After taking this course, the successful student will have an enhanced ability to: apply knowledge and understanding acquired in lower-division coursework in the humanities to a new, but related area of inquiry (apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa); respond in depth to the kinds of issues of language, representation, and historical context that they approached in lower-division study through the interdisciplinary examination of the humanities in South Africa, both during apartheid and after its demise; appreciate the humanistic implications of focusing on South Africa over a half-century and the way in which relationships between various areas—the arts and politics, for example—can provide perspective on knowledge; understand the value of questioning and learning through synthesis; gather, evaluate, interpret, and apply information to situations beyond the classroom; explore in detail the troubled past and more promising present of South Africa in order to comprehend their importance in the nation’s reinvention as a model democracy, committed to inclusion and representation at every level of society; evaluate historical data and place it within the broad context of South African culture—whether entrenched, emerging, gender- and/or diversity-based; and articulate arguments in structured writing-intensive and oral form.

You will be expected to: articulate a minimum of 3,000 words in assignments of various lengths;  and actively participate in class.

The successful student will: achieve a greater perspective on South African history and culture, including—but not limited to—its art, literature, music, philosophy, and performance; understand how the current civil rights of South Africans emerge from the mistakes and abuses of their nation’s troubled apartheid past; appreciate the artistic and philosophical dimensions of South African culture, broadly defined; see how “high culture”—such as canonized literature or curated exhibitions—impacts attitudes about the relative value of other cultural achievements—such as graffiti art, hip hop, and other emerging forms of South African youth culture; comprehend the relationship of the individual to society; understand people of different culture/s and relate them to their particular situation.

Grade Breakdown

Active Oral Participation (10%)

Exams (60%)

Final Project (30%)