Race, Resistance and Revolution in South Africa (HIST 350)



Race, Resistance and Revolution in South Africa (HIST 350)

Fall, 2004 Prof. Stephen Volz

Tue 7:00-10:00 P.M Seitz House, office 6, 427-5836

Walton House, room 6 Tue 4-5, Wed 10-12, Thur 1-3

HIST35000f04@kenyon.edu volzs@kenyon.edu

description

This seminar will trace the development of South Africa’s different racial and ethnic identities and explore the roles that those identities have played in the political and social life of the country. The approach will be mostly chronological, focusing on major events and changes during the past 300 years and on the competing ways in which those events have been described. South African history has been dominated by conflict between Europeans and Africans, and by European views of that history, but with the end of enforced racial segregation in the 1990s and the introduction of democracy, South Africans are re-examining their past in search of formerly-ignored viewpoints and new meanings that might transcend racial divisions. The primary goal of the seminar will be to evaluate the ways in which those interpretations have been colored by both past and current events.

requirements

The grade for the class will be determined by the number of points earned out of a possible total of 100, apportioned as follows: weekly discussion questions (15%), participation in discussion (15%), topical review essay (20%), and research paper (50%). In preparation for each week’s meeting, all students will be expected to prepare a set of discussion questions on that week’s readings and email them to the instructor and the rest of the seminar members by Monday night. Students are expected to participate actively and intelligently in discussion, thoughtfully considering the different viewpoints of the authors, the instructor and one another. In order to participate, students will, of course, need to be present, and unexcused absences will result in a lowered participation grade.

Each student will also be required to write a historiographical review essay (5-7 pages) on the topic and readings for one of the weeks. The essay should identify the main viewpoints of scholars and authors on that topic and briefly assess how they differ, consulting other sources in addition to those assigned for that week. The essay should be emailed to the instructor and other members of the class by Monday night and a paper copy given to the instructor in class. The student will then be expected to initiate the discussion on that topic, presenting her/his findings to the rest of the class.

The seminar will culminate in the production of a research paper by each student. A topic description and preliminary bibliography will be due Nov. 2, and the last two or three class meetings will be devoted to the presentation and discussion of students’ drafts of their papers. The final draft (15-20 pages) will be due Dec. 20.

disability guidelines

If you have a disability for which you might need some accommodation in order to participate fully in the course, please see the instructor and inform Ms. Erin Salva, the Coordinator of Disability Services, at salvae@kenyon.edu and x5453.

readings

The texts for the course are mostly primary sources, with Thompson’s History of South Africa providing a contextual overview, and other historians’ viewpoints presented in various articles. Much of the material is in the form of literary or autobiographical narrative, and the function of memory and personal experience in understanding the past will be a recurring theme in the seminar. A few of the books have been put on reserve in the library.

L. Thompson, A History of South Africa

J. Williams, From the South African Past

Z. Mda, Heart of Redness

E. Mphahlele, Down Second Avenue

S. Magona, Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night

D. Posel and G. Simpson (eds.), Commissioning the Past

— course reader with 12 copied articles and book excerpts

~~ articles available in JSTOR

schedule of topics, readings and assignments

8/31 history and heritage in South Africa

-- Thompson, xv-xvii

-- Williams, xvii-xxx

9/7 the Cape colony and the African-European frontier

-- Thompson, 1-69

-- Williams, 1-63

— R. Elphick and H. Giliomee, “The origins and entrenchment of European dominance

at the Cape, 1652-c.1840”, in Elphick and Giliomee (eds.), The Shaping of South

African Society, 521-566

— M. Legassick, “The frontier tradition in South African historiography”, in S. Marks

and A. Atmore (eds.), Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa, 44-79

9/14 wars and migrations of the early 19th century

-- Thompson, 70-109

-- Williams, 69-98, 121-124

~~ J. Cobbing, “The mfecane as alibi: thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo”,

Journal of African History, 29, 3 (1988) 487-519

— J. Omer-Cooper, “The mfecane survives its critics”, in C. Hamilton (ed), The

Mfecane Aftermath, 277-298

— N. Etherington, The Great Treks, x-xxv, 1-9

9/21 the Xhosa cattle-killing movement

-- Z. Mda, Heart of Redness

-- Williams, 64-67

~~ J. Peires, “ ‘Soft’ believers and ‘hard’ unbelievers in the Xhosa cattle-killing”,

Journal of African History, 27, 3 (1986) 443-461

9/28 the mineral revolution and British imperialism

-- Thompson, 110-153

— “Black compounds but white suburbs”, in V. Allen, The History of Black Mineworkers

in South Africa,107-131

— C. van Onselen, “The world the mine owners made”, in C. van Onselen (ed.),

Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand, vol.1, 1-43

— A. Atmore and S. Marks, “The imperial factor in South Africa in the nineteenth

century: towards a reassessment”, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History,

3, 1 (1974) 105-139

10/5 rural segregation, land ownership and labor

-- Thompson, 154-186

-- Williams, 171-232

— “The life story of Barney Ngakane”, in T. Keegan, Facing the Storm, 66-106

— L. Vail, “Introduction: ethnicity in Southern African history”, in L. Vail (ed), The

Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa, 1-19

10/12 reading day (no class)

10/19 the establishment of the apartheid state

-- E. Mphahlele, Down Second Avenue

-- Thompson, 187-220

-- Williams, 239-256

>

10/26 family life under apartheid

-- S. Magona, Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night

-- Williams, 349-356

— N. Ndebele, “The Music of the Violin”, in Fools and Other Stories, 124-151

— A. de Vries, “Tin Soldiers Don’t Bleed”, in A. Brink and J. Coetzee (eds), A Land

Apart, 184-190

— E. Joubert, “Back Yard”, in A. Brink and J. Coetzee (eds), A Land Apart, 219-230

11/2 organized resistance to apartheid

-- Williams, 257-349

-- video: Amandla: Revolution in four-part harmony

>

11/9 the decline of the apartheid state

-- Thompson, 221-264

-- Williams, 357-373

~~ C. Bundy, “Street sociology and pavement politics: aspects of youth and student

resistance in Cape Town, 1985”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 13, 3 (1987)

303-330

11/16 post-apartheid South Africa

-- Thompson, 265-296

-- Wlliams, 374-398

-- D. Posel and G. Simpson (eds.), Commissioning the Past, 1-172

-- video: Long Night’s Journey into Day

11/23 Thanksgiving break (no class)

11/30 presentations, work on research papers

12/7 presentations, work on research papers

12/14 presentations, work on research papers

12/20 >

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