Apartheid and South Africa

Readings and Videos

WEEK #	TOPICS	READINGS AND VIDEOS
Part I: An Overview of South African History from 1652 to the Present
1	Introductions	Read Wainaina, Binyavanga. “How to Write About Africa.” Granta, May 2, 2019. View “The danger of a single story | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.” YouTube. #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou. Photography by Michael Aboya. Twitter.
2	An Overview of South African History from 1652 to the Present	Read Worden, Nigel. The Making of Modern South Africa. 5th ed. Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. ISBN: 9780470656334. (Read all.) [Preview with Google Books] Discussion Question: Please make sure you understand the significance of the terms on the “Key Terms” (PDF) document.  Listen “Radio Diaries—Mandela: An Audio History.”  April 29, 2004. National Public Radio. Please bring to class ONE question you’d like to be asked on your take home exam.
Part II: Race, Identity and Theories of Apartheid
3	Theories of Apartheid	Read Williams, John A. “Apartheid in Theory and Practice.” In From the South African Past: Narratives, Documents, and Debates. Cengage Learning, 1996. ISBN: 9780669287899. Kinghorn, Johan. “Social Cosmology, Religion and Afrikaner Ethnicity.” Journal of Southern African Studies 20, no. 3 (1994): 393–404. Crampton, Andrew. “The Voortrekker Monument, the Birth of Apartheid, and Beyond.” Political Geography 20, no. 2 (2001): 221–46. View “South Africa: The White Laager.” March 20, 1977. UN Audiovisual Library.
4	Indian and Colored Identities	Read   Adhikari, Mohamed. “Hope, Fear, Shame, Frustration: Continuity and Change in the Expression of Coloured Identity in White Supremacist South Africa, 1910–1994.” Journal of Southern African Studies 32, no. 3 (2006): 467–87. ———. “‘God Made the White Man, God Made the Black Man…’: Popular Racial Stereotyping of Coloured People in Apartheid South Africa.”  South African Historical Journal 55, no. 1 (2006): 142–64. Vahed, Goolam. “Constructions of Community and Identity Among Indians in Colonial Natal, 1860–1910: The Role of the Muharram Festival.” Journal of African History 43, no. 1 (2002): 77–93. ———. “The Making of ‘Indianess’: Indian Politics in South Africa During the 1930s and 1940s.” Journal of Natal and Zulu History 17, no. 1 (1997): 1–36. View the following videos of Coon carnival and Muharram “Witness - 🇿🇦 Cape Town Carnival.” YouTube. “Muharram-The Festival of Sacrifice.” Dailymotion.
Part III. Everyday Forms of Survival and Resistance
5	Life in the Rural Areas	Read Mager, Anne. “Youth Organisations and the Construction of Masculine Identities in the Ciskei and Transkei, 1945–1960.” Journal of Southern African Studies 24, no. 4 (1998): 653–67. ———. “Moving the Fence: Gender in the Ciskei and Border Textile Industry, 1945–1986.” Social Dynamics 15, no. 2 (1989): 46–62. Van Onselen, Charles. “Race and Class in the South African Countryside: Cultural Osmosis and Social Relations in the Sharecropping Economy of the South Western Transvaal, 1900–1950.” American Historical Review 95, no. 1 (1990): 99–123.
6	Sophiatown and District 6: South Africa’s Little Harlems?	Read Lodge, Tom. “The Destruction of Sophiatown.” Journal of Modern African Studies 19, no. 1 (1981): 107–32. Gready, Paul. “The Sophiatown Writers of the Fifties: The Unreal Reality of Their World.” Journal of Southern African Studies 16, no. 1 (1990): 139–64. Hart, Deborah M. “Political Manipulation of Urban Space: The Razing of District Six, Cape Town.” Urban Geography 9, no. 6 (1988): 603–28. Mattera, Don. Sophiatown: Coming of Age in South Africa. Beacon Press, 1991, pp. 49–63. ISBN: 9780807002070. Franck, Bruce, George Manuel, and Denis Hatfield. District 6. Longmans Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd., 1968. View “Sophia Town” by Thandi Klaasen. YouTube. “District Six Museum Cape Town South Africa.” YouTube.
7	Life in the Mining Compounds	Read Moodie, T. Dunbar (with Vivien Ndatshe and British Sibuye). “Migrancy and Male Sexuality on the South African Gold Mines.” Journal of Southern African Studies 14, no. 2 (1988): 228–56. Breckenridge, Keith. “Migrancy, Crime and Faction Fighting: The Role of the Isitshozi in the Development of Ethnic Organisations in the Compounds.” Journal of Southern African Studies 16, no. 1 (1990): 55–78. Crush, Jonathan. “Scripting the Compound: Power and Space in the South African Mining Industry.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 12, no. 3 (1994): 301–24. Kynoch, Gary. “Of Compounds and Cellblocks: The Foundations of Violence in Johannesburg, 1890s–1950s.” Journal of Southern African Studies 37, no. 3 (2011): 463–77.
8	Women and the Struggle for Education	Read Marks, Shula, ed. Not Either an Experimental Doll: The Separate Worlds of Three South African Women. Indiana University Press, 1988. ISBN: 9780253348432. [Preview with Google Books]
9	Domestic Workers / Maids and Madams	Read Cock, Jacklyn. Maids and Madams: A Study in the Politics of Exploitation. Ravan Press, 1984.  Gaitskell, Deborah. “Housewives, Maids or Mothers: Some Contradictions of Domesticity for Christian Women In Johannesburg, 1903–39.” Journal of African History 24, no. 2 (1983): 241–56. ———, Judy Kimble, et al. “Class, Race and Gender: Domestic Workers in South Africa.” Review of African Political Economy 10, no. 27–28 (1983): 86–108. Ginsburg, Rebecca. “‘Come in the Dark’: Domestic Workers and Their Rooms in Apartheid-Era Johannesburg, South Africa.” Chapter 5 in People, Power, Places: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, Volume VIII. Edited by Sally McMurry and Annmarie Adams. University of Tennessee Press, 2000. [Preview with Google Books] View “Maids and Madams.” YouTube.
Part IV: Direct Resistance and Township Violence
10	The African National Congress and Armed Resistance	Read Williams, John A. “Nelson Mandela Explains the ANC Struggle, 1964.” In From the South African Past: Narratives, Documents, and Debates. Cengage Learning, 1996. ISBN: 9780669287899. Landau, Paul S. “The ANC, MK, and ‘The Turn to Violence’ (1960–1962).” South African Historical Journal 64, no. 3 (2012): 538–63. Ellis, Stephen. “The Genesis of the ANC’s Armed Struggle in South Africa 1948–1961.” Journal of Southern African Studies 37, no. 4 (2011): 657–76. Legassick, Martin.  “Armed Struggle in South Africa: Consequences of a Strategy Debate.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 21, no. 2 (2003): 285–302. View “The Struggle From Within - Produced by Kevin Harris - 1984.” YouTube. “A Force More Powerful - English - India / Nashville / South Africa (high definition).” YouTube.
11	The Black Consciousness Movement	Read Williams, John A. “The Ideology of Black Consciousness Movement, 1971.” In From the South African Past: Narratives, Documents, and Debates. Cengage Learning, 1996. ISBN: 9780669287899. ———. “Biko’s Inquest, 1977.” In From the South African Past: Narratives, Documents, and Debates. Cengage Learning, 1996. ISBN: 9780669287899. Hirschmann, David. “The Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa.” Journal of Modern African Studies 28, no. 1 (1990): 1–22.