International Programmes Stellenbosch University Winter School
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International Programmes Stellenbosch University Winter School June – July 2017 Week 2: 26 June – 3 July Elective 2: Visual Controversies in South Africa, Past and Present Course Co-ordinator: Prof Stella Viljoen E-mail: [email protected] Stella Viljoen is an Associate Professor in Visual Studies. She holds an MA in History of Art and a PhD in Media Studies. Her research is principally concerned with the politics of gender as it pertains to the representational cultures of art and media. She is especially interested in the interplay between visualised and narrativised constructions of gender (and especially masculinity) in South African magazines and art and has documented the rise of men's magazines in South Africa. 1 COURSE DESCRIPTION In this course we will track major developments and changes in South African art and media during the Apartheid era (1948-1994) and after (1994-present). The point of this broad historical perspective is not so much to provide a condensed history of South African art and media, as it is to explore the relationship between South Africa’s turbulent socio-political landscape and its visual culture. In particular, we aim to explore the notion of collective national identities as they manifested and still manifest in art and visual culture. The course deals with the concurrent rise of English, Afrikaner and African nationalism in the early 20th century, and the role of visual culture in the construction of these competing identities. The lecture series also deals with the years of the ‘struggle’, when the dominant white construct of nation came into conflict with the rising tide of militant African nationalist aspiration which culminated in Afropolitanism. The finally series looks at ‘new’ South African nationalism, and the often conflicted art and media it produces. Overarching programme objectives: To develop a sense of the unique relationship between the visual arts, media and national identities in South Africa. To deepen students’ awareness of the complexity of South African history and its changing socio- political environment and how the shifting tides of South Africa’s turbulent history affected the concept of a South African gender, racial and cultural identity. To inculcate a greater understanding of issues around nationalism and the postcolony in art and popular media. PRESENTATION The course combines formal lectures with film screenings and a field trip Cape Town. EVALUATION Course evaluation is based on a class test and assignment. COURSE CONTENT 2 Monday 26 June DAY ONE: Afrikaner nationalism and art of the apartheid era (Marnell Kirsten) 09:00 – 10:30 Lecture: The rise of Afrikaner nationalism: Marches and monuments 10:30 – 11:00 Tea break 11:00 – 12:30 Lecture: Second tear from the laager: Art, kitsch, and Afrikaner nationalism 12:30 – 14:00 Lunch 14:00 – 16:00 Screening: District 9 Prescribed reading: Bedford, E (ed) 2003. A Decade of Democracy: South African art 1994-2004 from the Permanent Collection of Iziko: SA National Gallery, Cape Town. (On reserve under Van der Wal) Van der Watt, L. 1997. ‘‘Savagery and civilisation’: Race as a signifier of difference in Afrikaner nationalist art’. De Arte 55, April 1997. (PDF Article) Tilley, C, Keane, W, Küchler, S, Rowlands, M & Spyer, P. 2006. ‘Monuments and memorials’, in Handbook of material culture, edited by C Tilley, W Keane, S Küchler, M Rowlands & P Spyer. London: Sage Publications Ltd. (PDF Article) Jamal, A & Williamson, S. 1996. Art in SA: the Future Present. Cape Town: David Phillip. (On reserve under Van der Wal) 3 Tuesday 27 June DAY TWO: Images of dissent (Marnell Kirsten) 09:00 – 10:30 Lecture: Images of dissent: Loslyf as case study 10:30 – 11:00 Tea break 11:00 – 12:30 Lecture: Multiple stories: Afrocentrism and Afropolitanism 12:30 – 14:00 Lunch 14:00 – 16:00 Screening and discussion: Multiple stories: Afrocentrism and Afropolitanism Prescribed reading: Coombes, AE. 2003. ‘Translating the past: Apartheid monuments in postapartheid South Africa’, in Visual culture and public memory in a democratic South Africa. London: Duke University Press. 19 – 53 (PDF Article) Peffer, J. 2005. Censorship and iconoclasm: Unsettling monuments. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 48 Autumn: 45-60. (PDF Article) Stemmet, J. 2005. From nipples and nationalists to full frontal in the new South Africa: An abridged history of pornography and censorship in the old and new South Africa. Communicatio: South African journal for communication theory and research. 31(2): 198-210. (PDF Article) Hutcheon, L. 1989. The politics of postmodernism. London & New York: Routledge. 1 – 47. (PDF Article) Motha, S. 2010. 'Begging to Be Black' : Liminality and Critique in Post-Apartheid South Africa’. Theory Culture Society 27: 285 – 305. (PDF Article) Asante, M. 2010. ‘Afrocentricity: The theory of social change’ [Online]. Available here. Other useful site here. 4 Mbembe, A. 2005, 2007. ‘Afropolitanism’, in Africa remix: Contemporary art of a continent, edited by S Njami. Johannesburg: Jacana Media. 26 – 29 Also available here: Enwezor, O (ed) The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945-1994. (On reserve under Van Robbroeck) Schipper, M. 1999. Negritude, Black consciousness, and beyond’, in Imagining insiders: African and the question of belonging. London & New York: Cassell. (PDF Article) Available here. Biko, S. 2001. ‘The definition of black consciousness’, in The African philosophy reader, edited by PH Coetzee & APJ Roux. 360 – 363. (PDF Article) 5 Wednesday 28 June DAY THREE: Let’s talk about film…. (Desré Barnard) 09:00 – 10:30 Lecture: Showing shadows to scene skipping – history of film 10:30 – 11:00 Tea break 11:00 – 12:30 Lecture: Film theory boot camp – from Eisenstein to Ebert 12:30 – 14:00 Lunch 14:00 – 16:00 Screening: Elysium Prescribed reading: Bazin, A., & Gray, H. 1960. The Ontology of the Photographic Image. Film Quarterly 13(4):4- 9. (PDF article) Bazin, A. 1967. The Myth of Total Cinema, in What is Cinema? Vol II. Berkley: The University of California Press:23-27. Available here. Goodwin, J. 1993. Eisenstein, Cinema, and History. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. (Chapter 1: Revolutionary Beginnings: From Theatre to Cinema – pages 16-36 available on Google Books preview here) Sarris, A. 1962. Notes on Auteur Theory in 1962. Film Culture 27:1-8. Available here. 6 Thursday 29 June DAY FOUR: Violence: a Marxist reading (Desré Barnard) 09:00 – 10:30 Lecture: South Africa and a Marxist lens: refocalising a violent history 10:30 – 11:00 Tea break 11:00 – 12:30 Lecture: Contemporary (re)presentation of apartheid South Africa in new international media (District 9 and Elysium) 12:30 – 14:00 Lunch 14:00 – 16:00 Workshop: Violence as a Manifestation of Marxist tensions Prescribed reading: Bruder, M.E. 2003. Aestheticizing violence, or how to do things with style. Unpublished doctoral thesis. Indiana: Indiana University. Du Preez, A. 2011. Die Antwoord Gooi Zef Liminality: of Monsters, Carnivals and Affects. Image & Text 17:102-118. Haupt, A. 2004. Counterpublics, Noise and Ten Years of Democracy. New Coin Poetry 40(2):76-90. Haupt, A. 2013. Citizenship without representation? Blackface, misogyny and parody in Die Antwoord, Lupé Fiasco and Angel Haze. Communicatio South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research 39(4):466-482. Mbembe, A. 2003. Necropolitics. Public Culture 15(1):11-40. Nixon, R. 2011. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. (Introduction available here) Specnce, M. 2010. Form, fetish, and film: Revisiting Open Marxism. Capital & Class 34(1):99- 106. 7 Žižek, S. 2008. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. New York: Picador. (Introduction available on Google Books preview here) 8 Friday 30 June DAY FIVE: Art, photography, and identity (Prof Stella Viljoen) 09:00 – 10:30 Lecture: Then & Now: The move to lyrical documentary 10:30 – 11:00 Tea break 11:00 – 12:30 Lecture: The cultural politics of ‘the interesting’ in recent art photography 12:30 – 14:00 Lunch 14:00 – 16:00 Film screenings & discussion Prescribed reading: Nuttal, S & Coetzee, C (eds) 1998. Negotiating the Past: The making of Memory in South Africa, Oxford University Press, Cape Town. Sontag, S. 2002 (1977). An argument about beauty. Dædalus, Fall: 21–26. Van der Watt, L. 2001. ‘Making Whiteness Strange’: White Identity in Post-Apartheid South African Art. Third Text, Autumn: 40-46. Vestergaard, M. 2001. Who's Got the Map? The Negotiation of Afrikaner Identities in Post- Apartheid South Africa. Daedalus, Winter: 19-44. Weinberg, P. (ed). 2010. Then and Now. Eight South African photographers. Highveld Press. Wienand, A. 2011. Tracing the history of ‘documentary’ photography in South Africa. Conference proceedings. SAVAH conference January 2011, University of Witwatersrand. 9 Monday 3 July DAY SIX: Galleries visits in Cape Town (Desré Barnard & Marnell Kirsten) 09:00 – 10:00 Test (choice between two questions) 10:30 Leave for Cape Town 11:30 – 12:30 Gallery visits 12:30 – 13:30 Lunch 13:30 – 15:00 Gallery visits TEST The test will be based on Marnell’s work. Prescribed reading for the test: Please note that all prescribed readings for her 2 days of the course are important for the test, but these are compulsory: Van der Watt, L. 1997. ‘‘Savagery and civilisation’: Race as a signifier of difference in Afrikaner nationalist art’. De Arte 55, April 1997. (PDF Article) Coombes, AE. 2003. ‘Translating the past: Apartheid monuments in postapartheid South Africa’, in Visual culture and public memory in a democratic South Africa. London: Duke University Press. 19 – 53 (PDF Article) Mbembe, A. 2005, 2007. ‘Afropolitanism’, in Africa remix: Contemporary art of a continent, edited by S Njami. Johannesburg: Jacana Media. 26 – 29 Also available here. Motha, S. 2010. 'Begging to Be Black' : Liminality and Critique in Post-Apartheid South Africa’. Theory Culture Society 27: 285 – 305. (PDF Article) 10 11 .