Invited Speakers

Ezimma Chigbo

Ezimma Chigbo is a writer and creative facilitator with a background in youth work. She specialises in working with young women involved in the criminal justice system. Her main interests are race, gender and serious youth violence which she explores through poetry, prose and articles. Ezimma works on a freelance basis delivering Anti-racism and collective care and wellbeing training to organisations and CEO’s within the third sector. She continues her work with young women, using drama, discussion and creative writing to explore difficult topics. She is the cohost of The Echo Chamber Podcast and has published essays on topics ranging from violence against women and girls, to drill music, all serving as love letters of exploration, celebrating upbringing, culture and identity.

Professor Derek Hook

Derek Hook is a Professor of Psychology at Duquesne University (Pittsburgh, USA) and the University of Pretoria (South Africa). His research interests are focussed on 'the psychic life of power' particularly as it applies to postcolonial contexts and questions of race, racism and radicalized subjectivity. He is the author of A Critical Psychology of the Postcolonial (2011), (Post)apartheid Conditions (2013), and Six Moments in Lacan (2018). His most recent edited book is Lie on Your Wounds (2019) is a collection of the Pan-Africanist political leader Robert Sobukwe's prison letters (Wits University Press). Derek, alongside Calum Neill and Stijn Vanheule,  is one of the editors of the acclaimed 3-volume commentary series Reading Lacan’s Écrits, and a series editor of Palgrave's Lacan Series.

Professor Elelwani Ramugondo

Dr Elelwani Ramugondo is a professor of occupational therapy at the University of Cape Town (UCT), and Deputy Dean for Postgraduate Education in the Health Sciences Faculty. She is also Chair of UCT’s Academic Freedom Committee. Her publications cover a range of topics including play research, theorisation in the context of discovery and the politics of human occupation. Elelwani is frequently invited to speak on transformation and decolonising the academy at conferences both nationally and internationally.