First President

First President

Author: Heather Hughes

Publisher: Jacana Media

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 1770098135

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A full biography of the founding president of the African National Council (ANC), this account uncovers the inspirations for John L. Dube's many public achievements. Tracing the history of his forbearers in the Zulu kingdom, this volume chronicles the politician's life from his birth in 1871, and highlights his many achievements, including the founding of the Ohlange School, the key role he played in the Bhambatha Rebellion, and the authorship of the first Zulu novel. As it evaluates Dube's five-year presidency of the ANC, this book shows that in spite of the many conflicts and ambiguities in his position, Dube's central political belief--that Africans should be directly represented in the parliament of the land--remained remarkably constant throughout his long career.


Ukufa kukaShaka

Ukufa kukaShaka

Author: Elliot Zondi

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2021-10-01

Total Pages: 62

ISBN-13: 177614547X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Ukufa kukaShaka is a historical drama by Elliot Zondi, first published in 1960 in the Bantu (later, African) Treasury Series by the University of the Witwatersrand Press. Its plot is based on the events surrounding the assassination of Shaka, the mighty Zulu king, by his two half-brothers, Dingane and Mhlangana, aided and abetted by his paternal aunt, Mkabayi, in 1828. The play explores the classic theme of the tragic hero’s fatal flaws: hubris and overconfidence. Shaka’s ruthless ambition led him to overstep human boundaries, kill with impunity, bar his warriors from having families and force them into endless wars. His blind spot seems to have been to put the survival and expansion of the Zulu kingdom first and the welfare of his subjects second. Against this backdrop Mkabayi, whose ambitions for a remarkable Zulu nation were more tempered, played a decisive role in his downfall. Zondi explores arguments both in favor of and against Shaka’s assassination in a way that allows the reader to sympathize with his greater vision and his thwarted plan to fight impending colonialism. His dramatization of the conflict between Shaka and Mkabayi highlights questions of leadership and nation-building that continue to be relevant today.


Dictionary of African Biography

Dictionary of African Biography

Author: Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong

Publisher:

Published: 2012-02-02

Total Pages: 3382

ISBN-13: 0195382072

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From the Pharaohs to Fanon, Dictionary of African Biography provides a comprehensive overview of the lives of the men and women who shaped Africa's history. Unprecedented in scale, DAB covers the whole continent from Tunisia to South Africa, from Sierra Leone to Somalia. It also encompasses the full scope of history from Queen Hatsheput of Egypt (1490-1468 BC) and Hannibal, the military commander and strategist of Carthage (243-183 BC), to Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana (1909-1972), Miriam Makeba and Nelson Mandela of South Africa (1918 -).


Historicizing Secular-Religious Demarcations

Historicizing Secular-Religious Demarcations

Author: Monika Wohlrab-Sahr

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2024-07-01

Total Pages: 867

ISBN-13: 3111386740

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume aims to revitalize the exchange between sociological differentiation theory and the sociology of religion, which previously held center stage among the sociological classics. It brings together contributions from different disciplines, as well as various forms of regional and historical expertise, which are indispensable in forming a globally oriented sociological perspective today. Secularization is understood as a process of boundary demarcation, that is, as the enactment of semantic, practical, and institutional distinctions between religion and other spheres of activity and knowledge. These distinctions may emerge from within the religious field itself, or may be absorbed into the field having originally emerged elsewhere. They may even be directly imposed upon religion by external forces. The volume is therefore based on the premise that societal differentiation – and secularity as a specific expression of it – is a widespread structural feature that nonetheless takes on various forms, depending on its historical and cultural context. In order to make this diversity visible, the volume adopts a global comparative perspective, and examines historical distinctions and differentiations in the West and beyond. By examining different forms and modes of secularity in statu nascendi, the volume contributes to developing a better understanding of the diversity of secularities, even of those found in the present day, in terms of their historicity and their specific path dependencies. With this shift in perspective, this special volume initiates a global and historical turn in the theory of differentiation, as well as in the study of secularity.


Africa in Stereo

Africa in Stereo

Author: Tsitsi Ella Jaji

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0199936374

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Stereomodernism and amplifying the Black Atlantic -- Sight reading: early Black South African transcriptions of freedom -- Négritude musicology: poetry, performance and statecraft in Senegal -- What women want: selling hi-fi in consumer magazines and film -- 'Soul to soul': echo-locating histories of slavery and freedom from Ghana -- Pirate's choice: hacking into (post- )pan-African futures -- Epilogue: Singing songs.


Monarchs, Missionaries and African Intellectuals

Monarchs, Missionaries and African Intellectuals

Author: Bhekizizwe Peterson

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2021-08-01

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 177614550X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Much of the work in the field of African studies still relies on rigid distinctions of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘resistance’, ‘indigenous’ and ‘foreign’. This book moves well beyond these frameworks to probe the complex entanglements of different intellectual traditions in the South African context, by examining two case studies. The case studies constitute the core around which is woven this intriguing story of the development of black theatre in South Africa in the early years of the century. It also highlights the dialogue between African and African-American intellectuals, and the intellectual formation of the early African elite in relation to colonial authority and how each affected the other in complicated ways. The first case study centres on Mariannhill Mission in KwaZulu-Natal. Here the evangelical and pedagogical drama pioneered by the Rev Bernard Huss, is considered alongside the work of one of the mission’s most eminent alumni, the poet and scholar, B.W. Vilakazi. The second moves to Johannesburg and gives a detailed insight into the working of the Bantu Dramatic Society and the drama of H.I.E. Dhlomo in relation to the British Drama League and other white liberal cultural activities.


African Literatures in the 20th Century

African Literatures in the 20th Century

Author: Leonard S. Klein

Publisher: Burns & Oates

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Covers the literatures of Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malagasy, Malawi, Mali, Mauritia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Reunion, Sao Tome, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Upper Volta, Zaire, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, and authors such as Mohammed Dib, Mouloud Feraoun, Kateb Yacine, Mouloud Mammeri, Jose Luandino Vieira, Mongo Beti, Ferdinand Oyono, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Taha Husayn, Yusuf Idris, Najib Mahfuz, Lenrie Peters, Ayi Kwei Armah, Kofi Awoonor, Camara Laye, Bernard Binlin Dadie, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Thomas Mofolo, Chinua Achebe, John Pepper Clark, Cyprian Ekwensi, Gabriel Okara, Christopher Okigbo, Wole Soyinka, Amos Tutuola, Birago Diop, Ousmane Sembene, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Nuruddin Farah, Peter Abrahams, Dennis Brutus, Roy Campbell, Athol Fugard, Nadine Gordimer, Alex La Guma, Sarah Gertrude Millin, Ezekiel (Es'kia) Mphalele, Alan Paton, William Plomer, Olive Schreiner, Pauline Smith, Shaaban Robert and Okot p'Bitek.