I’m producing a series of essays on love and power for Emerge, a platform highlighting ways of thinking that are sowing the seeds of a new civilisation. The series are centred around Exousiance, a concept I coined in Sensuous Knowledge with the purpose to reimagine power. Exousiance interweaves the nonhuman natural world, feminist theory, mythopoetic…
Reflections of desire in lockdown
A friend called me the other day overstrung. She was worried because I’m alone in lockdown. I’m concerned and acclimatising to the new normal but I’m otherwise well, I assured her. It had not occurred to me that being alone during the lockdown was a worry in itself. Aloneness is never a problem for me…
Sensuous Knowledge audiobook narrated by Robin Miles
I’m thrilled to share that actor Robin Miles is the narrator of Sensuous Knowledge. Robin is a multiple-award-winning, grammy finalist whose impressive list of book performances include N.K. Jemisin’s “Broken Earth” trilogy, Aminatta Forna’s “Happiness”, Chimamanda Adichie’s “Half of a Yellow Sun”, several bell hooks books, Maaza Mengiste’s “The Shadow King” and Nnedi Okorafor’s “Binti”….
New questions for the world, old pleas for black feminism
A poem by the Somali-British poet, Warsan Shire, goes, “later that nighti held an atlas in my lapran my fingers across the whole worldand whisperedwhere does it hurt?it answeredeverywhereeverywhereeverywhere.” Her words piercingly describe the events of the past few weeks and months. The world hurts everywhere – every region, every nation, every river, every home…
Sensuous Knowledge – launching a book in a pandemic
It is almost exactly one week since the World Health organisation declared a coronavirus pandemic. It’s as though we are living in a World War. This feeling hit me strongly when Nigeria closed its borders to UK flights, which was well overdue, but nevertheless left me with a piercing sense of estrangement. Certainly, these are…
The missing feminist politics of the cyclical
If women had power parity the notion of the cyclical would be of central importance to how we structure everything—our politics, economics, laws, media, education, and policy. The cyclical is a natural measure of temporality for women as it is encoded into our bodies. The cyclicality within our bodily functions prevents us from forgetting, in…
What to do when everything seems to be falling apart? Covid-19 and more.
It’s increasingly clear that most people are dissatisfied with the governing of the world. Even those who can’t articulate exactly what disturbs them know intuitively that we’re on the wrong path. The majority of people want governments to preserve the planet. They want to be less overworked. They want to co-exist and accept others’ differences…
Blackness as a character in Queen & Slim
Steamy sex and clashing protests. Is the overlapping of a sex scene and a protest scene halfway through Melina Matsoukas’s film Queen & Slim morally correct? Unimpressed reviewers don’t seem to think so. The connecting thread in critical pieces about the movie, some deeply engaging, is the view that juxtaposing these two particular scenes was…
The Mother Instinct
The Mother Instinct is not only a source of collective subjectivity and self-regard, but it is also a source of individual self-love. When seen from a feminist perspective, yes, the Mother Instinct helps you love and nurture yourself in a maternal way, but it also urges you to protect and stand up for yourself with agency and personhood.
What quality do we need for feminist change in the future?
Happy New Year! I’m especially excited about two things in 2020. Firstly, the 10th anniversary of my blog on 16 March. Then three days later, on 19 March, the UK book launch for Sensuous Knowledge, my debut collection of interwoven essays that centre womanhood, African Studies, black feminism, philosophy, personal narrative, myth, art and culture…
Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone – Cover Reveal
In Sensuous Knowledge, Minna Salami draws on Africa-centric, feminist-first and artistic traditions to help us rediscover inclusive and invigorating ways of experiencing the world afresh.
Solidarity Statement – Sex for Grades in African Universities
The African Feminist Initiative has released a solidarity statement following the awareness raised by Nigerian journalist, Kiki Mordi’s (pictured), brave and important documentary, Sex for Grades. I post the statement below. Sex for Grades: Solidarity Statement By African Feminist Initiative We are African feminist scholars and feminist scholars of Africa, working in institutions both on…
Reclaiming Eros in patriarchy
I recently did an interview with the Demented Goddess magazine, a polysexual and multi-ethnic magazine dedicated to the untamed feminine. The feature is titled Unspeakable Joy – an erotic conversation with Minna Salami and I’m reposting it below. It is sort of part II to one of the most popular posts on Ms Afropolitan titled,…
Stereotypical portrayals of African women in the media
My TEDx Talk has become a book! It’s only available in Spanish for now with a foreword by Raquel Lainde. As I revisited the talk, it occurred to me that I’ve not published it here on the blog by which it is inspired. The talk conceptualised three key stereotypical and limiting representations of African women…
Why I’m hosting a new philosophy book club at Waterstones
In March 2015, I wrote an article for the Guardian titled “Philosophy has to be about more than white men” in which I argued that the white-western-male bias in philosophical studies in the UK was detrimental to the study of philosophy, which should investigate all human experience. “We should not dismiss white, western, or male…
What is the role of family?
This article was originally posted on CNN Style where it was titled The Western concept of family needs to move with the times Nothing has made me reflect on the meaning of family as much as loss. In the space of three years, I lost three of the people that I have loved the most:…
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- …
- 28
- Next Page »