Urban South Africa

The aims of this seminar are 1) to introduce students to the broad parameters of urban South African history 2) to familiarize students with the immense creativity and resilience of African peoples, even in the most difficult colonial contexts 3) to illustrate how race, class and gender were socially, historically and politically constructed in South Africa 4) to guide students in the completion of an original research paper on some aspect of black South African urban life 5) to enhance student appreciation for the ways in which a researcher's perspective and interests influences their interpretation of sources 6) to make visible the ways in which research outcomes are shaped by a researcher's choice of source material 7) to develop student research and writing skills.

            This course provides only a bare introduction to the history of South Africa.  The chief aim is to provide students with a hands-on opportunity to conduct original research and to help students develop skills in documenting African agency and resilience in the face of colonial oppression, often by ‘reading between the lines’ of state-produced documents.