1999 | ||
quarterly | ||
English | ||
Humanities and Social Sciences |
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1543-1304 | ||
Routledge (Taylor and Francis) | ||
Lead Editor: |
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Please see https://www.tandfonline.com/rsaf? |
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Safundi Publications |
Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies
Safundi -- "S" represents "South Africa," "a" stands for "America," and "fundi" comes from the Xhosa verb, "-funda," which translates as "to read/learn." |
Safundi Issue 22, Issue 22
The latest issue of Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies features R.L. Watson with “Thoughts on the Post-Emancipation Experiences of the United States and the Cape Colony,” Dawne Y. Curry with a personal view of the “Social Construction of Race in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” J. Barron Boyd on the “U.S. and South African Bills of Rights,” Ann K. Ziker with a review of the new Max Yergan biography, and David J. Carter’s review of a Lewis Nkosi critical anthology.
Abolition, Violence, and Rape: Thoughts on the Post-Emancipation Experiences of the United States and the Cape Colony
While there are a number of similarities between the experiences of the United States and the Cape Colony immediately after the abolition of slavery, the levels of violence in the two societies present a vivid contrast. Nothing at the Cape remotely resembles the savagry of the U.S. experience.
This article speculates about the reasons for the contrast and suggests that, among other things, the absence of a fear of ex-slave rapists contributed to the relatively peaceful Cape experience.
An African American Constructs and Confronts the Social Construction of Race in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Curry's article takes readers on an ethnographic journey in post-apartheid South Africa, where she discusses the complex nature of race and its social construction. Using case studies of other African Americans who traveled to South Africa from the 1930s to the early twenty-first century, Curry grapples with the complex issue of race and identity. She concludes that race involves more than complexion, for it also encompasses linguistic ability, geography, cultural traits, body language, and nationality. These identity markers, Curry observes, played an immense role in her "social transformation" from an African American to a South African Coloured.
Parchment Barriers Revisited: The U.S. and South African Bills of Rights
At first glance the U.S. and South African bills of rights appear radically different. Rights the United States codified in 1792 were exclusively civil and political, while South Africa, in 1996, recognized the full panoply of modern rights: economic, social and environmental, as well as civil and political. Such differences can be deceiving as both bills have important similarities. Both were political documents with origins in a complex and difficult social milieu. Both were post-colonial attempts to express a vision of an ideal new political and social order and to establish the rules to guide its realization. Though separated by two hundred years and created in vastly different contexts of rights consciousness, both documents were born in a spirit of compromise and conflict. They were less the result of doctrinal purity than of political struggle. Only with appropriate political will can the legacy of both bills be a genuine commitment to human rights leavening the force of political expediency and creating polities where bills of rights are more than just "parchment barriers" to tyranny.
The Enigmatic Max Yergan: David Henry Anthony III. Max Yergan: Race Man, Internationalist, Cold Warrior. New York and London: New York University Press, 2006.
The article reviews David Henry Anthony III's recent book on Max Yergan.
Other Issues
July 2013, Volume 14, Number 3
April 2007, Volume 8, Number 2
January 2007, Volume 8, Number 1
Deterritorializing American Culture, 23
George Fredrickson's White Supremacy
, Issue 21
October 2005, Issue 20
July 2005, Issue 19
April 2005, Issue 18
January 2005, Issue 17
October 2004, Issue 16
July 2004, Issue 15
April 2004, Issue 13-14
October 2003, Issue 12
July 2003, Issue 11
April 2003, Issue 10
May 2002, Issue 09
February 2002, Issue 08
November 2001, Issue 07
July 2001, Issue 06
April 2001, Issue 05
January 2001, Issue 04
October 2000, Issue 03
July 2000, Issue 02