History - Wits University

The Department is currently staffed by a diverse, widely published faculty of experienced historians, trained at the Universities of Cambridge, KwaZulu-Natal, Michigan, Minnesota, Oxford, ‘L’Orientale’ of Naples and Wits respectively. These colleagues bring together expertise in a number of geographical fields including Southern and Eastern African history, Indian and Indian Ocean history, as well as thematic specialties such as feminist and gender histories, histories of youth and popular culture, environmental history and Southern African liberation histories. They enjoy close connections to the Wits History Workshop and regularly attend regional and international conferences.

History develops specific skills, improving students’ ability to find and assess evidence as though they are detectives. Students learn how to evaluate conflicting interpretations and write in ways that are accurate, persuasive and beautifully humanist. These skills are broad and widely transferable.

The department has a long track record of graduates pursuing further study at home and abroad, or enjoying successful careers in Journalism, Political Advocacy, Development and the NGO sector, Law, Education and Consultancy, Museums, heritage and tourism, to name only the most common. To learn more about the broad range of careers open to those with a history degree have a look at the Alumni profiles section on our website. You can also read more about the intellectual trajectory of the department over more than a century here.

The Department is closely linked to the History Workshop research group, and to The National Research Foundation Chair in Local Histories, Present Realities.

The History Workshop is an interdisciplinary research group based at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Formed in 1977, it is run by a group of academics, writers and researchers. It holds conferences, open-days and runs several projects in popular history.

Undergraduate Courses

Global Encounters and Contemporary Realities (D): Cast Studies in Global History - HIST1015A (S2, B3 & B4)

This course offers a combination of TWO case studies out of FOUR currently on offer in Global Encounters B and C:

Case study one: China. It begins by comparing China to Europe and other regions of the world in the 1300s and 1400s and try to establish why it did not become a great imperial power, turning in on itself rather than expanding outwards. More than half of the course, however, will deal with the dramatic events of the twentieth century: the great civil war between the nationalists and communists; the communist revolution; the ‘Cultural Revolution’; the pragmatic rapprochement with the United States and the ‘liberalisation’ of the 1980s, culminating in the particular brand of market communism which characterises China today.

Case study two: Middle East aims to discuss some of the salient historical processes that have shaped the Middle East and its multiple connections to other parts of the world. It will probe the historic role of imperialism, the centrality of oil and the role of ruling elites in the shaping of the contemporary Middle East. The historic spread of Islam will be considered by discussing how it has shaped the political landscape of the Middle East, as well as large parts of Africa and the Far East, and how, in turn, this religion has been shaped by the local social and cultural contexts where it took root.

Case study three: Latin America. This case study examines the region now known as Latin America, dealing with issues of ecology and disease and the Columbian Exchange; it then follows Latin American history through to wars of independence and the dominance of the United States in the Cold War period.

Case study four: Africa and its cultural diaspora. This section deals with Africa's historical encounters with the rest of the world over many centuries, focusing particularly on cultural exchange and hybridisation.

Global Encounters and Contemporary Realities - HIST1012 (S2)
This course is only offered in alternative years. Please check with the Departmental administrator to see when it is available.

The first section of this course discusses the position of China in the modern world. The first two weeks will provide some important background to the Chinese nation state over the last two thousand years. In this section we will discuss the structure of the empire, and economic and technological advances. Importantly, we will also discuss China in parallel to developments in the Western world. As the West became increasingly dominant in the 1700s and 1800s, China’s power declined and, though never colonised, the nation suffered a humiliating semi-colonisation in the second half of the 1800s. The next five weeks deal with the twentieth century, focusing mainly on revolutionary China from 1949 onwards. The course will conclude with an assessment of the rise of Chinese political and economic power since about the 1990s.

The second section of the course focuses on the Middle East and Eurasia. Here the aim is to explain and demonstrate the deep historical connections of this region to the worlds surrounding and overlapping with it. At different periods, what is deemed as the Middle East included parts of Europe, Africa and the Far East. Caliphates ruled in Spain and Greeks ruled in Egypt, trade routes extended from China to middle Europe, while cities brought together merchants, artisans, soldiers and the educated elite from all these regions. The course will examine the evolution of the Middle East/Eurasia over 3000 years, with a particular focus on the region in the context of colonialism from the 19th century, the assertion of nationalisms and the persistent interference of Western powers in the affairs of the region from World War One to the present.

Global Encounters and Contemporary Realities - HIST1013 (S2 B3 & B4) –

Following the introductory course (HIST1011A Global Encounters A) this course includes case studies of Latin America and Africa.

The first part of this course focuses on the Columbian Exchange and ‘ecological imperialism’, i.e. the biological and ecological impact of Europe’s conquest of Latin America and the Caribbean after 1492, and subsequent centuries of colonial rule. It discusses the diffusion and exchange of epidemics, crops, weeds, plants and animals between the Americas and the rest of the world and their ecological impact; and the differing degrees of success with which diverse groups of people (i.e. those who benefited from, and those who bore the brunt of European expansion) were able to cope, survive and socially and biologically reproduce. More specifically, we will examine how ravages of pandemics (i.e. plagues of smallpox, measles, yellow fever, syphilis, typhus, etc.) which decimated the vast numbers of indigenous Indian peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, contributed to the victory of the Spaniards when they overran the once formidable Aztec (Mexico) and Inca (Peru) empires. We will also explore the short-term and long-term impact of these epidemics on Indian societies in Mexico, Peru and the Caribbean. Finally, we will examine how the Columbian exchange revolutionised eating habits and consumer patterns with the westward export of a wide range of food crops and the introduction of European and Asian crops and domesticated animals to Central and South America.

The second part of this course explores the history of Africa’s resilience and contributions to the world through the lens of culture. It provides an overview of some key cultural exchanges between the African continent and other world areas with a special focus on the period from the 15^th century onwards. The key aim is to rethink global interconnections and challenge outdated views of the marginality of the continent. Although we will cover the major regions and periods, some contexts and historical moments will receive particular attention. This part of the course first looks at the main cultural continuities and changes in the Atlantic World, namely, how Africans were forcibly taken away from the continent by human trafficking (commonly known as the transatlantic slave trade) and had to make sense of their lives under tough circumstances. Special attention will be given to the extent to which enslaved Africans (only a small number of well-known iconic figures – most of our protagonists are ‘anonymous’ figures) retained cultural elements such as languages, songs, dances and religious beliefs, while simultaneously modifying and adapting them to the new contexts, thus creating new cultures and worldviews – no longer strictly African. The last part of this section of the course examines more recent cultural changes which occurred in Africa as a result of colonial occupation and increased global contacts, by looking at how Africans imported, debated and localised foreign cultural forms like music, clothes and movies.

History of Sub-Saharan Africa II (HIST2003) – S2 B3 & B4

This course focuses on many essential topics in the history of Sub-Saharan Africa. The first section explores the impact of cross-cultural exchange on the formation and re-formation of African political and economic institutions through examining the trans-Saharan trade and Africa’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. The second section explores Africa on the eve of colonial occupation and looks at patterns of colonisation (especially British & French), as well as the partition of Africa and African resistance and accommodation to conquest. It assesses the impact of colonial rule and the transformations that resulted, colonial initiatives and African responses (from resistance to collaboration), forced labour, settler colonialism, the construction of ethnicity, the impact of Christian education, and the formation of African elites and literary clubs in colonial Ghana. The course then investigates the growth of mass nationalism, the involvement of African townswomen in the anti-colonial struggles in West and East Africa, liberation movements in Southern Africa, decolonisation, and the legacies of colonialism.

History of the United States - HIST2004A (S1 – B1 & B2)

This course is a survey of American history from the Revolution to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Particular attention is given to:

The evolution of the American political system
The sectional conflict over slavery
The growth of capitalist production and the rise of big business, labour unions and a powerful federal government
Immigration, urbanisation and suburbanisation
The civil rights struggles of blacks and women
The emergence of the United States as a world power

South Africa before 1880 - HIST2005A (S2 B3&B4)

This course covers major themes in South African history from the earliest times through to about 1870, on the eve of the mineral revolution. Themes that we will address in part one include the earliest human societies of the region, the economic, social and political worlds of hunter-gathers and Iron Age societies, state building processes and the rise of large states of Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwa and Mutapa, as well as the earliest European colonial encounters with the region, including the arrival of the first Asian migrants, up to about 1790. In addition, you will learn about major historiographical debates, as well as the politics and practical challenges of studying the early history of Southern Africa.

Part two narrows the focus to consider, in detail, the decades between about 1790 and 1870, enormously significant in the emergence of modern South Africa. Besides sharpening your understanding of issues developed in part one, in part two you will learn about the emergence of large late Iron Age African states, of which the Zulu state is best understood, in the early 19th century. We then move on to consider the impact of British empire-building on the Cape and coastal southeast Africa, and in the last module look at interactions between African and Dutch-speaking polities on the South African highveld before industrialisation. Throughout, will see how over the 19^th century, different actors tried to create new political orders, how southern Africa became an increasingly mobile, interactive society, and how global ideas and technologies were adapted, appropriated and reinvented in this region. In sum, the 19th century was the well-spring for what we today call modern South Africa.

History of Sex - HIST2008A (S2 B3 & B4)

This course will introduce students to a history of sex, sexuality and gender from the distant past to the present. The course is designed to present students with a broad survey that examines the shifts, changes, and continuities (and/or ruptures) of social, political, cultural, medical and religious constructions of sex, sexuality and gender over the last few centuries. Further, the course will examine how these changing social, religious, and political climates have shaped our understanding and acceptance of different sexual practices, and how sexuality has been used as a tool for social control. The historical relevance of these conceptualisations is significant for understanding contemporary issues, such as body morphism, HIV/AIDS, and LGBTI rights. The course will focus in particular on the following issues: abortion and contraception, body augmentation, transgendering, prostitution, eroticism, venereal disease, early religious and legal codes, the medicalisation of sex, queer sexuality, homosexuality, heterosexuality, sex education, sex crimes, gender violence, deviance and perverseness, pornography, popular culture and the intersections of race, and the impact of technology on sexual behaviour.

History of the African City - HIST3003A (S2 - B3 & B4)

It has been estimated that 53.8 percent of the total African population will reside in cities by 2025: therefore, the study of past and present African cities is particularly relevant. This course first surveys the key features of urban centres in ancient Africa. The section on Eastern Africa focuses on colonial policies versus African urban realities. Specifically, it examines colonial views of Africans as quintessentially rural and colonial initiatives targeting the unemployed and underemployed urban poor. It also looks at the key continuities in the postcolonial period. We then contrast colonial approaches, notions and policies with the actual African urban cultures and leisure activities (music, sport, social drinking) emerging in the major cities and secondary towns between the early 1900s and the post-1945 years. The final section of the course focuses on some of the salient challenges facing African cities in a globalised world and people’s responses to these. The course engages with the history and politics of South African cities, particularly on the Witwatersrand.

The Making of Modern South Africa IIIA - HIST3008A (S2-B3)

Welcome to History 3008: The Making of Modern South Africa. This course examines the crucial economic, social, demographic, and political forces which have shaped modern South Africa since the mining revolution in the last quarter of the 19th century to about 1940. While elaboration of segregationist thinking is developed throughout the lectures, particular attention is given to the history of ‘ordinary’ people: their ways of life; their cultural and material adaptations in the face of a rapidly changing society, and their forms of resistance. This involves the exploration of key patterns of migration (both regional and transoceanic) and urbanisation, as well as the ways by which different people in southern Africa created new class, ethnic, gender and generational identities. The course introduces you to key historiographical debates, as well as a blend of seminal texts and exciting new scholarship on the period. In this course, you are encouraged to engage with a range of primary sources and to begin to develop your own particular thematic interests. Part 2 (Hist3009, under the guidance of Prof Clive Glaser in the 4th quarter), takes up the story from the onset of Afrikaner Nationalist rule in the late 1940s to the post-Apartheid years.

The Making of Modern South Africa IIIB - HIST3009A (S2-B4)

This course continues the exploration of key themes in modern South African history from the 1940s onwards. The course examines:

The policy of segregation and the making of apartheid
Urbanisation and the creation of urban culture
Political resistance, including rural uprisings, trade unions and formal parties
High apartheid
The 1976 uprising and the crisis of apartheid

This course further examines the diverse ways in which that history has been constructed and represented.

HIST2003 - History of Sub-Saharan Africa II (S2 B3 & B4)– this is a joint course with political studies and is also run at 3rd-year level as HIST3011

This course focuses on many essential topics in the history of Sub-Saharan Africa. The first section explores the impact of cross-cultural exchange on the formation and re-formation of African political and economic institutions through examining the trans-Saharan trade and Africa’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. The second section explores the eve of colonial occupation, patterns of colonisation (especially British & French), the partition of Africa and African resistance and accommodation to conquest. It assesses the impact of colonial rule and the transformations that resulted, colonial initiatives and African responses (from resistance to collaboration), forced labour, settler colonialism, the construction of ethnicity, the impact of Christian education, and the formation of African elites and literary clubs in colonial Ghana. The course then investigates the growth of mass nationalism, the involvement of African townswomen in the anti-colonial struggles in West and East Africa liberation movements in Southern Africa, decolonisation, and the legacies of colonialism.

Southern/Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean World - HIST3016A (S1 B2)

The western Indian Ocean region constitutes a zone of contact with a long history of exchange and interaction among different communities and cultures. Monsoon winds, combined with other factors, brought the Arabian Peninsula and western India into contact with the African coastline and its interior since ancient times. Using a combination of thematic and chronological approaches, this course focuses on some of the key networks of interaction and circulation of people, goods, and ideas across the western Indian Ocean (in the Arabian or “Afrasian” Sea) before and after the steam age (early 19^th century). The course first presents a survey of the historiography of the Indian Ocean: the challenges and advantages of maritime history, some debates on the sea, and the notion of the Indian Ocean as a unified region or “world”. We will then focus on the connections between land/coast and sea, and examine various case studies on maritime cultures, Swahili culture and port cities and the regional trading system on the western Indian Ocean rim; the role of eastern/southern Africa in the formation of the Indian Ocean world; diaspora, cosmopolitan identities and early globalisation processes in the area comprised between eastern/southern Africa, south west Asia (the Arabian Peninsula, especially present-day Yemen and Oman) and south Asia (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh).

Latin America and the Caribbean: From Conquest to Independence and Beyond - HIST3017A
(S1 B1)

This course surveys the colonial, nationalist and post-colonial history of Latin America and the Caribbean from 1492 to the present. It focuses on the colonial foundations of Latin America and explores the impact of colonial domination on indigenous populations in Spanish America and Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic as well as Portuguese America (Brazil). The course traces the origins of Latin American wars of independence in the early 19th century and the meaning of independence to Latin American societies. The course further examines the evolution of military dictatorships in most of Latin America in the 20th century and their consequences and a return to electoral multiparty democracies. The course also focuses on US-Latin America relations in the 19th and 20th centuries and how Latin American countries have responded to the US’s pursuit of geopolitical and regional dominance. Students discuss the significance of Latin America in the era of South-South cooperation as a counterpoint to Western hegemony.

Historical Research: Methods, Sources and Approaches - HIST4021A This course runs across the whole year

This course is designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct effective historical research. Students will learn about the process of historical methodology, from data collection and analysis to the writing of an independent research project. Seminars will include discussions on choosing a research topic, developing research questions, writing a literature review, navigating archives (including field visits to key local historical archives), the use of digital archives, organising historical data and other practicalities of research, and ethical considerations of research. By the end of the course, students are expected to produce a polished, professional and focused research proposal that involves a detailed engagement with secondary sources and an informed discussion about the available primary sources. The proposal should develop a clear set of research questions and present a structured research agenda. It should also involve considerations about ethics and the practicalities of research. This detailed proposal, which will be presented at a departmental seminar, will be the object of assessment for the course and will in effect take the place of an examination. It should be noted that students will, by the second block, be assigned individual supervisors to assist them with developing their proposals.

Rural Transformation: Town & Countryside in Transition - HIST 4001A (S1 B1 & B2) offered at both Honours and MA levels

This course explores the economic, social and political dynamics operating within southern African societies from the rise of the Shashe-Limpopo states at the turn of the first millennium, up to the late 20^th century. It is not an exhaustive account of all events to have taken place during this period but examines a selection of key issues that best reveal the interplay between economic change and subsequent social and cultural transformations outside of today’s major urban centres. It aims to equip participants with the analytical tools for a critical understanding of deep histories of production, exchange and trade in southern Africa, while also training students in key historiographical developments, debates and explanations around southern Africa’s long-term trajectories. Especially important themes in part one include the making of precolonial states and economies, debates over slavery, the emergence of forms of African capitalism and the integration of rural southeast Africa into Indian Ocean indentured labour circuits to the 1880s. Part two continues many of these themes, but moves toward considering developments in segregationist, Apartheid and post-Apartheid South Africa. It explores the causes and consequences of migrant labour, the changing dynamics of generation and gender, the politics and practice of resistance, evolving forms of sexuality, issues of racial and ethnic identity, the contestation of chieftainship and the intersection of malevolence, misfortune and witchcraft. In both sections, participants are encouraged to consider the meaning these themes have for contemporary rural poverty, development and racial politics.

Selected Topics: History of Law on the African Continent - HIST 4012A (S1 B1 & B2) offered at both Honours and MA levels

This course is about the history of law on the African continent. Law is not just about legislation or courts or judges. It is also about power, resources, identity, community and belonging. The law is a space through which elites have exercised control and entrenched inequalities. But it is also an arena in which marginalized people have contested and challenged the powerful. The course offers students the tools they need to engage critically with the law, as well as understand current legal matters in historical perspective. Assignments will allow students to develop the skills needed to conduct research for a legal team, write case summaries and memoranda for media outlets and analyse the law in light of its historical development. Themes covered include the history of customary laws, the effects of colonialism on laws, lawyers and legal practitioners, the development of property law and property inequality, ideas about human rights and the law, prisons and incarceration, and gender and sexuality. Any student with an interest in law, history, anthropology, sociology, political science, gender studies, economics, development studies, inequality and social justice will find this course helpful.

Themes in African-American History in the United States - HIST 4014A (S1 B1 & B2) offered at both Honours and MA levels

The unit offers an intensive examination of pivotal historical scholarship on African-American history. It focuses on recent analyses of several major themes and processes in the history of African-Americans. Some of these include:

The African slave experiences in the Middle Passage
The economics of slavery in the American South
Slave culture
Civil War and Reconstruction
The Great Migration
The Harlem Renaissance
The Civil Rights movement

Oral & Documentary History: Theory and Practice - HIST 4018A – (S1 B1 & B2)

This unit, offered at both Honours and Masters level, looks at contemporary trends in the theory and practice of history. The first half deals with the possibility of objective truth, the boundaries between fiction and historical writing, social history, gender theory, and the implications of post-colonial and post-modern theories for historical research and writing. The second half of the unit concentrates on the theoretical debates and practical skills of oral history. One of the papers will involve a practical exercise (for example: interpreting oral transcripts or documents or conducting an oral history interview). The unit will provide ideal training for any postgraduate students in the humanities who will be conducting a primary research-based project or who intend going into any field related to heritage.

The Making of Urban South Africa - HIST 4013A (S2 - B3 & B4) - offered at both Honours and MA level

The course explores the social, political and economic history of urbanization in South Africa from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries. Its central focus is the Witwatersrand, but it also examines parallel and especially divergent processes in Cape Town, Durban, East London, Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria. A central spine to the course is provided by a set of related questions: what impelled people to the towns? How and why did they become fully urban? What new cultures and identities emerged in the multi-racial and multi-ethnic urban melting pot? What new communities and political organisations emerged?

How do we understand ungovernability in the 1940s and 1980s? What new laws and policies were formulated (e.g. segregation, apartheid and post-apartheid reform) to regulate and repress these processes and forces? How and why did all of the latter happen? How central were the cities to understanding the more general processes of historical change in South Africa and the sub-continent?

Selected Topics/Histories of the Global South - HIST 4022A (S2 B3 & B4) offered at both Honours and MA levels (not offered in 2026)

The Indian Ocean and the Global South tries to chart a new postcolonial history by challenging nation-centred thinking on historical processes and questioning the dyad of colony/nation that structures our understanding of change. Instead, it explores the connected histories of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean by way of commerce, religion, the movement of capital and unfree labour, and the circulation of ideas. Both the spaces (national borders, notions of east and west) and times of history writing (pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial periods) need to be rethought as a result. If we think about the connections generated by the movement of people and the circulation of ideas, we are forced to think about connected histories that preceded, sat alongside, and continue beyond the colonial and national. In the first part of the course, we focus specifically on the issues of diaspora, conceptualizations of the “Third World,” and transoceanic cultural networks. In the second part of the course, we turn our attention to labour regimes in the Indian ocean, commercial networks in the 18th and 19th centuries, and concepts of race, racism and colonial ideology. The course engages with themes such as modernity, post-coloniality, the global south, race and empire, gender, creolization, slavery, the diaspora, and the development of forms of third world politics, identity and solidarity.

The Environmental History of Africa - HIST 4020A This course is only offered in alternative years. Please check with the Departmental administrator to see when it is available.

This course addresses the following themes in the environmental history of Africa:

Pre-colonial environmental history
The impact of European colonialism and its penetration into African environments and resource use
Game hunting and wildlife conservation
Nature reserves and national parks
Forests and forestry
Degradation narratives (soil erosion and conservation initiatives)
Drought and desertification
The politics of water
Environmental sustainability
Climate change in historical perspective

Rural Transformation: Town & Countryside in Transition (HIST 7007) S1- B1 & B2 - offered at both Honours and MA level

This course explores the economic, social and political dynamics operating within southern African societies from the rise of the Shashe-Limpopo states at the turn of the first millennium, up to the late 20^th century. It is not an exhaustive account of all events to have taken place during this period but examines a selection of key issues that best reveal the interplay between economic change and subsequent social and cultural transformations outside of today’s major urban centres. It aims to equip participants with the analytical tools for a critical understanding of deep histories of production, exchange and trade in southern Africa, while also training students in key historiographical developments, debates and explanations around southern Africa’s long-term trajectories. Especially important themes in part one include the making of precolonial states and economies, debates over slavery, the emergence of forms of African capitalism and the integration of rural southeast Africa into Indian Ocean indentured labour circuits to the 1880s. Part two continues many of these themes, but moves toward considering developments in segregationist, Apartheid and post-Apartheid South Africa. It explores the causes and consequences of migrant labour, the changing dynamics of generation and gender, the politics and practice of resistance, evolving forms of sexuality, issues of racial and ethnic identity, the contestation of chieftainship and the intersection of malevolence, misfortune and witchcraft. In both sections, participants are encouraged to consider the meaning these themes have for contemporary rural poverty, development and racial politics.

Themes in African-American History in the United States - HIST 7026 (S1 B1 & B2) - offered at both Honours and MA level

The unit offers an intensive examination of pivotal historical scholarship on African-American history. It focuses on recent analyses of several major themes and processes in the history of African-Americans. Some of these include:

The African slave experiences in the Middle Passage
The economics of slavery in the American South
Slave culture
Civil War and Reconstruction
The Great Migration
The Harlem Renaissance
The Civil Rights movement

Oral & Documentary History: Theory and Practice - HIST 7030 (S1 B1 & B2) offered at both Honours and MA level

This unit, offered at both Honours and Masters level, looks at contemporary trends in the theory and practice of history. The first half deals with the possibility of objective truth, the boundaries between fiction and historical writing, social history, gender theory, and the implications of post-colonial and post-modern theories for historical research and writing. The second half of the unit concentrates on the theoretical debates and practical skills of oral history. One of the papers will involve a practical exercise (for example: interpreting oral transcripts or documents or conducting an oral history interview). The unit will provide ideal training for any postgraduate students in the humanities who will be conducting a primary research-based project or who intend going into any field related to heritage

The Environmental History of Africa - HIST 7039 This course is only offered in alternative years. Please check with the Departmental administrator to see when it is available.

This course addresses the following themes in the environmental history of Africa:

Pre-colonial environmental history
The impact of European colonialism and its penetration into African environments and resource use
Game hunting and wildlife conservation
Nature reserves and national parks
Forests and forestry
Degradation narratives (i.e. soil erosion and conservation initiatives)
Drought and desertification
The politics of water
Environmental sustainability
Climate change in historical perspective

The Making of Urban South Africa - HIST 7025 (S2 - B3 & B4)

The course explores the social, political and economic history of urbanization in South Africa from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries. Its central focus is the Witwatersrand, but it also examines parallel and especially divergent processes in Cape Town, Durban, East London, Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria. A central spine to the course is provided by a set of related questions: what impelled people to the towns? How and why did they become fully urban? What new cultures and identities emerged in the multi-racial and multi-ethnic urban melting pot? What new communities and political organisations emerged?

How do we understand ungovernability in the 1940s and 1980s? What new laws and policies were formulated (e.g. segregation, apartheid and post-apartheid reform) to regulate and repress these processes and forces? How and why did all of the latter happen? How central were the cities to understanding the more general processes of historical change in South Africa and the sub-continent?

Selected Topics/Histories of the Global South - HIST 7033A (S2 B3 & B4) offered at both Honours and MA level

The Indian Ocean and the Global South tries to chart a new postcolonial history by challenging nation-centred thinking on historical processes and questioning the dyad of colony/nation that structures our understanding of change. Instead, it explores the connected histories of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean by way of commerce, religion, the movement of capital and unfree labour, and the circulation of ideas. Both the spaces (national borders, notions of east and west) and times of history writing (pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial) need to be rethought as a result. If we think about the connections generated by the movement of people and the circulation of ideas, we are forced to think about connected histories that preceded, sat alongside, and continue beyond the colonial and national. In the first part of the course, we focus specifically on the issues of diaspora, conceptualizations of the “Third World,” and transoceanic cultural networks. In the second part of the course, we turn our attention to labour regimes in the Indian ocean, commercial networks in the 18th and 19th centuries, and concepts of race, racism and colonial ideology.

School of Social Sciences

Welcome to the Wits History Department

Undergraduate Courses

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