USA Africa Dialogue Series - INVITATION TO MY INAUGURAL LECTURE

Colleagues,

Greetings.

Professor Kevin Thomas, the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Pretoria, cordially invites you to the inaugural lecture of Professor Jonathan Okeke Chimakonam, Professor of Philosophy:

 

Title: The Communal Contract and the Real African Predicament: Colonialysis, Communialysis and the Danger of the Post-Community

Date: Wednesday, 01 October 2025

Time: 17:30 for 18:00

Venue: Plant Science Auditorium, Hatfield Campus

Online: https://youtube.com/live/C1AvPXDK47A?feature=share

RSVP: By 29 September 2025 using this link or the one in the attached invitation.

Abstract

The most prominent problem articulated in contemporary African thought is often called the 'African predicament' a collection of socio-political, ideological and economic challenges that hinders Africa's development. This problem has attracted several theories in the decades after colonial rule; all have, intriguingly, been falsified by history. I will theorise a new model with a philosophical pedigree based on ignored ancient African history and its ideological commitments to rival the moribund externalist or internalist theses captured in extant theories. Although the claims in the preceding theses cannot be faulted on the grounds of empirical evidence, unpacking the problem itself has always been historically shortsighted and philosophically shortchanged in the literature. For example, empirical evidence may support both the externalist and internalist claims about the causes of the African predicament because neo-colonial agendas and post-colonial leadership failures are evident, but why have these factors continued to waft strongly decades after political independence? Why has the system been unable to correct itself despite the awareness of the problems, the freedom of self-governance, and the abundance of natural and human resources? This inaugural address will probe into ancient Africa to theorise on logical and socio-psychological factors embedded in the notion of the 'post-community' that could disclose historical roots of the real African predicament. It will further go beyond post-colonial analyses like 'colonialysis' to articulate a new problematic in the ilk of 'communialysis' and show how these factors implicate ideological commitments that upended ancient Africa and continue to thwart contemporary Africa's quest to modernise.

Thank you

Email enquiries to Ms Naledi Sebetlele naledi.sebetlele@up.ac.za

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Jonathan O Chimakonam PhD

Professor, Department of Philosophy

University of Pretoria

**Logician, Social Thinker and Public Intellectual**

Real power is "born from self belief and an unyielding commitment to your own destiny"---Growth Mindset, 2025

My latest books:

1. African Ethics: A Guide to Key Ideas (2022)  https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/african-ethics-9781350191785/

2. Essays on Contemporary Issues in African Philosophy (2022)

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-70436-0

3. African Metaphysics, Epistemology and a New Logic: A Decolonial Approach to Philosophy (2021)

Available at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-72445-0

or on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/African-Metaphysics-Epistemology-New-Logic/dp/3030724441

or

https://www.springer.com/de/book/9783030724443?utm_campaign=bookpage_about_buyonpublisherssite&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=springerlink#otherversion=9783030724450

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