Prof. Rianna Oelofsen
Short-Term Fellow
June – July 2025
Bio
Rianna Oelofsen (PhD), is an Associate professor at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa. Oelofsen completed her PhD dissertation, entitled ‘Afro-Communitarianism and the Nature of Reconciliation’ in 2013.
Publications include articles and book chapters such as Decolonization of the African Mind and Intellectual Landscape (2015), De-and Rehumanization in the Wake of Atrocities (2009), Women and Ubuntu: Does Ubuntu Condone the Subordination of Women? (2018), Ubuntu, Reconciliation and Gender-Based Violence in South Africa (2025), and the co-edited collection with Kola Abimbola, An African Path to a Global Future (2018). She is a co-director for the Centre for African Phenomenology (CAP), established in 2024.
She is currently working on a book project which imagines what an ideal society based on the principles of ubuntu and the ethical use of technology might look like, entitled Imagine Utopia: Thought Experiments of a Different World.
Research
African Philosophy, Race and Gender Theory, Philosophy of Education, Phenomenology, Feminist Philosophy
Regions
Southern Africa
Languages
English, Afrikaans
Books
An African Path to a Global Future, (co-edited with Kọlá Abímbọlá), The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2019.
Articles
“More than Human: Ubuntu and Genetic Engineering,” in Transhumanism in Africa: The Challenges of Moral Enhancement and Its Prospects, edited by Amara Chimakonam, Cham: Springer, forthcoming in 2025.
“Humanizing Universities through Ubuntu: Decolonizing of Higher Education in South Africa” (with Sizwe Mqalo), in Utafiti: Journal of African Perspectives, forthcoming in 2025.
“Ubuntu, Reconciliation and Gender-Based Violence in South Africa,” in Palgrave Handbook of Ubuntu, Inequality and Sustainable Development edited by Ezra Chitando, Beatrice Okyere-Manu, Sophia Chirongoma, Musa W. Dube, Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.
“Let Us Build a Table: Decolonization, Institutional Hierarchies, and Prestige in Academic Communities,” Philosophies 9 (2024).
“Merleau-Ponty, embodied subjectivity, and (white) woman dancing,” in Abraham Olivier, John M Lamola and Justin Sands (eds.), Contributions to African Phenomenology, New York: SUNY Press, 2023.
“Afro-communitarian personhood and the political philosophy of needs,” in Chris Allsobrook and Motsamai Molefe (eds.), An African political philosophy of Needs, London / New York: Routledge, 2021.
“Afro-communitarianism, Humanization and the Nature of Reconciliation,” in An African Path to a Global Future (eds) Rianna Oelofsen and Kọlá Abímbọlá, The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2019.
“Women and Ubuntu: Does ubuntu condone the subordination of women?” in African Philosophy and the Epistemic Marginalisation of Women; (eds) Jonathan O. Chimakonam and Louise du Toit. Routledge, 2018.
“Afro-communitarianism, Restorative Justice and Affirmative Action in South Africa: A Response to David Benatar” South African Journal of Philosophy 37/3 (2018).
“Afro-communitarianism, Justice and Reconciliation”, Theoria 146 (2016).
Oelofsen, Rianna. (2015) “Decolonization of the African Mind and Intellectual Landscape,” Phronimon 16/2 (2015), pp. 130-146.
