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In 1912, just over a year after returning from his studies at Columbia and Oxford, the thirty-year-old Pixley ka Isaka Seme succeeded where others had failed in forming a political organisation that represented all black South Africans. Seme also established a national newspaper, became one of the pioneering black lawyers in South Africa, bought land from white farmers for black settlement at the time when opposition to it was gaining momentum, became an adviser and confidant to African royalty, and was considered a leading visionary for black economic empowerment. And yet, when he became president general of the ANC in the 1930s, he brought it to its knees through sheer ineptitude and an au...
This continuation volume of the Pan-African Chronology set covers the most significant events in the African diaspora from the end of the American Civil War through the pre-World War I years. This was a time of great change for black Americans--Reconstruction, the founding of the NAACP, the formation of the separate but equal doctrine, and the migration of blacks from the rural South to Northern cities. The eradication of slavery as a legalized institution was finally realized in the Americas, while the struggle to end it in Asia was also taking place. European colonialism in Africa was accelerated, ironically coinciding with humanitarian efforts to end the slave trade on the African continent. These events and many others are covered here.
This set of essays analyses the work of Isabel Hofmeyr, globally recognised as one of South Africa’s foremost literary and Indian Ocean scholars. The essays elucidate Hofmeyr’s path-breaking studies of transnational histories of the book, African print cultures, and cultural circulations in the Indian Ocean world. This book draws together reflective and analytical essays by renowned intellectuals from around the world who critically engage with the work of one of the global South’s leading scholars of African print cultures and the oceanic humanities. Isabel Hofmeyr’s scholarship spans more than four decades, and its sustained and long-term influence on her discipline and beyond is f...
This collection of essays introduces students of African literature to the heritage of the African prose narrative, starting from its oral base and covering its linguistic and cultural diversity. The book brings together essays on both the classics and the relatively new works in all subgenres of the African prose narrative, including the traditional epic, the novel, the short story and the autobiography. The chapters are arranged according to the respective thematic paradigms under which the discussed works fall.
Homosexuality was and still is thought to be quintessentially 'un-African'. Yet in this book Chantal Zabus examines the anthropological, cultural and literary representations of male and female same-sex desire from early colonial contacts between Europe and Africa in the nineteenth century to the present. Covering a broad geographical spectrum, from Mali to South Africa and from Senegal to Kenya, and adopting a comparative approach encompassing two colonial languages (English and French) and some African languages, 'Out in Africa' charts developments in Sub-Saharan African texts and contexts through the work of 7 colonial and some 25 postcolonial writers.
One hundred years ago Bishop Colenso was excommunicated because of his liberal critical views on the inspiration and authority of the Bible. But while in South Africa he worked strenuously for social and political reform. 2003 will mark the revocation of his excommunication in a ceremony in South Africa and this book commemorates that event. It is divided into sections on African Culture, Bible, Theology and Social History and contains contribution from English, Dutch and South African scholars. It will appeal not only to the biblical scholar and Christian theologian but also to anyone interested in the 19th century conflict of theology and reason and the struggle against colonial exploitation.
This book offers an account of this understudied conflict dating from the early stage of European colonialism in Africa, and unpacks the complex regional relationships between different communities in the first half of 19th century.
Nature religions look to rivers, lakes and oceans for inspiration and spiritual transformation. 'Deep Blue' brings together the work of influential scholars in the field of nature religion, ranging across anthropology, mythology, sociology and psychology. The essays examine the interrelationship between spiritual practice, critical thinking, and environmental concern. Tracing the ancient history of humanity's close relationship with both salt and fresh water, the book calls for a sustainable relationship with water in contemporary western culture. 'Deep Blue' will be of interest to students of paganism and religion, environmental researchers and activists, and all those involved in the intersection between religion and ecology.
Firearms have been studied by imperial historians mainly as means of human destruction and material production. Yet firearms have always been invested with a whole array of additional social and symbolical meanings. By placing these meanings at the centre of analysis, the essays presented in this volume extend the study of the gun beyond the confines of military history and the examination of its impact on specific colonial encounters. By bringing cultural perspectives to bear on this most pervasive of technological artefacts, the contributors explore the densely interwoven relationships between firearms and broad processes of social change. In so doing, they contribute to a fuller understanding of some of the most significant consequences of British and American imperial expansions. Not the least original feature of the book is its global frame of reference. Bringing together historians of different periods and regions, A Cultural History of Firearms in the Age of Empire overcomes traditional compartmentalisations of historical knowledge and encourages the drawing of novel and illuminating comparisons across time and space.
This volume contributes rich, new material to provide insights into indigenous responses to the colonial empires of Great Britain (South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe (Rhodesia)) and Germany (Namibia) and explore the complex intellectual, cultural, literary, and political borders and identities that emerged across these spaces. Contributors include distinguished global scholars in the field as well as exciting young scholars. The essays link global-national-local forces in history by analysing how indigenous elites not only interacted with colonial empires to absorb, adapt and re-cast new ideas, forms of discourse, and social formations, but also networked with ordinary people to forge new social, ethnic, and political identities and viable social forces. Translated and other primary texts in appendices add to the insights.