In the past year, nationwide protests have rocked South Africa's university campuses. The student movements known as #RhodesMustFall or #FeesMustFall highlight the contradictions and disappointments of the recent past in South Africa, confront the legacy of racism in its institutions and knowledge systems, and resonate with a history of anti-racism and struggle.
But this is not just about a hashtag. South Africa is still one of the most unequal of countries in the world. 20 years of democracy have not decisively ended the centuries-long recycling of black poverty and structural racism. It is as much a confrontation with questions of race and property, class and inequality, identity, sexuality, and justice, as it is with economic, political and structural historical legacies, and the possibilities of a different future. In this class we will take our cue from the students: reading, learning about the past and its legacies; thinking about race and anti-racism in South Africa and its relevance for our present; practicing, planning for a future and the struggles yet to come.
This course will begin with a brief look at the way South Africa's early past shaped the 20th Century. The second part of the course will focus on the development of the system of apartheid or "racial separateness," the struggles for emancipation and the negotiated fall of apartheid. In the last part of the course we will study South Africa's recent past (after 1990), and consider the relevance of anti-racism for the past and present.