HIST 2025

Apartheid's Afterlife

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2021-2022.

Apartheid was a brutal system of segregating every aspect of life for different racial groups in South Africa. This notorious system of racial oppression survived for four and a half decades before it officially came to an end with South Africa's first democratic election in 1994. However, the long-term effects of apartheid still shape the everyday life in the country. This course will explore the history and memory of apartheid in South Africa by using memoir as a genre of historical source. Simultaneously, we will read primary historical sources and historiographical debates to understand the politics of remembering and forgetting the history of apartheid. The course will begin with a broad overview of apartheid state and society and historians' attempts to find meaning of it. In the second part of the course, we will explore the afterlife of apartheid through a collection of memoirs written by key anti-apartheid activists. Alongside, we will examine the politics of representation in sites of public commemoration such as museums, memorials, and exhibitions.

When Offered Spring.

Distribution Category (HA-AS, HST-AS, SCD-AS)
Course Subfield (HGS)

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