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Ntongela Masilela and the New African Movement: Shaping Modernity book cover

1st Edition

Ntongela Masilela and the New African Movement Shaping Modernity

Edited By Keyan G. Tomaselli, Bongani Ngqulunga, Busani Ngcaweni Copyright 2026
200 Pages
by Routledge

200 Pages
by Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
This book explores the profound intellectual legacy of the late Ntongela Masilela, a groundbreaking literary historian whose analytical significance surged following his death in 2020. Part biography and part scholarly dialogue, the book examines Masilela's extensive unpublished online archive alongside his published works and lectures, contextualisng his revolutionary identification of the New... Read more

Preface

Keyan G Tomaselli

 

Introduction: Ntongela Masilela and the New African Movement: A Critical Appreciation

Bongani Ngqulunga, Busani Ngcaweni and Keyan G. Tomaselli

 

 

Part I: Personal Reflections

1. The Legacy of Ntongela Masilela

Keyan G. Tomaselli

 

2. Ntongela Masilela: A Tribute

Bongani Ngqulunga

 

3. Light the Candle, Shine the Path to Excavate Ntongela Masilela’s Legacy

Busani Ngcaweni

 

Part II: Literary Reflections

 

4. The White South African Writer in our National Situation

Ntongela Masilela

 

5. “Memory, the Guardian of all Things”: Ntongela Masilela and the Project of Re-membering

Sam Tlhalo Raditlhalo and Busani Ngcaweni

 

6. Tribes Must Go: New African Intellectuals and the Contested Idea of Black Nationhood

Bongani Ngqulunga

 

7. Depictions of Black Defiance and Sovereign African Personhood in SEK Mqhayi’s U-Don Jadu

Nomalanga Mkhize and Melathisi Ncityana

 

8. Ntongela Masilela’s Persistent Historico-Biographical Method: An Uneasy Balance Enabling the Re-reading of Memoir, Contemporary History and Popular Journalism

Busani Ngcaweni and Kgomotso M. Masemola

 

Part III: On Film

 

9. Presence africaine and the emergence of African film criticism

Ntongela Masilela

 

10. Thelma Gutsche: A great South African film scholar

Ntongela Masilela

 

11. Diasporic Identity, Intellectual Nomadism and its African Theorists

Keyan G. Tomaselli

 

12. Come Back Africa and South African film history

Ntongela Masilela

 

13. Response to Ntongela Masilela and the New African Movement: A Critical Appreciation

Bridget Thompson

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biography

Keyan G. Tomaselli is Founder and Co- editor of Critical Arts, and Distinguished Professor, Humanities, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also Professor Emeritus and Fellow, University of KwaZulu- Natal, Durban, South Africa.

Bongani Ngqulunga is the Senior Executive Director of University Relations, Student Affairs and UJ Sport at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also a member of the University’s Executive Management Committee.

Busani Ngcaweni became the Director of the Centre for Public Policy and African Studies at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, in August 2025. From March 2020, he was Director- General and Principal of the National School of Government (NSG) in South Africa. Ngcaweni was previously Head of Policy and Research in The Presidency and served as Chief of Staff to multiple South African deputy presidents and the current president.

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