Course Description

In this course, we will examine 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; undertand 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; and evaluate historical data and place it within the broad context of South African culture-- whether entrenched, emerging, gender- and/or diversity-based.

Grade Breakdown

  • Class Engagement: 20%
  • Midterm: 40%
  • Take-Home Final Examination: 40%

 

Tentative Calendar

24 September:

  • Mandela: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation

1 October :

  • Cry, the Beloved Country

8 October:

  • Maids and Madams
  • Blood Knot and Other Plays

15 October:

22 October :

29 October :

5 November :

  • Long Night's Journey into Day: South Africa's Search for Truth and Reconciliation

12 November :

19 November:

3 December:

  • Knowledge in the Blood: Confronting Race and the Apartheid Past

10 December:

  • Take-Home Final Examination Due
  • Braai with Invited South African Guests

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
  

 

Of Potential Interest

 

Required Texts

  • Biko, Steve.  I Write What I Like
  • Fugard, Athol.  Blood Knot and Other Plays
  • Gordimer, Nadine. July's People
  • Jansen, Jonathan. Knowledge in the Blood: Confronting Race and the Apartheid Past
  • Mda, Zakes.  The Madonna of Excelsior
  • Paton, Alan.  Cry, the Beloved Country