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| Semester | spring semester 2009 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers |
Veit Arlt (veit.arlt@unibas.ch, Assessor)
Nicholas James Shepherd (nick.shepherd@unibas.ch) |
| Content | An idea often attached to South Africa both the old South Africa and the new is that here one sees an intensification of forces and processes found elsewhere. Jacques Derrida is responsible for one influential formulation of this idea. In an essay called Racisms Last Word written in the mid-1980s, at the height of apartheid oppression, he described South Africa as a concentration of world history. This idea, that South Africa represents a kind of terminus or working through of a certain strand in modernity, has a certain hold. Certainly it lends weight and interest to the busy, complex and contested set of processes whereby issues of culture, race, gender, sexuality, globalization, memory and heritage are being reframed and rethought in post-apartheid society. In this course, under the heading of Rethinking the City, Remaking the Self; Space, Memory and Identity in Post-apartheid South Africa, we examine this process of emergence. Taking a recent set of debates around city/ spaces and public culture in South Africa as a point of focus, we will pursue a double-handed enquiry. On the one hand, we will ask a set of questions around the nature and emergence of post-apartheid cities. On the other hand, we will pose a set of questions around emergent post-apartheid subjectivities, and the possibilities/ limitations of refashioning the self. Themes and case studies examined in the course include: - Public memory and post-apartheid museums (the District Six Museum, the Apartheid Museum, Robben Island Museum) - Recent debates around questions of planning and urban governance - Township tours and other tourist imaginaries of South African cities - The contested exhumation of the Prestwich Street dead, and the emergence of new post-apartheid publics - Elaine Salos gender-based research in Manenberg - Questions of performance and the site-specific choreography of Jay Pather - The implications of market-led urban development for questions of social justice and restitution - The californianisation of South African cities - Recent debates around social dislocation, xenophobia and violence - The work of Remix Dance Project |
| Bibliography | Mandatory reading (Pflichtlektüre): Noeleen Murray, Nick Shepherd and Martin Hall (2007) Desire Lines; Space. memory and identity in the post-apartheid city. Oxford: Routledge. |
| Comments | Gastdozent: Associate Professor Nick Shepherd (Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town) is research fellow at the Centre for African Studies Basel and the Programme for Science Studies in the spring term of 2009. His fellowship is funded by the Koordination für Forschungspartnerschaften mit Entwicklungsländern (KFPE), the Carl Schlettwein Stiftung and the Fonds für Lehre und Forschung. Email: nick.shepherd@uct.ac.za |
| Weblink | www.isis.unibas.ch |
| Admission requirements | Auch für fortgeschrittene BA Studierende / Advanced BA students welcome |
| Course application | Additional Registration via www.isis.unibas.ch is mandatory |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|
No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
| Modules |
Modul Archive / Medien / Theorien (Bachelor's degree subject: Geschichte) Modul Culture and Society (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul Ereignisse, Prozesse, Zusammenhänge (Master's degree subject: History) Modul Ethnographie (Bachelor's degree subject: Ethnologie) Modul Extending the View (Literary and Cultural Studies) (Bachelor's degree subject: Englisch) Modul History (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul Kommunikation und Vermittlung historischer Erkenntnisse (Master's degree subject: History) Modul Methoden und Diskurse historischer Forschung (Master's degree subject: History) Modul Politik, Entwicklung und soziale Ungleichheit (Bachelor's degree subject: Soziologie) Modul Research Skills in English Linguistics or Literature (Master's degree subject: English) Modul Themenfelder der Geschlechterforschung (Bachelor's degree subject: Geschlechterforschung) Modul Theorie und Praxis (Master's degree subject: East European History) Modul Vertiefung Globalisierung, Kultur und internationale Entwicklung (Master's degree subject: Geography) Vertiefungsmodul (Transfakultäre Querschnittsprogramme im freien Kreditpunkte-Bereich) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | Active participation, writing a research paper |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Afrika |