The history of a radical group of intellectuals who founded the New Era Fellowship, which shaped human rights precedents and social justice policy in South Africa In 1937 a group of young Capetonians, socialist intellectuals from the Workers’ Party of South Africa, embarked on a project they called the New Era Fellowship (NEF). In doing so they sought to disrupt and challenge not only prevailing political narratives but the very premises – class and ‘race’ – on which they were based. In different forums – public debates, lectures, study circles and cultural events – the seeds of radical thinking were planted, nurtured and brought to full flower. Taking a position of non-collaboration and non-racialism, the NEF played a vital role in challenging society’s responses to events ranging from the problem of taking up arms during the Second World War for an empire intent on stripping people of colour of their human rights to the Hertzog Bills, which foreshadowed apartheid in all its ruthless effectiveness. In subsequent narratives of liberation their significance has been overlooked, even disparaged, and has never been fully understood and acknowledged. By shining a contemporary light on the NEF and locating its contribution in current sociological and political discourse, educationist Crain Soudien shows how its members were at the forefront of redefining the debate about social difference in a racially divided society.

Assembles for the first time the many different texts imagining the future after the end of apartheidExplores the history of how the future in South Africa after the end of apartheid was imagined Provides the first literary-cultural history of South African speculative fictionStudies the literary-political cultures of the five major traditions of South African anti-colonial/ anti-segregationist/ anti-apartheid thoughtFocusing on well-known and obscure literary texts from the 1880s to the 1970s, as well as the many manifestos and programmes setting out visions of the future, this book charts the dreams of freedom of five major traditions of anti-colonial and anti-apartheid resistance: the African National Congress, the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, the Communist Party of South Africa, the Non-European Unity Movement and the Pan-Africanist Congress. More than an exercise in historical excavation, Dreaming of Freedom in South Africa raises challenging questions for the post-apartheid present.

What is transformation in contemporary South African higher education? How can it be facilitated through research and pedagogic practices? These questions are addressed in this edited collection by established academics and emerging research students from nine South African universities. The chapters give us access to students' worlds; how they construct, experience and navigate their complex spheres, on and off campus.

What is the link, if any, between race and disease? How did the term baster as ‘mixed race’ come to be mistranslated from ‘incest’ in the Hebrew Bible? What are the roots of racial thinking in South African universities? How does music fall on the ear of black and white listeners? Are new developments in genetics simply a backdoor for the return of eugenics? For the first time, leading scholars in South Africa from different disciplines take on some of these difficult questions about race, science and society in the aftermath of apartheid. This book offers an important foundation for students pursuing a broader education than what a typical degree provides, and a must-read resource for every citizen concerned about the lingering effects of race and racism in South Africa and other parts of the world.

This edited interdisciplinary collection draws together recent original work on the connections between radicalism and localism in a variety of international locations over the last two hundred years. The areas covered include the United Kingdom, North America, South Africa, the Caribbean, Germany, Italy and Spain. The book questions whether certain political issues have more impact at a local level and whether common radical responses can be discerned across space and time. The contributors’ essays also consider to what extent the local offers a space in which new political possibilities can be explored, and especially the extent to which radical participation from groups who are under-represented in many national campaigns appears more easily available at the local level. Finally, the essays in the collection examine the distinctiveness of local political radicalism. This involves looking at the activities of communal organizations and political parties that defined themselves against nationally-situated sites of power, but also at how the many cultural manifestations of radicalism, such as music, theatre and art, were shaped distinctively at local level and how radical ideas were spread across wider areas from local bases.

A history of the erosion of democracy across the globe Democracy is being destroyed. This is a crisis that expresses itself in the rising authoritarianism visible in divisive and exclusionary politics, populist political parties and movements, increased distrust in fact-based information and news, and the withering accountability of state institutions. Over the last four decades, democracy has radically shifted to a market democracy in which all aspects of human, non-human and planetary life are commodified, with corporations becoming more powerful than states and their citizens. This is how neoliberal capitalism functions at a systemic level and if left unchecked, is the greatest threat to democracy and a sustainable planet. Volume six of the Democratic Marxism series focuses on how decades of neoliberal capitalism have eroded the global democratic project and how, in the process, authoritarian politics are gaining ground. Scholars and activists from the political left focus on four country cases – India, Brazil, South Africa and the United States of America – in which the COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled and highlighted the pre-existing crisis. They interrogate issues of politics, ecology, state security, media, access to information and political parties, and affirm the need to reclaim and re-build an expansive and inclusive democracy. Destroying Democracy is an invaluable resource for the general public, activists, scholars and students who are interested in understanding the threats to democracy and the rising tide of authoritarianism in the global south and the global north.

Before the Civil War, Northern, Southern, and Western political cultures crashed together on the middle border, where the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers meet. German Americans who settled in the region took an antislavery stance, asserting a liberal nationalist philosophy rooted in their revolutionary experience in Europe that emphasized individual rights and freedoms. By contextualizing German Americans in their European past and exploring their ideological formation in failed nationalist revolutions, Zachary Stuart Garrison adds nuance and complexity to their story. Liberal German immigrants, having escaped the European aristocracy who undermined their revolution and the formation of a free nation, viewed slaveholders as a specter of European feudalism. During the antebellum years, many liberal German Americans feared slavery would inhibit westward progress, and so they embraced the Free Soil and Free Labor movements and the new Republican Party. Most joined the Union ranks during the Civil War. After the war, in a region largely opposed to black citizenship and Radical Republican rule, German Americans were seen as dangerous outsiders. Facing a conservative resurgence, liberal German Republicans employed the same line of reasoning they had once used to justify emancipation: A united nation required the end of both federal occupation in the South and special protections for African Americans. Having played a role in securing the Union, Germans largely abandoned the freedmen and freedwomen. They adopted reconciliation in order to secure their place in the reunified nation. Garrison’s unique transnational perspective to the sectional crisis, the Civil War, and the postwar era complicates our understanding of German Americans on the middle border.

This book brings together voices and perspectives from across the world and draws in a new generation of curriculum scholars to provide fresh insight into the contemporary field. By opening up Curriculum Studies with contributions from twelve countries—including every continent—the book outlines and exemplifies the challenges and opportunities for transnational curriculum inquiry. While curriculum remains largely shaped and enabled nationally, global policy borrowing and scholarly exchange continue to influence local practice. Contributors explore major shared debates and future implications through four key sections: Decolonising the Curriculum; Knowledge Questions and Curriculum Dilemmas; Nation, History, Curriculum; and Curriculum Challenges for the Future.

First book to explore the adaptive transformations required to manage climate-related shocks beginning to play out in cities worldwide.