which initiated an investigation into bias and racism in the APD.  The final report has been presented to the community and to the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force and is being covered by a number of media sources, such as KXAN, whose coverage can be found here.

Professor of Philosophy Phil Hopkins was a panelist for “Trauma and Policing: An Abusive Relationship,” part four of the Austin Justice Coalition conversation series Imagining a World without Police,on August 5. 

Professor of Philosophy Phil Hopkins was a panelist in a two-part Zoom town hall meeting on policing and Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern communities. The event was hosted by Interconnecting Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners (I-AMM) on July 18 and 25.  

Professor of Philosophy Phil Hopkins  is the invited guest on the podcast The Partially Examined Life  for a two-part episode (#248) on policing. He discusses Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception  and Linda Alcoff and Alia Al-Saji’s developments of his theory of perception and prescriptions for disrupting racialized perceptions to try to understand persistent police violence against people of color and in general. He will also be a panelist on July 15 during a webinar for the National Association of Social Workers on policing practices, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Professor of Philosophy Michael Bray’s article “The Virus Infects Politics: Six Theses on Social Reproduction, Biopolitical Economies, and the Legitimacy of States,” appeared online in two parts in the new journal Spectre. Read it here: Part 1, Part 2.

Professor of Philosophy Phil Hopkins was selected to serve as an outside consultant on the training audit review panel as part of the Austin Police Department (APD) evaluation mandated by recent Austin City Council Resolution 66, which set up an investigation into bias and bigotry within the APD. 

Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy Katie Howard  published a review of Bonnie Honig’s recent book Public Things: Democracy in Disrepair  for the journal Arendt Studies . The review is available here.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy Katie Howard had an article published in Raisons Politiquestitled “Apparitions of Emotion: Toward a Performative Affect-Theory of Assembly.” The article is part of a special issue on the work of Judith Butler. The other authors featured include Butler, who wrote an original piece for the issue. You can read the issue online here.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Philosophy Linda Cox presented the paper “How to Begin to Begin Again: Ricoeurian Innovation and Sedimentation in William Carlos Williams’s Paterson” at the Society for Ricoeur Studies Annual Conference in Los Angeles, CA, on Nov. 3, 2018.

Professor of Philosophy Phil Hopkins’ chapter, “…As He Says in His Poetical Way: Empedocles and Anaxagoras on the Motive Forces of the Kosmos,” appears in the newly published Companion to Ancient Philosophy, by Northwestern University Press, edited by Sean Kirkland and Eric Sanday. This volume is a major new guide to the field of ancient Greek philosophy from internationally known contributors who are the top experts in their fields. Hopkins’ chapter argues that early thinkers did not view the kosmos as a machine, but rather as motivated by the same psychic forces at work in humans and human societies.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Philosophy Linda Cox presented on “Ethical Approaches to Women’s Incarceration” at an Austin Community College Philosophy Forum on Nov. 2, 2016.

Professor of Philosophy Phil Hopkins’ chapter …As He Says in His Poetical Way: Empedocles and Anaxagoras on the Motive Forces of the Kosmos will appear in a new Companion to Ancient Philosophy, edited by Sean Kirkland and Eric Sanday which is under contract at Northwestern University Press. The volume gathers essays from international scholars and focuses thematically on the concept of “companionship,” offering new continental interpretations of ancient Greek texts.

Associate Professor of Philosophy Michael Bray’s article, “Rearticulating Contemporary Populism: Class, State, and Neoliberal Society” appears in the most recent issue of the journal “Historical Materialism” (23:3). Bray will present a paper, “What if ‘the Party’ is Populist? - Thoughts on Parliamentary Cretinism and Socialist Strategy,” at the Historical Materialism conference in London in November. 

Phil Hopkins, professor of philosophy, published a book, “Mass Moralizing: Marketing and Moral Storytelling,” with Lexington Books (an academic imprint of Rowman & Littlefield) in March.

Omar Rivera, assistant professor of philosophy and chair of the Race and Ethnicity Studies Minor, presented a paper titled “Cataclysmic Potency in Inka Stonework” as part of the Mike Ryan Lecture Series in Philosophy at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta, Ga., April 24.