Mapule Mohulatsi is a lecturer in the department of English Literary Studies at the University of Cape Town. Her research interests span across black intellectual traditions, black aesthetics, oceanic humanities, recipes and food cultures as well as slave memory in South Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas.

 Publications

Mohulatsi, M. (2024). The Sea and Underwater Transport in Imraan Coovadia’s The Institute for Taxi Poetry. English Studies in Africa, 67(2), 77–92.

Mohulatsi, Mapule. "Black Aesthetics and Deep Water: Fish-People, Mermaid Art and Slave Memory in South Africa." Journal of African Cultural Studies 35.1 (2023): 121-133.

Mohulatsi, M. (under review). Self-Ontologies of Afro-Asia: The Fugitive Formation in Lotus and Chimurenga, in ‘Archives of Afro-Asia: Print Cultures of Decolonisation’, Interventions (special issue).

Creative Work(s)

Non-refereed publications or popular articles

Tribute for Toni Morrison titled ‘Toni Morrison you have been sentenced to life’ for the Johannesburg Review of Books (Vol. 3, 2019)

Link: https://johannesburgreviewofbooks.com/2019/09/02/tribute-toni-morrison-you-have-been-sentenced-to-life-by-mapule-mohulatsi/

Wrote on African language writing for Brittle Paper, ‘The Nervous Conditions of the Mother Tongue’ (22 March 2018)

Link: https://brittlepaper.com/2018/03/nervous-conditions-mother-tongue-mapule-mohulatsi/

Wrote a piece on South African art representations of Venus Hottentot for Bubblegum Club titled ‘On wakefulness and R. Daniels’ “The Dreamer” (13 January 2022)

Link: https://bubblegumclub.co.za/art/on-wakefulness-and-r-daniels-the-dreamer/

Published short story, ‘Moonlight Sonata’, in Joburg Noir, edited by Niq Mhlongo (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2020), pp.63-74.

Published short story, ‘The Wisdom of Sunday’ in Hair: Weaving & Unpicking Stories of Identity, edited by Joanne Hichens and Karina M. Szczurek (Cape Town: Tattoo Press, 7 September 2019), pp. 131-138

Published children’s book titled Mizz President (Cape Town: Everychild Publishers, 2018)

Published short story, ‘The Line of Beauty’ in Trade Secrets, edited by Joanne Hichens (Cape Town: Tattoo Press, 2017), pp. 160-270

Conferences:

Black Aesthetics and the Deep Ocean’, Literature and Ecology Colloquium, hosted by Rhodes University and Amazwi: South African Museum of Literature (27, September 2019)

‘The Figure of the Mermaid in South African Art’, Environmental Humanities Initiative Conference, hosted by Institute for Humanities and Global Cultures, University of Virginia (12, April 2019)

‘Black Aesthetics and Deep Water: Fish-people, Mermaid Art and Slave Memory in South Africa’, Indian Ocean Circularities, hosted by the University of Georgetown, Qatar campus (17, February 2020)

‘Recipes and Reciprocities: Literary, Racial and Interspecies Histories of the Salt Fish Diaspora’

Black Mobilities in the Atlantic World, hosted by the Institute for Black Atlantic Research, University of Central Lancashire (13 January 2022)

‘Gods of Garbage: The Black Aesthetic Imaginary of Deep Ocean History via Fabrice Monteiro’s “The Prophecy”, African Literature Association Conference, online (19 May 2022)