Mar 28, 2024  
Summer Record 2005 
    
Summer Record 2005 [ARCHIVED RECORD]

AAS 405 - South Africa and the World


In 1994, hundreds of thousands of Americans watched the televised inauguration of Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s first black president. For South Africans themselves, that moment marked the end of the ‘old’ South Africa and the beginning of the ‘new.’ This course explores the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ South Africa in the contexts of the country’s political, economic, and cultural connections to the world. Topics covered include migrant labor and mine work, constructing ‘race’ under apartheid and afterward, displacement of the San, sport and international competition, HIV/AIDS, and the development of the wild game and tourist industries. We take South Africa not as a place isolated by its peculiar history and location, but rather as a country struggling to determine its role in the world of the 21st century. Texts include Leonard Thompson’s A History of South Africa, Patrick Bond’s Unsustainable South Africa, Michael Hart’s Diamond, and Nixon’s Homelands, Harlem, and Hollywood, among others. We also read a selection of journal articles and view three films on South Africa, Sarafina, Cry the Beloved Country, and Amandla! Students are required to write a twenty-page term paper and to lead class discussion on one text during the seminar. (S)

Prerequisites & Notes
21055
0800 to 1015. June 14 to July 12 MTWRF; David Phillips

Credits: 3