Phila M. Msimang

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It was a good day today.

Prof. Duana Fullwiley (Stanford University) kicks off our spring speaker series with the talk “Into the Lab: Racial World Building and its Discontents” on February 3rd. You can register to attend via zoom here: hugera.org/lecture-seri...

The International Fellowships programme provides support for outstanding early career researchers. First identify a suitable mentor in the Faculty of Philosophy. Once you have obtained their agreement, send CV & expression of interest to philref@phil.cam.ac.uk by Thursday, 12 February 2026
#philsci

A poster announcing the "Situating Philosophy" pre-conference panel being held at the University of the Western Cape Life Science Auditorium.

I am looking forward to being a part of this pre-conference panel.

People will spew this kind of rhetoric and praise the actions behind it and then be in complete shock when it leads to retaliatory action. We know this to be what initiates a very cynical cycle of violence. Completely predictable, still tragic and worth resisting.

Yes, sure. But what I plan to write goes beyond that to giving an analysis of the propaganda machine that produces that narrative about the "144 laws" and where it sits in our politics.

Haha, no. But I am considering writing something about that if I get a gap to do so next year.

Screenshot of the ARC website hosting the podcast interview

One of the things I enjoyed this year was this interview with Rasmus Bitsch where Tessa (@tessamuldvarp.bsky.social) and I discuss the work we have been doing mapping the history of racial classification in South Africa.

You can listen to this interview here: podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/a...

📣 Our second call for abstracts for our special issue is out! 🙌
If you work on the intersection of human microbiomes, ethics and society in Africa, this call is for you! Check it out there: sajs.co.za/call-human-d...
If not, you can still spread the message widely!
#histbio #philbio🐋🌱

They’re recycling old and very dangerous ideas, and we keep having to make the same arguments against them.

Thank you, Celso! 😁

Thank you, Alisa! I’m glad to be representing philosophy in these spaces 😊

Thanks 🙏🏾

Thank you, Tessa! ☺️

It is hereby certified that Dr Phila Msimang has been elected a member of the South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS) in recognition of significant achievement in the advancement and application of science.

Last night I had the honour of being inducted into the South African Young Academy of Science.

Bones of Injustice: Political Frictions in Restitutions of Human Remains from Colonial Contexts - PRIF BLOG In recent years, many museums and universities have begun to address past colonial injustices by critically examining their collections of human remains, often leading to their restitution to their as...

It’s about the ethics, management, and use of human remains in institutional collections mostly tainted by colonialism: blog.prif.org/2025/02/28/b...

Today was a good start to our second week at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study where Jonatan (the PI of our project) presented on the questions that have brought us together. The Q&A that we all participated in was quite interesting, too.

Here I was talking about the consequences of the changes in classifications (and who was labelled as belonging in them) for conceptualising biological studies. Our discussion focused on the use of such classifications in microbiome research.

Sounds like a good deal, no?

Faintly whispering: *but they never fought a war with the intention of being against the forces of White supremacy*

I’m looking forward to this conference by the Azanian Philosophical Society that will be hosted at Fort Hare this week.

See the full conference programme at the bottom of this page: www.theaps.org/conference-a...

We are also pleased to announce that our special issue for this event will be published by the South African Journal of Science.

Save the date! Interdisciplinary Workshop:
The Human Diversity Dilemma: Navigating the Intersection of Microbiomes, Ethics, and Society in Africa
#hpbio #histbio #philbio 🌱🐋
Check the Call for Abstracts for our special issue on our website: perspectivesrace.wixsite.com/the-human-di...

Why is English often thought to equate to literary studies more generally? I was struck by your line “Students of English do not expect to emerge from their degrees able to speak a foreign language” when English is a foreign language in most parts of the world it is taught. That feels like a tension

Yes, it illustrates the social and historical generation of the categories. It shows that these categories and classifications are not labels that we put on nature but something we have created through social processes.

This infographic is meant to show how those in power grouped people in increasingly rigid race-based ways. The aim of illustrating this history from that perspective is to provide a resource for the critique of the racial projects this has been (and continues to be) a part.

The paper will will explain the reasons for certain editorial decisions that we took (e.g., only focusing on the classifications used in the Cape Colony in the period up to 1910, how we reduced some of the complexity in representing how groups were classified, etc.)

Here is an infographic that Tessa Moll (@tessamuldvarp.bsky.social) and I made about the development of racial classifications in South Africa from 1652 to the present. A paper explaining its content is in the works. For now, feel free to download the infographic here: dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.f...

African Genetic Ancestry, Social Determinants, and Mortality in Black Adults This cohort study investigates the independent associations of African genetic ancestry and structural and social determinants of health with mortality among Black US adults.

New today: Iyer et al., "African Genetic Ancestry, Structural and Social Determinants of Health, and Mortality in Black Adults," jamanetwork.com/journals/jam....
Tl;dr: It's the 2nd (social determinants) that most effect the 3rd (mortality), not the 1st (genetic ancestry). Yet look where funding is!