≣ Publications
≣ Peer-Reviewed Articles
≣ Moyo wangu, nini huzundukani?: Self and Attention in Sayyid Abdallah bin Ali bin Nasir’s Al-Inkishafi
Author(s): Alena Rettová
Published in: Journal of World Philosophies, Vol. 5 (2), 2020, pp. 28–42
Publisher: Indiana University Press
DOI: —
→ https://scholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/jwp/article/view/4044
Abstract: Reading the Swahili zuhdiyya poem Al-Inkishafi, Rettová explores how ascetic Sufi poetics stage introspection, agency and the ethical role of attention. Amid political-economic decline, the poem interrogates selfhood’s stability, showing attention as a cognitive and moral practice that orients the self toward truth and salvation.
≣ Post-Genocide, Post-Apartheid: The Shifting Landscapes of African Philosophy, 1994–2019
Author(s): Alena Rettová
Published in: Modern Africa: Politics, History and Society, 9 (1), 2021, pp. 11–58
Publisher: University of Hradec Králové
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26806/modafr.v9i1.360
→ https://journals.uhk.cz/modernafrica/article/view/212
Abstract: Surveys African philosophy since 1994 through a tension between optimistic norm-creating vocabularies and a critical realism shaped by traumatic histories. Maps key currents—Ubuntu, Calabar School, Afrikology, Ateliers de la pensée, Francophone histories, Lusophone political thought—to show evolving concepts, publics and agendas in post-apartheid and post-genocide contexts.
≣ Generic Fracturing in Okot p’Bitek’s White Teeth
Author(s): Alena Rettová
Published in: Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 2021
Publisher: SAGE Publications
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0021989420984826
→ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0021989420984826
Abstract: Identifies “generic fracturing,” a narrative strategy inserting heterogeneous genres—poetry, praise-songs, proverbs—into prose fiction. Focusing on Acoli mwoc in White Teeth, Rettová shows how embedded forms unsettle the European novel’s inherited aesthetics, signaling alternative ontologies and epistemologies within African literary modernity.
≣ Book Chapters
≣ Writing in Ciluba: From Colonial Extirpation to the Challenge of Globalisation
Author(s): Albert Kasanda
Published in: In Unfinished Histories: Empire and Postcolonial Resonance in Central Africa and Belgium, pp. 143–164, 2022
Publisher: Leuven University Press
DOI: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv31djqxw.10
→ https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv31djqxw.10
Abstract: Traces historical suppression and later resurgence of Ciluba writing, situating language policy within colonial and postcolonial power. Examines how authors and intellectuals use Ciluba to reclaim knowledge, negotiate identity and respond to globalization’s pressures on African languages, literary publics and epistemic autonomy.
≣ Philosophy and Genre: African Philosophy in Texts
Author(s): Alena Rettová
Published in: In Africa in a Multilateral World: Afropolitan Dilemmas, pp. 203–228, 2022
Publisher: Routledge
DOI: —
Abstract: Argues that overlooking “genre” has skewed debates about African philosophy. Through African-language texts, Rettová shows how form—poetry, narrative, proverb, orature—shapes argument, authority and reception, urging genre-attentive readings to recover philosophical richness across linguistic traditions and rethink what counts as philosophy.
≣ Introduction: African Dilemmas of a Multilateral and Cosmopolitan World
Author(s): Albert Kasanda & Marek Hrubec
Published in: In Africa in a Multilateral World: Afropolitan Dilemmas, pp. 1–15, 2022
Publisher: Routledge
DOI: —
Abstract: Frames Africa’s positioning in a multilateral order by surveying demographic, political and economic forces, Afropolitan trends and their limits. Introduces case studies connecting local conditions to global entanglements, and outlines the book’s cosmopolitan lens on identity, governance, justice and development in and beyond Africa.
≣ Thinking, Performing, and Overcoming Belgium’s ‘Colonial Power Matrix’?: An Introduction
Author(s): Pierre-Philippe Fraiture
Published in: In Unfinished Histories: Empire and Postcolonial Resonance in Central Africa and Belgium, pp. 11–40, 2022
Publisher: Leuven University Press
DOI: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv31djqxw.4
→ https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv31djqxw.4
Abstract: Introduces the volume’s interdisciplinary approach to Belgian imperial afterlives across DR Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. Conceptualizes a “colonial power matrix” spanning culture, heritage, law and memory, and previews chapters that interrogate museums, literature, arts and urban space to illuminate postcolonial resonances today.
≣ Afropolitanism as a Critique of Conventional Narratives of African Identity and Emancipation
Author(s): Albert Kasanda
Published in: In Africa in a Multilateral World: Afropolitan Dilemmas, pp. 85–98, 2022
Publisher: Routledge
DOI: —
Abstract: Presents Afropolitanism as a category for rethinking African identity and emancipation amid globalization’s flows. Argues it better captures relational belonging and negotiations with the “other” than older nationalist scripts, proposing Afropolitanism as an epistemic and political orientation for plural African modernities.
≣ The Legacy of Alexis Kagame: Responses to Conceptions of Colonisation and Evangelisation in Rwanda
Author(s): Chantal Gishoma
Published in: In Unfinished Histories: Empire and Postcolonial Resonance in Central Africa and Belgium, pp. 231–250, 2022
Publisher: Leuven University Press
DOI: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv31djqxw.14
→ https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv31djqxw.14
Abstract: Examines Kagame’s philosophical-historical influence on Rwandan debates about colonization and evangelization. Reconstructs engagements with his thought to show how intellectual lineages inform contemporary contested memories, religious transformations and projects of cultural recovery in postcolonial Rwanda.
≣ Tracking the Potholes of Colonial History: Sinzo Aanza’s Généalogie d’une banalité and Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s Tram 83
Author(s): Pierre-Philippe Fraiture
Published in: In Unfinished Histories: Empire and Postcolonial Resonance in Central Africa and Belgium, pp. 359–380, 2022
Publisher: Leuven University Press
DOI: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv31djqxw.20
→ https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv31djqxw.20
Abstract: Reads contemporary Congolese works to expose ruptures, absences and uneven surfaces left by colonial extraction. Shows how narrative form and urban imaginaries confront lingering infrastructures of exploitation, proposing literary “potholes” as a method to sense, historicize and critique colonial continuities.
≣ Monograph
≣ Unfinished Histories: Empire and Postcolonial Resonance in Central Africa and Belgium
Author(s): Pierre-Philippe Fraiture, Chantal Gishoma & Albert Kasanda (eds.)
Published in: Leuven University Press, 2022. ISBN 978-94-6166-492-1
Publisher: Leuven University Press
DOI: —
→ https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv31djqxw
Abstract: Interrogates how Belgian imperialism continues to shape memory, institutions and everyday life in Belgium, DR Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. Through literature, museums, law, media, architecture and the arts, contributors connect colonial archives to present resonances, mapping decolonial practices and ethical responses across regions and disciplines.
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