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5398 results in Wits University Press

Page 120 of 270

Marxisms in the 21st Century
  • Crisis, critique and struggle
  • Patrick Bond, Michael Burawoy, Jacklyn Cock, Ashwin Desai, Daryl Glaser, Mazibuko Jara, Meg Luxton, Trevor Ngwane, Devan Pillay, Vishwas Satgar, John Saul, Ahmed Veriava, Michelle Williams
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2013
  • The current resurgence of Marxism is based on new sources of inspiration and creativity from movements that seek democratic, egalitarian and ecological alternatives to capitalism. The Marxism of many of these movements is neither dogmatic nor prescriptive, but rather, open, searching, utopian. It revolves around four primary factors: the importance of democracy for an emancipatory project; the ecological limits of capitalism; the crisis of global capitalism; and the learning of lessons from the failures of Marxist-inspired experiments. Marxisms in the Twenty-First Century challenges vanguardist Marxism featured in South Africa and beyond. Featuring leading thinkers from the Left, the book offers provocative ideas on interpreting our current world and serves as an excellent introduction to new ways of thinking about Marxism to students and scholars in the field. Many anti-capitalist traditions and themes - including democracy, globalisation, feminism, critique and ecology inform and shape the contributions in this volume.

One Hundred Years of the ANC
  • Debating liberation histories today
  • Edited by Arianna Lissoni, Jon Soske, Natasha Erlank, Noor Nieftagodien, Omar Badsha
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2012
  • 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.

We, the People
  • Insights of an activist judge
  • Albie Sachs
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    30 November 2016
  • This stirring collection of essays and talks by activist and former judge Albie Sachs is the culmination of more than 25 years of thought about constitution-making and non-racialism. Following the Constitutional Court’s landmark Nkandla ruling in March 2016, it serves as a powerful reminder of the tenets of the Constitution, the rule of law and the continuous struggle to uphold democratic rights and freedoms. We, the People offers an intimate insider’s view of South Africa’s Constitution by a writer who has been deeply entrenched in its historical journey from the depths of apartheid right up to the politically contested present. As a second-year law student at the University of Cape Town, Sachs took part in the Defiance Campaign and went on to attend the Congress of the People in Kliptown, where the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955. Three decades later, shortly after the bomb attack in Maputo that cost him his arm and the sight in one eye, he was called on by the Constitutional Committee of the African National Congress to co-draft (with Kader Asmal) the first outline of a Bill of Rights for a new democratic South Africa. In 1994, he was appointed by Nelson Mandela to the Constitutional Court, where he served as a judge until 2009. We, the People contains some of Sachs’ most memorable public talks and writings, in which he takes us back to the broad-based popular foundations of the Constitution in the Freedom Charter. He picks up on Oliver Tambo’s original vision of a non-racial future for South Africa, rather than one based on institutionalised power-sharing between the races. He explores the tension between perfectability and corruptibility, hope and mistrust, which lies at the centre of all constitutions. Sachs discusses the enforcement of social and economic rights, and contemplates the building of the Constitutional Court in the heart of the Old Fort Prison as a mechanism for reconciling the past and the future. Subjective experience and objective analysis interact powerfully in a personalised narrative that reasserts the value of constitutionality not just for South Africans, but for people striving to advance human dignity, equality and freedom across the world today.

Shakespeare and the Coconuts
  • On post-apartheid South African culture
  • Natasha Distiller
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2012
  • In this book Natasha Distiller explores historic and contemporary uses of Shakespeare in South African society which illustrate the complexities of colonial and post-colonial realities as they relate to iconic Englishness. Beginning with Solomon Plaatje, the author looks at the development of an elite group educated in English and able to use Shakespeare to formulate South African works and South African identities. Refusing simple or easy answers, Distiller then explores the South African Shakespearian tradition postapartheid. Touching on the work of, amongst others, Can Themba, Bloke Modisane, Antony Sher, Stephen Francis, Rico Schacherl and Kopano Matlwa, and including the popular media as well as school textbooks, Shakespeare and the Coconuts engages with aspects of South Africa’s complicated, painful, fascinating political and cultural worlds, and their intersections. Written in an accessible style to explain current cultural theory, Shakespeare and the Coconuts will be of interest to students, academics and the general interested reader.

We Write What We Like
  • Celebrating Steve Biko
  • Darryl Accone, Zithulele Cindi, Saths Cooper, Duncan Innes, Jonathan Jansen, Bokwe Mafuna, Mosibudi Mangena, Thabo Mbeki, Veli Mbele, Achille Mbembe, Lizeka Mda, Pandelani Nefolovhodwe, Mandla Seleoane, Mathatha Tsedu, Chris Wyk
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2007
  • 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.

Tin Bucket Drum
  • A play
  • Neil Coppen
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    30 November 2016
  • On a ‘cold and starless night’ a young pregnant widow, Nandi, arrives in Tin Town, a bleak, drought-stricken place ruled by silence and fear. Little do the inhabitants know that Nandi is carrying the baby who will, in time, change that. Taken in by Mkhulu (grandfather), whose father established the tin bucket factory that gave the town its name, Nandi gives birth to Nomvula, the Little Drummer Girl. Mkhulu remembers a past when ‘people were free to sing and dance’, when the rain came and the townsfolk held up their tin buckets to catch the precious, life-giving drops. And then came the Silent Sir and his spokesman, the Censor, and the town went silent. As the singing and dancing and drumming dried up, so did the rain. The tin bucket factory closed, taking with it the life and purpose of Tin Town’s inhabitants. Only the Little Drummer Girl can bring back that life, but at enormous personal cost. 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.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in South Africa
  • Contexts, theories and applications
  • Giada Fabbro, Gillian Eagle, Yvette Esprey, Vanessa Hemp, Gavin Ivey, Tina Sideris, Sally Swartz
  • Edited by Michael O’Loughlin, Glenys Lobban, Cora Smith
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2013
  • Psychoanalysis as a long term modality is inaccessible to the average South African. In this book the authors describe how psychoanalytically orientated or psychodynamic psychotherapy can be practiced as a short-term endeavour and applied to contemporary issues facing the country. Psychodynamic work is currently undertaken by clinical psychologists, therapists, clinicians, trainers, teachers, clinical supervisors, consultants and researchers working in university settings, state hospitals, community projects, private practice and research. The debates, clinical issues, therapeutic practice and nature of research covered in the book are widely representative of the work being done in the country. The need for shorter term therapy models and evidence-based interventions is as acute in global practice as it is locally. The lessons learned in South Africa have broader implications for international practitioners, and the authors stress the potential inherent in psychoanalytic theory and technique to tackle the complex problems faced in all places and settings characterised by increasing globalisation and dislocation. The book is structured in three main sections. Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in South Africa is aimed at local and international practitioners and students, while non-specialist readers will find the text informative and accessible.

Structure, Meaning and Ritual in the Narratives of the Southern San
  • Roger Hewitt
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2008
  • Structure, Meaning and Ritual in the Narratives of the Southern San analyses texts drawn from the Bleek and Lloyd Archive – arguably one of the most important collections for the understanding of South African cultural heritage and in particular the traditions of the /Xam, South Africa’s ‘first people’. Initially appearing in a now rare 1986 edition and here re-issued for the first time, the doctoral thesis on which the book is based became the catalyst for much scholarly research. The book offers an analysis of the entire corpus of /Xam narratives found in the Bleek and Lloyd collection, focusing particularly on the cycle of narratives concerning the trickster /Kaggen (Mantis). These are examined on three levels from the ‘deep structures’ with resonances in other areas of /Xam culture and supernatural belief, through the recurring patterns of narrative composition apparent across the cycle and finally touching on the observable differences in the performances by the various /Xam collaborators.Hewitt’s text remains the only comprehensive and detailed study of /Xam narrative, and it has become itself the object of study by researchers and PhD candidates in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada and elsewhere. This new edition at last makes Hewitt’s important work more widely available. It will be a welcome addition to the recently burgeoning literature on the place of the /Xam hunter-gatherers in the complex history of South African culture and society.

Losing the Plot
  • Crime, reality and fiction in postapartheid South African writing
  • Leon Kock
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    30 September 2016
  • In Losing the Plot, well-known scholar and writer Leon de Kock offers a lively and wide-ranging analysis of postapartheid South African writing which, he contends, has morphed into a far more flexible and multifaceted entity than its predecessor. If postapartheid literature’s founding moment was the ‘transition’ to democracy, writing over the ensuing years has viewed the Mandelan project with increasing doubt. Instead, authors from all quarters are seen to be reporting, in different ways and from divergent points of view, on what is perceived to be a pathological public sphere in which the plot – the mapping and making of social betterment – appears to have been lost. The compulsion to detect forensically the actual causes of such loss of direction has resulted in the prominence of creative nonfiction. A significant adjunct in the rise of this is the new media, which sets up a ‘wounded’ space within which a ‘cult of commiseration’ compulsively and repeatedly plays out the facts of the day on people’s screens. This, De Kock argues, is reproduced in much postapartheid writing. And, although fictional forms persist in genres such as crime fiction, with their tendency to overplot, more serious fiction underplots, yielding to the imprint of real conditions to determine the narrative construction.

The State of Secularism
  • Religion, Tradition and Democracy in South Africa
  • Dhammamegha Annie Leatt
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    30 September 2017
  • The Dutch Reformed Church, it was said in apartheid South Africa, was the National Party at prayer, and indeed, given that the Bible was so fundamental to much of the legislation that governed the apartheid state, that apparently satirical description had the ring of truth. ‘Religion in South Africa’s past’, writes Dhammamegha Annie Leatt has been ‘saturated by politics’ and politics ‘saturated by religion’. So how, she asks, was it possible for a new state to found itself without religious authority? Why did the churches give up so much of their political role in the transition? How can we think about tradition and the customary in relation to secularism? How can we not? In The State of Secularism Leatt guides the reader from a history of global political secularism through an exploration of the roles played by religion and traditional authority in apartheid South Africa to the position of religion in the post-apartheid state. She analyses the negotiations relating to religion in the constitution-making process, arguing, that South Africa is both secular in its Constitution and judicial foundations and increasingly non-secular in its embrace of traditional authorities and customary law. In the final chapter Leatt turns her attention to post-apartheid South Africa, examining changing relationships between churches and the ruling African National Congress and the increasing influence of traditional leaders and evangelical Christians in an anti-liberal alliance. This book makes a tremendous contribution to the literature on postcolonial politics on the African continent. It has wonderful insights into the founding of a constitutional democracy in South African and will appeal to students in history, politics, sociology and anthropology and constitutional law.

The Origins of Non-Racialism
  • White opposition to apartheid in the 1950s
  • David Everatt
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2010
  • After centuries of white domination and decades of increasingly savage repression, freedom came to South Africa far later than elsewhere in the continent – and yet was marked by a commitment to non-racialism. Nelson Mandela’s Cabinet and government were made up of women and men of all races, and many spoke of the birth of a new “Rainbow Nation”. How did this come about? How did an African nationalist liberation movement resisting apartheid – a universally denounced violent expression of white supremacy – open its doors to other races, and whites in particular? And what did non-racialism mean? This is the real “miracle” of South Africa: that at the height of white supremacy and repression, black and white democrats – in their different organisations, coming from vastly different backgrounds and traditions – agreed on one thing: that the future for South Africa would be non-racial.

Land, Chiefs, Mining
  • South Africa's North West Province since 1840
  • Andrew Manson, Bernard Mbenga
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2014
  • Land, Chiefs, Mining explores aspects of the experience of the Batswana in the thornveld and bushveld regions of the North-West Province, shedding light on defi ning issues, moments and individuals in this lesser known region of South Africa. Some of the focuses are: an important Tswana kgosi (chief ), Moiloa II of the Bahurutshe; responses to and participation in the South African War and its aftermath, 1899-1907; land acquisition; economic and political conditions in the reserves; resistance to Mangope’s Bophuthatswana; the impact of game parks and the Sun City resort; rural resistance and the liberation struggle; and African reaction to the platinum mining revolution. Written in a direct and accessible style, and illustrated with photographs and maps, the book provides an understanding, for a general reader ship, of the region and its recent history. At the same time it opens up avenues for further research. The authors, Andrew Manson and Bernard Mbenga, both based at North-West University, Mahikeng Campus, have, for some thirty years, been studying and writing on the region’s past.

Traumatic Stress in South Africa
  • Debbie Kaminer, Gillian Eagle
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2010
  • Traumatic Stress in South Africa deals with the topic of traumatic stress from a number of angles. Traumatic stress, and posttraumatic stress more particularly, has gained international prominence as a condition or disorder that affects people across the globe in the wake of exposure to extreme life events, be these collective or individual. Given the history of political violence in South Africa, extremely high levels of violence against women and children and the prevalence of violent crime, South Africa has the unfortunate distinction of being considered a real life laboratory in which to study traumatic stress. Taking both a historical and contemporary perspective, the book covers the extent of and manner in which traumatic stress manifests, including the way in which exposure to such extremely threatening events impacts on people’s meaning and belief systems. Therapeutic and community strategies for addressing and healing the effects of trauma exposure are comprehensively covered, as well as the particular needs of traumatised children and adolescents. Illustrative case material is used to render ideas accessible and engaging. The book also provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of theory and practice in the field of traumatic stress studies, incorporating both international and South African specific findings. The particular value of the text lies in the integration of global and local material and attention to context related challenges, such as how trauma presentation and intervention is coloured by cultural systems and class disparities. The book highlights both psychological and sociopolitical dimensions of traumatic stress.

Suddenly the Storm
  • Paul Slabolepszy
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017
  • Combative, volatile, constantly on the verge of exploding, Dwayne and Shanell Combrink are two halves of a white South African working-class couple, living an uneasy truce as they struggle with the day-to-day trials of scraping together a living and dreaming competing dreams. But beneath Dwayne’s angry, violent exterior lies the heartbreak that governs his attitude to life. Dwayne is a man in mourning. Shanell believes his current level of despair was sparked by the death of his childhood friend and recent work partner, Jonas, but the source of his mourning and anger lies much further back. When the elegant and self-contained Namhla Gumede, born on 16 June 1976, arrives on their doorstep seeking answers to questions that have remained buried for 40 years, Dwayne and Shanell finally find out the truth. What starts as a smouldering dark comedy suddenly turns into a roller-coaster ride of startling revelations, rage and recrimination … before the storm finally breaks.

What is Slavery to Me?
  • Postcolonial/Slave Memory in post-apartheid South Africa
  • Pumla Dineo Gqola
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2010
  • Much has been made about South Africa’s transition from histories of colonialism, slavery and apartheid. “Memory” features prominently in the country’s reckoning with its pasts. While there has been an outpouring of academic essays, anthologies and other full-length texts which study this transition, most have focused on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). What is slavery to me? is the first full-length study of slave memory in the South African context, and examines the relevance and effects of slave memory for contemporary negotiations of South African gendered and racialised identities. It draws from feminist, postcolonial and memory studies and is therefore interdisciplinary in approach. It reads memory as one way of processing this past, and interprets a variety of cultural, literary and filmic texts to ascertain the particular experiences in relation to slave pasts being fashioned, processed and disseminated. Much of the material surveyed across disciplines attributes to memory, or “popular history making”, a dialogue between past and present whilst ascribing sense to both the eras and their relationship. In this sense then, memory is active, entailing a personal relationship with the past which acts as mediator of reality on a day to day basis. The projects studies various negotiations of raced and gendered identities in creative and other public spaces in contemporary South Africa, by being particularly attentive to the encoding of consciousness about the country’s slave past. This book extends memory studies in South Africa, provokes new lines of inquiry, and develops new frameworks through which to think about slavery and memory in South Africa.

Place of Thorns
  • Black political protest in Kroonstad since 1976
  • Tshepo Moloi
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2015
  • Place of Thorns: Black Political protest in Kroonstad since 1976, is a landmark study that examines the tumultuous and often fractious politics in Kroonstad’s black townships.In spite of the town’s relative obscurity, the author demonstrates a rich tradition of civic and political life in its townships and provides a persuasive explanation for the violence unleashed in the 1990s after decades of relative political ‘quiescence’.Based on scores of life-history interviews, the book illustrates a shift in the political mood from 1976 onwards. Inspired by the philosophies of black consciousness and the Congress movement, students developed a radical attitude and they spearheaded and shaped political protests in the townships up to the 1990s. However, tensions between the local civic associations and the regional and national ANC leadership ultimately cost the ANC the first democratic local government elections in Kroonstad. As a work of revisionist history, this book showcases South Africa’s nuanced liberation history that unfolded in smaller, less known places.The book is essential reading for scholars and students, and everyone interested in the South African liberation history, ‘local’ histories, political mobilisation and protests.

Missing
  • A play
  • John Kani
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2015
  • 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. There is also Robert’s protégé Peter Tshabalala, junior in the organisation, yet he gets the call to return to South African to join the democratic government. What follows is a story of conspiracies, lies, back stabbing and disappointments. Robert and his family are faced with the challenges of a South Africa that has changed radically from the one he remembers from more than thirty years ago. The government, in his opinion, does not seem to uphold the principles enshrined in the Freedom Charter. There is also conflict within his own family. Robert wants to stay in South Africa, while his wife and daughter want to go back to Sweden. Their love is tested to breaking point and difficult decisions have to be made by every individual. As with Kani’s very successful and often-performed previous play, Nothing but the Truth, the ambiguities of freedom and of personal commitment are explored in this play.

Changing Space, Changing City
  • Johannesburg after apartheid
  • Edited by Philip Harrison, Graeme Götz, Alison Todes, Chris Wray
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    20 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2014
  • As the dynamo of South Africa’s economy, Johannesburg commands a central position in the nation’s imagination, and scholars throughout the world monitor the city as an exemplar of urbanity in the global South. This richly illustrated study offers detailed empirical analyses of changes in the city’s physical space, as well as a host of chapters on the character of specific neighbourhoods and the social identities being forged within them. Informing all of these is a consideration of underlying economic, social and political processes shaping the wider Gauteng region. A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have infl uenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates thelarger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level.With empirical data supported by new data sets including the 2011 Census, the city’s Development Planning and Urban Management Department’s information system, and Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s substantial archive, the book is an essential reference for planning practitioners, urban geographers, sociologists, and social anthropologists, among others.

Climate Change
  • Briefings from Southern Africa
  • Bob Scholes, Mary Scholes, Mike Lucas
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    20 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2015
  • Climate change affects us all, but it can be a confusing business. In this book, three scientists with several decades of experience in assessing the potential effects of climate change for the southern African region share their insights. Complex issues are dealt with in plain language, without oversimplification and with attention to accuracy. The material is up-to-date as is possible in such a fast-developing field.Climate Change: Briefings from Southern Africa takes the form of 55 'frequently-asked' questions', each with a brief and clear reply. It is illustrated with colour diagrams and photographs, and examples are tailored to the regional context. The authors' introduction provides an overview of current national and international policies aimed at regulating climate change. The content is divided into four sections, which take the reader through the science of how climate system works; the projected impacts in southern Africa during the twenty-first century; what this means for the South African economy and society; and what can be done to avoid harm. The briefings can be read alone or in sequence.The year 2015 is regarded as a watershed for global climate change action if a global average temperature rise of more than two degrees abbove the pre-Industrial level is to be avoided. This book provides compelling evidence that the impact on agriculture, fisheries, water resources, human health, plants and animals as well as sea levels will be dangerous. However, the book ends on a positive note by offering advice on how the world can avoid such bleak outcomes, while allowing a good life for all.The volume is aimed at interested non-scientists, including business people, decision-makers, ordinary citizens and students

Conversations with Bourdieu
  • The Johannesburg Moment
  • Michael Burawoy, Karl Holdt
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    20 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2012
  • Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) is the most influential sociologist of our time. His works take in education, culture, sport, literature, painting, class, philosophy, religion, law, media, intellectuals, methodology, photography, universities, colonialism, kinship, schooling and politics. Not much remains outside Bourdieu’s sociological eye. His works are widely read across disciplines and he was one of the most prominent public intellectuals in France. Conversations with Bourdieu presents the first comprehensive attempt at a critical engagement with Bourdieu’s theory as a totality. Michael Burawoy constructs a series of imaginary conversations between Bourdieu and his nemesis – Marxism – from which he silently borrowed so much. Starting with Marx, and proceeding through Gramsci, Fanon, Freire, de Beauvoir, and Mills, Burawoy takes up the challenge Bourdieu presents to Marxism, simultaneously developing a critique of Bourdieu and a reconstruction of Marxism. Karl Von Holdt, in turn, brings these conversations to South Africa, showing the relevance of Bourdieu’s ideas to a country he never visited. Armed with Bourdieu, Von Holdt takes up some of the most pressing social and political issues of contemporary South Africa: the relation between symbolic and real violence, the place of intellectuals in public life, the intervention of gender in politics, the grappling with race, the critique of education, the importance of habitus, the history and future of class mobilisation, and the legacy of the liberation struggle. Conversations with Bourdieu pioneers a distinctive approach to doing social theory that is neither a combat sport nor an artificial synthesis, but a way of pushing theory to its limits through dialogue – dialogue between theorists and dialogue between theory and the world it represents. The book is distinctive too in pointing towards a new global sociology consciously rooted in a dialogue between the social realities and theoretical perspectives of North and South. The conversations were first presented as Mellon Lectures at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 2010

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