PO/HS/AF 352 - Power & Protest: Apartheid to Present

This course will consider protest in South Africa as both a fundamental part of historical record, charting some of the major turning points, movements and state responses including Soweto, the Women’s March and Sharpeville, as well as a vital contemporary means of empowering active and engaged citizenship.

Students will begin to understand protest not merely as a social act, but as a staged choreography of dissent, using performance theory to unpack how and why protest movements achieve their efficacy. We will consider various methods of South African protest, from the more traditional toyi toyi and range of protest songs to the creative use of space, as employed particularly recently by the Fallists and Reclaim the City activists.