by Adele on May 9th, 2012
Patrick Bond will be discussing climate justice politics between Durban and Rio at London’s Bookmarks bookshop on the 14 May at 6:30 PM. This event will also see the launch of his latest books, Politics of Climate Justice (UKZN Press) and Durban’s Climate Gamble (Unisa Press).
Bond chronicles the main conflicts over climate change, from the standpoint of putting social justice at the centre of politics. His two new books, Durban’s Climate Gamble and Politics of Climate Justice, document problems of elite mismanagement of climate governance at global scale, and possibilities for the required economic transformation from below.
Event Details
- Date: Monday, 14 May 2012
- Time: 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM
- Venue: Bookmarks,
1 Bloomsbury Street,
London | Map
- RSVP: sarah@bookmarks.uk.com
Book details
Cats: Green,
Law,
Non-fiction,
South Africa
Tags: Book Launch,
Bookmarks,
Centre for Civil Society,
Climate Change,
English,
Events,
Green,
Law,
London,
Movement Below,
Non-fiction,
Paralysis Above,
Patrick Bond,
Politics of Climate Justice,
South Africa,
UKZN Press
Quick URL
by Adele on May 2nd, 2012
Forthcoming from UKZN Press: The Return of Makhanda: Exploring the Legend by Julia C Wells:
Makhanda was a Xhosa leader and warrior-prophet who lived in the early nineteenth century and led a massive attack on the British in Grahamstown in 1819. His clarity of thinking and personal charisma propelled him into the position of leading spiritual adviser to the powerful Chief Ndlambe of the Rharhabe.
Although he was portrayed in the written record as a religious fanatic and millinarian prophet who led his own people to destruction, this evocative account demonstrates that the popular heroic view of Makhanda as one of South Africa’s early freedom fighters is far more justified. With meticulous chronology, Julia C Wells offers a major revision of our understanding of the life of this often controversial figure.
About the author
Julia Wells is an Associate Professor in the History Department at Rhodes University, South Africa. She has also served three terms as a local government councillor in Makana Municipality and has served in the provincial executive of the African National Congress in the Eastern Cape Province. She is a founder member of the Egazini Outreach Project for community arts and crafts in the city of Grahamstown.
Book details
Cats: Academic,
Biography,
South Africa
Tags: Academic,
Biography,
English,
Exploring the Legend,
Julia C. Wells,
Julia Wells,
Makana,
Makana the prophet,
Makanda Nxele,
Makhanda,
Rharhabe,
South Africa,
The Return of Makhanda,
UKZN Press,
Warrior-Prophet,
Xhosa Leader
Quick URL
by Adele on Apr 25th, 2012
In his latest column for Counterpunch, Patrick Bond, author of Politics of Climate Justice: Paralysis Above, Movement Below, expresses his concern over the volatility of the South African rand, which he believes will only get worse once the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) pay $100 billion to the International Monetary Fund, supposedly to “stabilise world finance”:
Just before last weekend’s meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) board in Washington, South Africa’s Finance Minister dropped us an obscure news item: “Gordhan concerned about rand volatility”(Reuters, April 16).
Hidden away in the business pages, it was nevertheless an important confession. Pretoria can no longer remain in denial about South Africa’s glaring economic HIV+ status, what with our regular breakouts of full-blown financial AIDS, in a world featuring the collapse of so many sickly economies. Indeed, the rampaging plague will infect many more countries now that the IMF has an additional $430 billion to jet around the world with, thanks to careless finance ministers like our Pravin Gordhan.
Book details
Cats: Green,
Law,
Non-fiction,
South Africa
Tags: Brazil,
BRICS,
China,
Climate Change,
Counterpunch,
Economics,
Economy,
English,
Finance,
Green,
IMF,
India,
International Monetary Fund,
Law,
Movement Below,
Non-fiction,
Paralysis Above,
Patrick Bond,
Politics of Climate Justice,
Pravin Gordhan,
Rand,
Russia,
South Africa,
UKZN Press
Quick URL
by Adele on Apr 19th, 2012
Edited by Krista Johnson and Sean Jacobs, the Encyclopedia of South Africa is an authoritative, comprehensive reference work which covers South Africa’s history, government and politics, law, society and culture, economy and infrastructure, demography, environment, and more, from the era of human origins to the present.
Nearly 300 alphabetically arranged entries provide information in a concise yet thorough way. In addition, a series of appendixes present a wealth of data, including: a chronology of key events, major racial and apartheid legislation since 1856, heads of state (with party affiliation) since 1910, provinces and major cities, government structures, and current political parties and representation in parliament. Photographs enhance the text.
Members of the encyclopedia’s International Advisory Board are R Hunt Davis, Jr, Sandra Klopper, Shula Marks, Dominique Malaquais, Barney Pityana, Zine Magubane, and Peter Limb.
“Contributors present concise and pertinent information needed to understand and study a country that has undergone tremendous changes from its struggles with colonization, apartheid, independence, and post-independence…Highly recommended.” – Choice
“The Encyclopedia of South Africa offers a well-rounded overview of the country – its history and politics, as well as social and cultural phenomena – in all of its diversity and complexity…It is a strong contribution to the field.” – Marion Frank-Wilson, Herman B Wells Library, Indiana University
About the editors
Krista Johnson started her studies in South Africa and now holds a PhD in Political Science from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. She currently holds the post of assistant professor of African studies at Howard University.
Sean Jacobs, originally from Cape Town, South Africa, holds a PhD in Politics from the University of London and a MA in Political Science from Northwestern University. He is currently assistant professor of international affairs at The New School. He is co-editor of Thabo Mbeki’s World (Co-published by UKZN Press and Zed Books, 2002).
Book details
Cats: Academic,
Non-fiction,
Reference,
South Africa
Tags: Academic,
Barney Pityana,
Dominique Malaquais,
Encyclopedia of South Africa,
English,
Krista Johnson,
Non-fiction,
Peter Limb,
R Hunt Davis Jr,
Reference,
Sandra Klopper,
Sean Jacobs,
Shula Marks,
South Africa,
UKZN Press,
Zine Magubane
Quick URL
by Adele on Apr 17th, 2012
Writing for Counterpunch, political economist and environmental activist Patrick Bond berates the World Bank for its policies, which he believes have a deleterious effect on the poorest in the world. He suggests that its newly appointed president, Jim Yong Kim, should simply resign, if he is to remain an effective agent for change. Bond is the author of the book Politics of Climate Justice, among others.
The situation for the many constituencies hopeful about Jim Yong Kim’s ‘election’ as World Bank president is comparable to early 2009.
Barack Obama entered a US presidency suffering institutional crisis and faced an immediate fork in the road: make the change he promised, or sell out his constituents’ interests by bailing out Wall Street and legitimizing a renewed neoliberal attack on society and ecology, replete with undemocratic, unconstitutional practices suffused with residual militarism. As president-elect, surrounding himself with the likes of Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Paul Volcker, William Gates, Rahm Emmanuel and Hillary Clinton, it was obvious which way he would go.
Unlike the corporate-oriented politician Obama, by all accounts Jim Kim is a genuine progressive, a wunderkind Harvard-trained physician and anthropologist with a terrific track record of public health management and advocacy, especially against AIDS and TB. So unlike predecessor Robert Zoellick, who in the service of power broke everything he touched since the late 1980s,[1] Kim spent the last quarter century building an extraordinary institution, the Boston NGO Partners in Health, and improving another by working at its top level, the ultra-bureaucratic World Health Organisation in Geneva.
Book details
Cats: Green,
Law,
Non-fiction,
South Africa
Tags: Climate Change,
Counterpunch,
English,
Green,
Jim Yong Kim,
Law,
Movement Below,
Non-fiction,
Paralysis Above,
Patrick Bond,
Politics of Climate Justice,
South Africa,
UKZN Press,
World Bank
Quick URL
by Adele on Apr 12th, 2012
Head on Fire is Lesego Rampolokeng’s first book of poems to be published in South Africa since The Bavino Sermons (Gecko/UKZN Press 1999). It includes the complete text of The Second Chapter, published by Pantolea Press in Berlin in 2003.
One measure of a poet is the range of his concerns, and Lesego Rampolokeng takes on religion, war, street violence, global economics, obscenity, history, wordplay, sexual perversion, and, not least, his own contradictions. If he spatters the reader with blood and body fluids, it is not to shock or repel but to “engage with my world in all its manifestations…I want to see all the spluttered blood and gore. So I’m attempting to embrace its beauty. Hopefully.”
Few South African writers are as prepared as Rampolokeng to acknowledge that we all are the authors of our own chaos. “It is necessary for us to strip right down to the bone and see exactly how ugly we are as a people.” Or, more aphoristically:
Not the barbarian at the door
but the savage at the core
“Lesego Rampolokeng represents one of the most outspoken literary voices from South Africa today. In his poetry he launches scathing attacks against those responsible for making our times ‘go mad’. The great frenzy and urgency that drive him to spill thoughts into words and sound imbue his orally presented texts with a mad quality. On stage he appears as one possessed by the word.” — Flora Veit-Wildt
About the author
Lesego Rampolokeng is a poet, playwright, novelist, filmscript writer and provocative poetry performer.
Book details
Cats: Misc,
Poetry,
South Africa
Tags: Deep South,
English,
Head on Fire,
Lesego Rampolokeng,
Misc,
Poetry,
Rants / Notes / Poems 2001-2011,
South Africa,
UKZN Press
Quick URL
by Adele on Mar 30th, 2012
During the years of apartheid rule in South Africa, many women ‘skipped’ the country and fled into exile to evade harassment, detention, imprisonment and torture by state security forces. Leaving the country of their birth, many took calculated, though dangerous, risks to cross borders. Once in exile, sometimes for several decades, many experienced discrimination, danger, deprivations and the stresses associated with being a foreigner in a strange land. All lived with the distant yet distinct hope that they would one day be able to return to a liberated homeland.
In Prodigal Daughters, eighteen women tell their intensely personal stories of exile, re-imagining and reliving a past for the sake of fixing in memory narratives that would surely disappear in a country still struggling to shake off the shackles of racial inequality and oppression. Stories of being accepted or rejected in host countries, and equally stories of homecoming, read like bittersweet memories of survival, longing and intrigue. For many of these women, a life in exile enabled their growing realisation that apartheid was just one facet of oppression in the world. It connected with much broader struggles for justice and human rights.
South Africa has yet to fully appreciate the memories and records of life experienced in that ‘desert of exile’, experiences that have helped society become what it is today.
“It was in exile that I discovered, fell in love with and was loved by the African continent.” — Brigalia Hlophe Bam
“What exile did for us was to help us formulate that space which can truly be called home.” — Baleka Mbete
About the editor
Lauretta Ngcobo returned to South Africa in 1994 after thirty-one years in exile. She is the author of two politically inspired novels, Cross of Gold and And They Didn’t Die. Ngcobo was the winner of the literary lifetime achievement award from the South African Department of Arts and Culture in 2006 and the winner of the Order of Ikhamanga from The Presidency of South Africa for excellent achievement in the field of literature in 2008.
Book details
Cats: Academic,
Non-fiction,
South Africa
Tags: Academic,
Baleka Mbete,
Brigalia Hlophe Bam,
English,
Exile,
Lauretta Ngcobo,
Non-fiction,
Prodigal Daughters,
South Africa,
Stories of South African Women in Exile,
UKZN Press
Quick URL
by Adele on Mar 29th, 2012
Art Smart features a report from the launch of Siyazama: Art, AIDS and Education, a ground-breaking book edited by Kate Wells, Marsha Macdowell, and Kurt and Marit Dewhurst which showcases the power of community art. At the launch, Wells spoke about the importance of the Siyazama art project in educating impoverished communities about sexual health:
Led by Professor Kate Wells, an Associate Professor and Senior Graphic Design Lecturer at the Durban University of Technology, an exciting new book on the Siyazama Project was launched on March 13.
Titled SIYAZAMA Art, AIDS, Education in South Africa, the book launch coincided with a Faculty Lecture by Professor Jackie Guille who is the Design supervisor and Professor at the University of Northumbria/Newcastle, London. Professors Guille and Wells have worked together many times in Uganda and in South Africa, in rural craft design; community and development.
Book details
Cats: Academic,
Non-fiction,
South Africa
Tags: Academic,
AIDS,
AIDS and Education,
Art,
Art Smart,
English,
Events,
HIV,
Kate Wells,
Kurt Dewhurst,
Marit Dewhurst,
Marsha Macdowell,
Non-fiction,
Siyazama,
South Africa,
UKZN Press
Quick URL
by Adele on Mar 28th, 2012
Despite it being just over 50 years since Frantz Fanon’s death and the publication of The Wretched of the Earth, time has done little to weather the relevance of his intellectual production. Last year saw the seminal African writer celebrated in various tribute articles, many written by Fanon scholar Nigel Gibson, author of Fanonian Practices in South Africa.
Taking a slightly more graphic approach to the topic of his intellectual legacy, Josh MacPhee at Thinking Africa looks at how The Wretched of the Earth hassurvived the modulating fashions of book jackets and the refurbishment of subtitles – from the linocut-style graphics and Helvetica font of the early editions, to the “pop star photoshoot” appearance of the more recent Penguin Classics edition:
I can’t quite remember exactly when and where I was first introduced to Frantz Fanon. I do remember pulling down the pocket paperback to the right (Grove Press, 1968) off a shelf at a bookstore, and being intrigued by the orange and black mass in motion on the cover. I assume I knew who Fanon was, or picked it up because I had been told I should by someone, but those specifics have slipped away. Then again, if the title Wretched of the Earth didn’t completely capture me, I suspect the subtitle added to this American edition—”The Handbook for the Black Revolution that is Changing the Shape of the World”—would have been more than enough to convince me to fork over the $3 it likely cost.
Book details
Images courtesy Thinking Africa
Cats: Academic,
Non-fiction,
South Africa
Tags: Academic,
Book Design,
English,
Fanonian Practices in South Africa,
From Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo,
Graphic Design,
Josh MacPhee,
Nigel Gibson,
Non-fiction,
South Africa,
The Wretched of the Earth,
Thinking Africa,
UKZN Press
Quick URL
by Adele on Mar 22nd, 2012
Michael Chapman’s Time of the Writer anthology, Africa Inside Out: Stories, Tales and Testimonies, was launched on Tuesday night at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre in Durban.
Introducing the event, Peter Rorvik, director of the Centre for Creative Arts (CCA), revealed his surprised that such a collection “had not happened sooner”. Rorvik described the book as a remarkably easy collaboration and expressed his delight that Chapman, who established the CCA in 1996, was available to edit it.
Debra Primo, Director of UKZN Press, followed on from Rorvik, saying that the book reaffirmed the common vision of both UKZN Press and the CCA, namely the aim to promote an awareness of African literature.
Africa Inside Out is the result of a call sent out to participants of previous Time of the Writer festivals. The call, said Chapman, asked for “stories, tales and testimonies” about Africa. According to Chapman, the 18 stories in the volume contain “dislocations and affirmations” about Africa, which generate a kind of “restless energy”. He did not want to create the sense of a “Mbeki-esque African Renaissance, but to rather turn to the living challenges of ‘Africa Inside Out’.”
Chapman concluded by thanking UKZN Press’ Elana Bregin for her “efficient and generous assistance” in co-editing the book, and wishing his readers a “stimulating reading experience”. Several of the book’s contributors were present at the launch. They included Ronnie Govender, Kirsten Miller, Sally-Ann Murray and Kobus Moolman.
Facebook gallery
Book details
Cats: Events,
South Africa
Tags: Africa Inside Out,
CCA,
Centre for Creative Arts,
Debra Primo,
Elana Bregin,
English,
Events,
Kirsten Miller,
Kobus Moolman,
Michael Chapman,
Non-fiction,
Peter Rorvik,
Ronnie Govender,
Sally-Ann Murray,
South Africa,
stories,
Stories Tales and Testimonies,
Tales and Testimonies,
Time of the Writer,
Time of the Writer 2012,
UKZN Press
Quick URL
