Lecturer

BA (Hons) MA Rhodes

Research interests: Historical Sociolinguistics; Lexico-semantics; Early nineteenth and twentieth century IsiXhosa Political thought and Intellectual Histories, early African languages newspapers.

Sanele KaNtshingana is a lecturer in the School of Languages and Literatures (African languages section) at the University of Cape Town. His PhD research project is titled “The conceptual history and the praxis of umbuso through the eyes of amathwasa oncwadi in the southeast African region (c1838-c1918)” and it maps out how amaXhosa political life and ideas of political authority in the ‘deep’ past were discursively maneuvered and shaped by amaThwasa ooNcwadi “African intellectuals” in the vernacular press and other Black registrars in the early nineteenth and early twentieth century. Sanele is involved in research projects and is currently a co-investigator in a British Academy funded research project titled “Imagining the Ordinary City: Arts, Placemaking and Everyday Urban Lives.” Amongst other things, this project brings attention to literary, visual and performance pieces that have sought to explore the usually overlooked or ‘ordinary’ cities of South Africa (Pretoria/Tshwane and Makhanda) placing them in a dialogue from which we can compare their representational strategies including how they seek to engage local, national, and foreign audiences. Outside of the ivory towers, Sanele is engaged in various kollectives which are dreaming and building a (Black)conscious, confident, bold, self-assertive, and deep-thinking generation of young people. In Makhanda, Sanele leads Makhanda Black Kollective. Among many programs that MBK runs is to re-educate young people of long traditions of African intellectual thought and activism through creative forms that center the agency and the voice of the youth. Sanele considers himself an ‘undisciplined’ young scholar who straddles History, Language, and Education, inside and outside the university. Sanele is a Mandela-Washington Fellow and completed his Leadership in Civic Engagement Course at the University of Georgia- Fanning Institute for Leadership in 2019.

Office: AC Jordan Building, Room 4.16.4

Selected publications

Book Chapters:

1. The use of vernacular sources in illuminating Southern Africa’s past in New History of South Africa. Ed. Hermann Giliomee, Bernard Mbenga and Bill Nasson. Tafelberg Press: Cape Town. 2022. Pp. 256-259

Journal Articles: 

1. kaNtshingana, Sanele.(2022). S.E.K Mqhayi: The Destruction of the Archive and Restoration through Digital Affordances Ukubhujiswa kwembali nokubuyisela isidima sayo. Imbiza Journal for African Writing

2. Daweti Nokuthula, kaNtshingana Sanele and Kulundu-Bolus Injairu. (2022). Regenerative Youth Futures: Learning Beyond Perfunctionary Awareness and Behavioral Change. NORRAG Special Issue, Volume 7.

Book Reviews:

1. kaNtshingana, Sanele. (2023). Changing theory is a necessary humanising act. Acta Academica, 55(1), 146 150.  https://dx.doi.org/10.38140/aa.v55i1.7485

2. Review of William Wellington Gqoba’s Isizwe Esinembali: Xhosa Histories and Poetry (1873-1888). MULOSIGE. SOAS: University of London. 2018

Non-academic publications have appeared in Mail and Guardian, The Journalist and The Con Mag