Bøger udgivet af Wits University Press

'Why bother to rob a bank, when you can own a bank?' asked Bertold Brecht. The question is reiterated in the very Brechtian Love, Crime and Johannesburg, the story of Jimmy 'Long Legs' Mangane, a people's poet involved in the struggle, who is accused of robbing a bank.

This collection of three plays and one cine poem captures the essence of Zakes Mda's method as a dramatist. Included is the story of two women who meet during a long wait to buy subsidized rice and discover they have more in common than their poverty.

Since South Africa's transition to democracy, many universities have acquired new works of art for key spaces on their campuses. The new works convey messages about the advantages of cultural diversity, and many engage critically with histories of racial intolerance and conflict.

Provides complete coverage of all aspects of the biology of extant African, Malagasy and Mascarene parrots, and reviews our knowledge of extinct and fossil parrots from the region. Particular themes include the behavioural and ecological characteristics of parrots, their species characteristics and conservation biology. Current concepts in avian and conservation biology are also discussed.

In no other society in the world have urbanisation and industrialisation been as comprehensively based on migrant labour as in South Africa. Rather than focusing on displacement and oppression, A Long Way Home captures the humanity, agency and creative modes of self-expression of the millions of workers who helped to build and shape modern South Africa.

This book explores the power of print and the politics of the book in South Africa from a range of disciplinary perspectives - historical, bibliographic, literary-critical, sociological, and cultural studies.

The second volume of the New South African Review (NSAR) continues a tradition of debate and critical, analytical scholarship about contemporary South Africa. Drawing on authors from academia and beyond, it aims to be informative, discursive and provocative.

Until its destruction by government decree in the mid-1950s, Sophiatown was the ""Chicago of South Africa"". The play, based on the life history of the township, opened in Johannesburg in February 1986. This edition includes an introduction which sets the play in its historical context.

South Africa's future is increasingly tied up with that of India. While trade and investment between the two countries is intensifying, they share long-standing historical ties and have much in common: apart from cricket, colonialism and Ghandi, both countries are important players in the global South. This book explores this relationship further.

Explores some of the key features of popular politics and resistance before and after 1994. This volume explores continuities and changes in the forms of struggle and ideologies involved, as well as the significance of post-apartheid grassroots politics.

This is the first English-Zulu / Zulu-English dictionary to be developed in South Africa. It was begun in the 1940s by Wits University lecturers, CM Doke and BW Vilakazi. Vilakazi was the first published Zulu-language poet and his collection, Amal'eZulu, is listed in the Top 100 African Books of the twentieth century.

Explores how to understand and learn from rock art with and without ethnography. This volume is unique in that it focuses exclusively on rock art and ethnography, and covers such a wide geographic range of examples on this topic, from southern Africa, to Scandinavia, to the United States.

The Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape' cultural connection to Great Zimbabwe, and the Venda people allows archaeologists to reconstruct its evolution. This book tells the story of an African civilisation that began more than 1000 years ago, with illustrations, and its is written by specialists for visitors to South Africa's World Heritage Sites.

Answers questions such as: What is Thabo Mbeki's legacy for patterns of inclusion and exclusion based on race, class and gender? How, if at all, did his presidency reshape relations within the state, between the state and the ruling party and between the state and society? How did he reposition South Africa on the continent and in the world?

Charts the musical world of a notorious period in world history, apartheid South Africa. This book explores how music was produced through, and was productive of, key features of apartheid's social and political topography.

The 'Cradle of Humankind' (COH), bordering Gauteng and the North-West Province in South Africa, was declared a World Heritage Site for the wealth of the human and animal fossils found there. This work aims to provide an overview of the history of the COH, and of the important discoveries that have been made there, for a non-specialist audience.

Was the ""mfecane"" a figment of historians' imagination? How large a responsibility do Shaka and the Zulu people bear for the social turbulence in South-central and South-east Africa in the early decades of the 19th century? These are some of the issues explored in this collection.

Gaze Regimes is a bricolage of essays and interviews showcasing the experiences of women working in film, either directly as practitioners or in other areas as curators, festival programme directors or fundraisers. It does not shy away from questioning the relations of power in the practice of filmmaking and the power invested in the gaze itself. Who is looking and who is being looked at, who is telling women's stories in Africa and what governs the mechanics of making those films on the continent?The interviews with film practitioners such as Tsitsi Dangarembga, Taghreed Elsanhouri, Jihan El-Tahri, Anita Khanna, Isabel Noronhe, Arya Lalloo and Shannon Walsh demonstrate the contradictory points of departure of women in film - from their understanding of feminisms in relation to lived-experiences and the realpolitik of women working as cultural practitioners. The disciplines of gender studies, postcolonial theory, and film theory provide the framework for the book's essays. Jyoti Mistry, Antje Schuhmann, Nobunye Levin, Dorothee Wenner and Christina von Braun are some of the contributors who provide valuable context, analysis and insight into, among other things, the politics of representation, the role of film festivals and the collective and individual experiences of trauma and marginality which contribute to the layered and complex filmic responses of Africa's film practitioners.

Steve Biko, the founder of the Black Consciousness philosophy, was killed in prison on 12 September 1977. Biko was only thirty years old, but his ideas and political activities changed the course of South African history and helped hasten the end of apartheid. The year 2007 saw the thirtieth anniversary of Biko's death. To mark the occasion, the then Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Mosibudi Mangena, commissioned Chris van Wyk to compile an anthology of essays as a tribute to the great South African son. Among the contributors are Minister Mangena himself, ex-President Thabo Mbeki, writer Darryl Accone, journalists Lizeka Mda and Bokwe Mafuna, academics Jonathan Jansen, Mandla Seleoane and Saths Cooper, a friend of Biko's and former president of Azapo. We Write What We Like proudly echoes the title of Biko's seminal work, I Write What I Like. It is a gift to a new generation which enjoys freedom, from one that was there when this freedom was being fought for. And it celebrates the man whose legacy is the freedom to think and say and write what we like.

Social science researchers in the global South, and in South Africa particularly, utilise research methods in innovative ways in order to respond to contexts characterised by diversity, racial and political tensions, socioeconomic disparities and gender inequalities. These methods often remain undocumented - a gap that this book starts to address. Written by experts from various methodological fields, Transforming Research Methods in the Social Sciences is a comprehensive collation of original essays and cutting-edge research that demonstrates the variety of novel techniques and research methods available to researchers responding to these context-bound issues. It is particularly relevant for study and research in the fields of applied psychology, sociology, ethnography, biography and anthropology. In addition to their unique combination of conceptual and application issues, the chapters also include discussions on ethical considerations relevant to the method in similar global South contexts. Transforming Research Methods in the Social Sciences has much to offer to researchers, professionals and others involved in social science research both locally and internationally.

On 8 January 2012 the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, the oldest African nationalist organisation on the continent, celebrated its one hundredth anniversary. This historic event has generated significant public debate within both the ANC and South African society at large. There is no better time to critically reflect on the ANC's historical trajectory and struggle against colonialism and apartheid than in its centennial year. One Hundred Years of the ANC is a collection of new work by renowned South African and international scholars. Covering a broad chronological and geographical spectrum and using a diverse range of sources, the contributors build upon but also extend the historiography of the ANC by tapping into marginal spaces in ANC history. By moving away from the celebratory mode that has characterised much of the contemporary discussions on the centenary, the contributors suggest that the relationship between the histories of earlier struggles and the present needs to be rethought in more complex terms. Collectively, the book chapters challenge hegemonic narratives that have become an established part of South Africa's national discourse since 1994. By opening up debate around controversial or obscured aspects of the ANC's century-long history, One hundred years of the ANC sets out an agenda for future research. The book is directed at a wide readership with an interest in understanding the historical roots of South Africa's current politics will find this volume informative. This book is based on a selection of papers presented at the One Hundred Years of the ANC: Debating Liberation Histories and Democracy Today Conference held at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg from 20-23 September2011.

Why does it matter that nations should care for their archives, and that they should develop a sense of shared identity? And why should these processes take place in the public domain? How can nations possibly speak about a shared sense of identity in pluralistic societies where individuals and groups have multiple identities? And how can such conversations be given relevance in public discussions of reconciliation and development in South Africa? These are the issues that the Public Conversations lecture series - an initiative of the Constitution of Public Intellectual Life Project at Wits University - proceeded from in 2006. Five years later, cross currents in contemporary South Africa have made the resumption of a public debate to clarify the meanings of identity and citizenship even more imperative, and an understanding of 'archive' even more urgent. The 2006 lectures were subsequently collected, resulting in this volume which takes its title from Weber's point, elaborated on in the chapter by Benedict Anderson, that the future asks us to be worthy ancestors to the yet unborn. The book, as did the lecture series, aims to reach a broad and informed reading public because the topic is still of pressing interest in contemporary public discourse. In a changed (and, some might say, degraded) environment of public dialogue, the editor hopes to inspire a re-thinking of the very essence of what it means to be a citizen of South Africa. Becoming Worthy Ancestors aims to make accessible the theoretically informed, sometimes highly academic work of its various contributors. With chapters from high profile international and local contributors, it will be of interest to South African and international audiences. Editing for publication has further enhanced the accessibility of each speaker's thinking without forfeiting any of its complexity, and the addition of an introductory chapter by the editor contributes to the coherence of the volume. While the target audience is the broad public, the book is based on a core of academic thinking and research.

The New South African Review revives the tradition of critical, analytical scholarship developed by the South African Review in the 1970s and 1980s. Accessible to a wide readership and drawing upon authors from well beyond academia, its objective is to be informative, discursive and, at times, downright provocative. It seeks to provide contemporary comment and engage with current controversies. The first volume in the series, 2010: Development or Decline? ranges widely across the implications of the international crisis for the economy, the threats to our fragile ecology of present economic strategies, through to the state of the ANC and the public service, issues around service delivery, migration, HIV-Aids, land reform, crime, the sexual behaviour of our youth, and much more. Posing the provocative question of whether South Africa is embarking upon a long-term decline, the volume simultaneously argues the potential for a society premised upon social equality, social coherence and sustainability. This collection will appeal to both national and international audiences interested in engaging with the multiple dilemmas and challenges facing contemporary South Africa

Paul Slabolepszy's Suddenly the Storm set in Johannesburg's East Rand at the home of an ageing former police officer Dwayne Combrink and his much younger wife Shanell, poses the question of whether the wounds of the past can ever truly be healed.

Although widely known as the Afrikaner Communist who saved Nelson Mandela from the gallows, very little is known about Bram Fischer the man. Fischer was a respected Senior Advocate at the Johannesburg Bar who chose to side with the oppressed and went underground to join the armed struggle.

Missing is the story of Robert Khalipa , an ANC Cadre living in exile, who is very senior in the Organisation but is left out of the negotiations and almost forgotten in Sweden. Robert has a wealthy Swedish wife, Anna, and they have a daughter who is a practising doctor in a hospital in Stockholm.

In Tin Bucket Drum, Neil Coppen achieves a small miracle. Through his lyrical script and the creative use of lighting and sound, one woman, the Narrator, succeeds in evoking a host of characters as this allegorical tale of oppression and liberation plays itself out. It is a story that offers a host of lessons for many places and many times.

A collection of essays on what it meant to be black during apartheid. While the essays are situated in the material and social conditions of that time, they also have a timelessness that speaks to our contemporary concerns.

A lyrical, philosophical and poetic treatise on practising African psychology in a decolonised world view. Employing a style common in philosophy but rarely used in psychology, the book offers thoughts about the ideas, contestation, urgency and desire around a psychological praxis in Africa for Africans.

Provides a textured analysis of a contested urban space that will resonate with other contested urban spaces around the world and challenges researchers involved in such spaces to work in creative and politicised ways.