Abstract

SAFUNDI: THE JOURNAL OF SOUTH AFRICAN AND AMERICAN STUDIES 2021, VOL. 22, NO. 1, 11–14 https://doi.org/10.1080/17533171.2020.1823737 ROUNDTABLE Hugo Canham Department of Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Watching Zulu Love Letter again in 2020, I was attentive to what the film did to me corporeally. I was curious as to what truths I would be moved to feel in my body. This is my entrée to this discussion. Does Zulu Love Letter have any resonance for the present or was it a product of a particular time whose concerns have been overtaken by issues of a rapidly changing world? Zulu Love Letter transports us to what now seems like a different time. I feel a hint of nostalgia that draws me affectively to the past. This drawing towards the past is also embodied. We feel the pain of a historic moment that is both past and ongoing. Karl Marx’s assertion that the past is not even past rings true. Me’Tau, the old woman’s searching for an explanation of her daughters’ death triggers our own searching for things and memories lost. The drawing in unsettles us affectively. Our bodies are moved and therefore interpolated into the film. We