Cultural Boycott Research Articles

Polarized words: discourse on the boycott of Israel, social justice and conflict resolution

PurposeThe study aimed to investigate how Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and others from around the world present their views on boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). The quality of discourse was examined along with the implications of the rhetoric for social-justice and conflict resolution frameworks.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative study analyzed 257 texts (newspaper articles, opinion pieces, YouTube videos, emails. Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, campaigns and websites) for content and quality of discourse and for their implications for social-justice and conflict resolution work.FindingsMost texts divided into those in favor of the boycott and those opposed. The content was also polarized − most pro-BDS texts saw Israel as a settler-colonial enterprise, and emphasized issues of social-justice, whereas opponents perceived Israel as a legitimate nation and were skeptical of the human rights angle. The main types of discourse discerned included: ethnocentric talk, attack and intellectual discussion, regardless of national/ethnic origin of the writer or stance toward the boycott.Research limitations/implicationsDifferent types of texts were analyzed, which did not always fit easily into the discourse categories. Because this was the first study of its kind and looked at limited years, results should be approached with this in mind.Practical implicationsThe rhetoric leaves little place for dialogue between those in favor and those opposed. Specific suggestions for combining social-justice work and conflict resolution work are offered.Social implicationsBDS discourse in its present form hampers finding a solution to the conflict and abuse of Palestinian rights. A new approach is needed to try to resolve these issues.Originality/valueBecause there are few systematic studies on BDS, this article provides insight into how people discuss the strategy and how it connects to frameworks for resolving conflicts.

Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression

Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression

Cultural boycotts as tools for social change: Lessons from South Africa

This paper examines lessons from South Africa’s cultural boycott under apartheid as a tool for social change. The boycott is often held up as a model for non-violent pressure to bring about change, including by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. In particular, the paper examines a shift initiated by the liberation movements from a blanket boycott – where no artists were allowed into or out of South Africa – to a selective boycott, where artists could travel with the express permission of the liberation movement. This paper explores a less savoury aspect of this shift in boycott tactics, where the African National Congress (ANC) and United Democratic Front (UDF) introduced political tests for which artists or artworks were allowed to travel, that these organisations then used to pursue a form of sectarian politics that undermined the unity of the oppressed. Underpinning these tests was an approach towards art and its relationship to politics that promoted art with propagandistic intent. The paper concludes by problematising arguments that South Africa’s boycott should be used as a model for cultural boycotts elsewhere.

Boycotting Bodies: The Politics of Practice and Performance

Gaga, the movement language developed by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin, is often claimed to be apolitical by marketing materials and participants alike. The Batsheva Dance Company is also led by Naharin and highly influenced by Gaga. Unlike Gaga, however, Batsheva is highly politicized because of frequent protests by pro-Palestinian activists. In this presentation, I explore the many complicated layers of Gaga practice to show the multiple ways in which dancing bodies can be politicized. The case of the cultural boycott movement is used to complicate the relationships between practice and performance and how they are understood as political.

Editor’s Note

Editor’s Note Mari Yoshihara, Editor This issue features the first forum undertaken since the editorial office of American Quarterly relocated to Hawai‘i. We began our editorship on the heels of the ASA resolution on the academic and cultural boycott of Israel, which generated intense debates on Israel–Palestine relations, the United States’ role in the conflict, and how American studies as an academic field and the ASA as a professional organization might engage the issue. The resolution has drawn unprecedented national and international attention to the ASA, and while many critics in and outside the academy vocally objected to the resolution, a number of academic associations followed suit in similarly endorsing the boycott of Israel. The heated debates on the issue continue, as they should. The AQ editorial team wanted to use this as an occasion to think further about the place of Palestine in American studies, both engaging the significance of the boycott resolution and also moving beyond it to frame the issue in broader historical, political, and economic contexts. We invited two scholar-activists with long involvement in and on Palestine, Rabab Abdulhadi and Dana M. Olwan, to co-convene the forum. They have done a brilliant job of soliciting essays by authors working in diverse fields who address the relevance of the question of Palestine to the projects of American studies. We thank the co-conveners for the intensive labor involved in putting the forum together and all the authors for producing their essays quickly so that the journal could address current conditions. The essays in this issue are among the first submissions that have gone through the review process newly instituted by the Hawai‘i-based team. While dealing with different subject matters—the role of Hawai‘i in the Vietnam War, the emergence of “culture shock” discourse in the context of the Peace Corps, the body politics around Charles Stratton, and the alternative cultural politics in Encinitas, California—all the essays in this issue address the histories and practices of empire, race, nation building, and constructions of identity, the themes that our editorial team is particularly committed to. The authors have been extremely collegial in responding to the reviewers’ and the editorial board’s suggestions, and we feel that these essays represent the originality and rigor of the authors’ scholarship and the collaborative intellectual labor involved in the review and editorial process. The juxtaposition of two very different exhibits covered in the event review—the newly opened Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg and the Hello Kitty exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum in [End Page v] Los Angeles—reflects the range of the types of exhibits relevant to American studies as well as critical approaches to exhibits. With the three ambitious book reviews in this issue, Cotten Seiler completes his term as Book Review Editor. When we began our editorship we learned for the first time the complex and demanding tasks of the AQ Book Review Editor, who must make the difficult decisions about which books, from among the over one thousand that come in annually, to review in the journal and who will write the review. We would like to express our gratitude to Cotton for his vision and professionalism in handling this important job for the last three years. Our new Book Review Editors are Matthew Basso and Laura Briggs, whose collaborative editing of book reviews will appear in AQ beginning with the March 2016 issue. [End Page vi] Copyright © 2015 The American Studies Association

Collaborations between Israel and Germany in Chemistry and the Other Sciences – a Sign of Normalization?

AbstractThe scientific collaboration between Israel and Germany was not initiated, as commonly believed, by the Max Planck Society or by German scientists who wanted to revive collaboration with their former Jewish colleagues. Rather, it was initiated in the mid‐1950s by two Israeli scientists from the Weizmann Institute and a German scientist at the time at CERN in violation of the widely accepted cultural boycott by Israel against Germany. The initiators succeeded in procuring political support; large‐scale collaboration between the Weizmann Institute, German universities, and the Max Planck Society was developed. In the aftermath of the Second World War, German science suffered from the Nazi expulsion of Jewish scientists and partial international isolation; the collaboration with Israel enabled young German scientists to overcome this isolation and benefit from stimulating Israeli research environments. In times of economic hardship, the collaboration helped Israeli science materially, provided contacts to chemical industry, and strengthened the cooperation between Israeli and European science. The collaboration was built, in part, on postwar myths created by German scientists and the Max Planck Society about their former anti‐Nazi attitudes. Despite the difficult beginnings and some hidden political agendas, the collaboration developed very successfully. Germany became Israel’s second most important partner in the scientific field, after the USA. Today, normalcy prevails in many – though not all – of the Israeli‐German collaborative projects; the past is not forgotten, but science is in the fore.

Israel/Palestine and the Queer International by Sarah Schulman

Israel/Palestine and the Queer International by Sarah Schulman

Cultural boycott: the Ouroboros syndrome

Inevitably, the Gaza conflict led to louder calls for a cultural boycott of Israel. Here, Israeli writer, artist and curator Avi Pitchon offers a more novel - and passionate - critique of cultural ...

Revisiting (and Revising?) Sports Boycotts: From Rugby against South Africa to Soccer in Israel

For the first time in nearly 30 years, 2013 saw increasing public awareness of calls for a comprehensive boycott of and sanctions on a state based on questions of an ‘entrenched system of racial discrimination’. The call to boycott South African sport emerged in the 1950s as the apartheid state was developing and refining its comprehensive and systematic legal form amid growing international pressure for decolonisation. This is a different social and political context than the call 50 years later by Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. This paper draws on analyses of international anti-apartheid movements' campaigns against sporting contact with South Africa and the BDS call for the isolation of the Israeli state to propose a theory of sports boycotts. It looks at the anti-apartheid campaigns to consider ways in which the BDS campaign has an impact on existing historical understandings of cultural boycotts as a tactical and strategic campaign tool.

De geografie van de stamverwantschap - Op zoek naar Nederlandse plaatsen van herinnering in Zuid-Afrika

During the South African War (1899-1902) the public in the Netherlands strongly supported the Boer republics in their fight against the British. This enthusiasm was based on feelings of racial and cultural kinship – the so-called ideal of stamverwantschap. At first sight it appears that this ideology disappeared after 1902 and that the gap between the people of the Netherlands and the Afrikaners grew over the course of the twentieth century, culminating in widespread protests against apartheid after the Second World War. This article argues that positive interaction between Dutchmen and Afrikaners continued longer than is often assumed. During the course of the twentieth century several initiatives were taken to transfer objects from the Netherlands to South Africa to help strengthen Afrikaner identity, which led to the creation of places of memory that still exist. Dutch historians lost sight of this during the cultural boycotts of the 1970s and 1980s. But after the end of apartheid they have become accessible again, providing a different perspective on this history. By analysing three places of memory I show that certain groups of Dutchmen have contributed to the heroic interpretation of Afrikaner history which legitimised white-minority rule.

Section News

Abstract:For your convenience, this month's Section News PDF includes bookmarks for each section. After opening the PDF, select the “Bookmark” tab on the left side of your screen, and click on the name of the section you are interested in reading.American Ethnological Society (AES): Caitrin Lynch, ed. “New Editor of American Ethnologist”; “AES at the 2010 Annual Meeting”Anthropology and Environment Section (A&E): Terre Satterfield, ed.Archeology Division (AD): James M Skibo, ed. “2010 Spring Business Meeting Recap”; “Thomas McGovern and Colleagues Win 2010 Gordon R Willey Award”Association for Africanist Anthropology (AfAA): Jennifer E Coffman, ed. “Richard Werbner's Film Holy Hustlers” by Bennetta Jules–Rosette; “Looking Forward to New Orleans” by David Turkon and Maria CattellAssociation of Black Anthropologists (ABA): Bianca C Williams and karen g williams, eds. “Running the Fieldwork Race, Part One” by karen g WilliamsAssociation for Feminist Anthropology (AFA): Damla Isik and Jessica Smith, eds. “‘Welcome Back to the AFA” by Dorothy L HodgsonAssociation of Latina and Latino Anthropologists (ALLA): Luis FB Plascencia and Anahí Viladrich, eds. “Immiserization in Arizona—‘Attrition Through Enforcement’”Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA): Mona Bhan and Noelle Molé, eds. “A Tale of Two Indias: Keeping the ‘Emergent Economy’ Myth Alive” by Sarasij MajumderAssociation for Queer Anthropology (AQA): David L R Houston, ed. “Report from the Cochairs: AAA Elections Bring Change” by Maria Ochoa and Karen NakamuraAssociation of Senior Anthropologists (ASA): Paul L Doughty, ed. “AAA Retiree Dues”; “ASA Annual Meeting Session”; “Annual Business, Board and Member Luncheon”; “ASA Members Honored”; “ASA Book Announcement”Central States Anthropological Society (CSAS): Evelyn Dean–Olmsted and Angela Glaros, eds. “Student Paper Competition Winners”; “White and Dillingham Award Recipients”; “2011 CSAS Annual Meeting, Iowa City, IA”; “Member Research Spotlight: Chicago Urban Historical Archaeology” by Rebecca S Graff; “Member News”Council on Anthropology and Education (CAE): Steve Bialostok, ed.Culture and Agriculture (C&A): Ronald Rich, ed. “CAFÉ Anyone? New Editors for C&A Journal,” by Jeanne Simonelli and Bill Roberts and “New Book on Forestry and Governance”Evolutionary Anthropology Society (EAS): John P Ziker, ed. “Human Behavior and Evolution Society Meeting”General Anthropology Division (GAD): Luke Eric Lassiter, ed. “2010 Award Winners Named” by Christopher A FurlowMiddle East Section (MES): Yasmin Moll, ed. “Cultural Boycott: A Summary” by Rosi GreenbergNational Association for the Practice of Anthropology (NAPA): Eva Friedlander and Tara Eaton, eds. “2010 SfAA Meetings in Merida, Mexico, March 24–27: A Brief Report” by Tim WallaceNational Association of Student Anthropologists (NASA): Keri A Canada, ed. “NASA Website Gets a Makeover” by Sheena Harris; “Call for Submissions”Society for Anthropological Sciences (SAS): Stephen Lyon, ed. “Anthropology App”; “Grants, Fellowships and Bequeathals”; “Public Engagement”Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges (SACC): Lloyd Miller, ed. “SACC 2011 in Omaha, Nebraska”; “Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes—the Electronic Version”Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness (SAC): Peter N Jones, ed. “Bringing Awareness to the Study of Consciousness”Society for the Anthropology of Europe (SAE): Deborah R Altamirano, ed. “Preview of the 2010 Program” by Elizabeth L Krause; “Interdisciplinary Collaborations in the Anthropology of Europe” by Tracey HeatheringtonSociety for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN): Alyson Young and Kenneth Maes, eds. “SAFN AAA–Invited Sessions”; “Other SAFN–Related Sessions in New Orleans”; “Between Sessions”; “Report on Food in Bloom Conference”Society for the Anthropology of North America (SANA): David Kamper, ed. “Standing Up Against Racism” by Katja AntoineSociety for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR): Jennifer Selby, ed. “Message from the President” by Margaret WienerSociety for the Anthropology of Work (SAW): Angela Jancius, ed. “Old Anthropology in New Orleans” by Samuel Gerald CollinsSociety for Cultural Anthropology (SCA): Jean M Langford, ed. “Student Membership in SCA” by Michelle StewartSociety for East Asian Anthropology (SEAA): Jennifer Hubbert and Gordon Mathews, eds. “‘Introducing the Current SEAA Elected Board Members” by Jennifer Robertson; “Graduate Student Councilors”; “Councilors”Society for Humanistic Anthropology (SHA): Frederic W Gleach and Vilma Santiago–Irizarry, eds.Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology (SLACA): Annelou Ypeij, ed. “Ritual Encounters: Lived Experiences with the Power to Transform Society” by Michelle Wibbelsman; “Elayne Zorn, 1952–2010”Society for Linguistic Anthropology (SLA): James Stanlaw and Mark Peterson, eds. “Are We Teaching Too Much Spanish?” by James StanlawSociety for Medical Anthropology (SMA): Kathleen Ragsdale, ed. “Medical Anthropology and US Health Policy: A View from ‘Across the Pond’” by Rachel IrwinSociety for Psychological Anthropology (SPA): Jack R Friedman, ed. “Biennial Meeting of the Society for Psychological Anthropology, Santa Monica, CA, March 31–April 3, 2001”Society for Urban, National and Transnational/Global Anthropology (SUNTA): Jayne Howell, ed “Notes from the City” by Margaret Baurley and Dan BranstratorSociety for Visual Anthropology (SVA): Wendy Dickinson, ed. “Stop Just Pushing Play” by Jennifer Wolowic

The Department of New Testament Studies, University of Pretoria (Dutch Reformed Church) 1938� 2008

This article deals with the history of the Department of New Testament Studies at the University of Pretoria from 1938 to 2008. The focus falls on the permanent staff members and their contributions during this period. The article begins with a discussion of the life and career of Prof. E.P. Groenewald. It then proceeds to the more diff cult time of cultural boycotts, with Profs A.B. du Toit and F. Botha as members of the Department at that time. Then the careers of Profs J.G. van der Watt and S.J. Joubert are discussed. The article concludes with a discussion of the contribution made by Prof. G.J. Steyn.

Anti-apartheid boycotts and the affective economies of struggle: the case of Aotearoa New Zealand1

One of the major manifestations of sport-centred activist political struggles in the latter half of the twentieth century centred on the demand for the sporting and broader cultural, social, economic and political isolation of South Africa during the apartheid era. The struggle saw apartheid-endorsed South African sports organizations expelled from international bodies beginning in the 1950s, with the South African National Olympic Committee being the only one ever to be expelled from the IOC. The sports boycott was one of the major successes of the international anti-apartheid campaign, yet the existing literature on boycotts is only marginally relevant to cultural (including sports) boycotts. Furthermore, the existing literature dealing with sports boycotts, with its focus on the multilateral politics of Olympic boycotts, is of minimal use in explaining mass activist campaigns such as the anti-apartheid movement. This essay centres on the campaign against the 1981 South African rugby tour of Aotearoa New Zealand to explore the multiple significances of sport in the target (South Africa) and sender (Aotearoa New Zealand) states, and the character of the mass movement to argue that the cultural significance of both sport and the politics of ‘race’ and colonialism are vital to an effective understanding of mass movement supported bilateral cultural boycotts.

The Department of New Testament Studies (Dutch Reformed Church) 1938– 2008

This article deals with the history of the Department of New Testament Studies at the University of Pretoria from 1938 to 2008. The focus falls on the permanent staff members and their contributions during this period. The article begins with a discussion of the life and career of Prof. E.P. Groenewald. It then proceeds to the more difficult time of cultural boycotts, with Profs A.B. du Toit and F. Botha as members of the Department at that time. Then the careers of Profs J.G. van der Watt and S.J. Joubert are discussed. The article concludes with a discussion of the contribution made by Prof. G.J. Steyn.

Developing a retro brand community: Re‐releasing and marketing anti‐apartheid protest music in post‐apartheid South Africa

1980s South Africa was a constrained context within which to produce protest music. Apartheid censorship prevented protest music from reaching a mass market. This was an especially dire situation for white protest musicians who (unlike black musicians) were restricted by a small potential audience and also limited by the cultural boycott, precluding the possibility of an international audience. In the post‐apartheid era some of these earlier protest recordings have been re‐released by independent labels hoping to profit from the recordings but also in search of broader audiences for this important aspect of South Africa’s musical heritage. Yet it has been difficult to do more than market to “retro brand communities” of former fans. This paper considers marketing strategies used to promote re‐releases of anti‐apartheid protest songs, given the peculiarities of the convergence of retro time and space with present spatial dynamics, in a society willing to forget its musical heritage.

Elvis in Jerusalem: Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel (review)

Reviewed by: Elvis in Jerusalem: Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel Ronald Charles Epstein Elvis in Jerusalem: Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel, by Tom Segev. Translated from the Hebrew by Haim Watzman. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002. 168 pp. $23.00. Elvis in Jerusalem, the American title of Ha’aretz columnist Tom Segev’s 2001 book Hatzionim Hahadashim, is a cruel come-on. This Israeli “new historian” deals with “post-Zionism,” not “rock ‘n roll.” This book is of special interest to American readers because Segev argues that U.S. influence has turned Israel into a more open and democratic society. This is an unusual position for any foreigner to assume—ask any citizen of France or Canada. If a resident of a developed country were to advocate the Americanization of his (or her) nation, he (or she) might be viewed as the sociopolitical equivalent of Ben Affleck exchanging his Hollywood wardrobe for ex-Congressman James Traficant’s retro outfits. If Snoop Dogg did the same thing, his choice might be viewed as an improvement. Does that mean that Israeli adoption of American ways is the equivalent of a hard-core rapper’s switch to denim leisure suits? Perhaps—too many people view the Jewish state as the “gangsta” of the Middle East. Segev is not one of them. He is not an anti-Zionist who views Israel as a geopolitical mistake, but a post-Zionist who exposes the Jewish state’s errors. According to him, one of its greatest faults is its packaging of idealistic hagiography as history. He asserts that “real” history began when “. . . the government began declassifying documents from the state’s early years.” For Israelis, this historical legacy is a double-edged sword. These “new historians” opened a Pandora’s Box of revelations that challenged popular assumptions about Israel, creating controversies and sowing divisions between Zionists and post-Zionists. However, the fact that the archives were opened is the mark of a democratic society. Segev himself writes that “Israel is relatively liberal in this regard—there are countries that don’t open their archives at all.” He does not give any examples—is he being subtle, or merely negligent? [End Page 182] Traditional Zionists may view him as worse than negligent, concerning the most sensitive subject of all—the Holocaust. He charges that “. . . the Jewish independent administration in Palestine . . . preferred to prevent the arrival of the elderly and ill. In a few cases it even sent people back to Nazi Germany because they had become a burden on the community in Palestine.” This is a very grave charge against Israel’s founding fathers, which suggests a willingness to skim off the cream of German Jewry and discard the rest. Segev may have promised Zionism without propaganda, but instead offers “Judaism without embellishment.” This last phrase is not just a figure of speech—it is also the title of a notorious 1960s antisemitic book by Soviet professor Trofim Kichko. Segev is no apostate, but some readers may be too furious to distinguish between the two. The author surreptitiously discredits traditional Orthodoxy. He divides this book into sections, centered around the statues of four individuals: Theodor Herzl, Elvis Presley, fallen Israeli soldier Gadi Manella, and Sephardic spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Of this group, only the rabbi is still alive. The fact that he is honored in this manner suggests a personality cult, alienating intelligent readers. The author realizes that post-Zionism is a non-starter in the age of the suicide bomber. Unfortunately, his realism is that of the outlaw who realizes that he is surrounded by the sheriff’s posse. Jews face cultural boycotts, purges of Israeli academics, and violent outbursts that recall frightening historical events; the smart post-Zionist does not state that “Commentators have reverted to condemning criticism from the outside world, particularly from Europe, as anti-Israeli, even as disguised anti-Semitism.” These days, perhaps the only option available to post-Zionists is to explain their ideology to foreigners. If that is the case, then Segev is probably the movement’s most qualified advocate. He may not be able to convert American readers, but he deals with this...

Science and war. The conflict in the Middle East has started a discussion in academic circles about the responsibility of scientists in times of political turmoil.

‘The intifada reaches the ivory tower’, proclaimed the Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz in its May 15 issue. Indeed it has. The shockwaves from Palestinian suicide bombings and Israel's war against terrorism in the West Bank territory are reverberating through scientific and educational organisations around the world. The trigger for the headline was an open letter, published on April 6 in the British daily newspaper The Guardian and signed by more than 130 scientists from Europe and Israel. It called for a moratorium on further European cooperation with Israeli scientific and cultural institutions ‘until Israel abides by UN resolutions and opens serious peace negotiations with the Palestinians […].’ The letter created a flurry of further petitions for and against a boycott as well as articles and editorials in European and Israeli newspapers. The waves of the debate finally reached the secluded shores of various science islands in Europe and the scientific journals at the beginning of May, when Nature devoted its editorial to the topic. The journal has since published correspondence both for and against an academic boycott. The scientists calling for a boycott are dismayed with Israel's incursions into the West Bank and its treatment of the Palestinian population. They think that the political community, particularly the US government and the EU, is not doing enough to restrain either side from further escalating the spiral of violence and thus call for additional pressure on the Israeli government. ‘We view the situation as in the case of the South African boycott,’ explained Steven Rose, a neurobiologist and Director of the Brain and Behaviour Research Group at the Open University in the UK, and the initiator of the open letter. ‘I feel that the civil society has to stand up and do something about it. […] There are ways in which we …

A postcolonial reading of mural art in South Africa

Introduction Most residents of South Africa's larger cities will, when prompted, immediately recall having noticed one or more wall paintings, or murals, somewhere in town. Fifteen years ago, it can be ascertained, the response to such a question would have been very different--mostly due to circumstances associated with South Africa's political situation under an oppressive apartheid regime. While there were a few murals in South African cities and townships during the 1970s and 80s (1), urban mural art has only recently emerged as a highly visible phenomenon and tremendously flourished ever since. This paper will focus mostly on so-called `community murals' (a term to be elaborated upon below) as opposed to muralised advertisement, graffiti, and commissioned wall decorations, often executed by a single artist, as well as all forms of traditional African rural homestead paintings (2). Community mural art is mostly a post-apartheid phenomenon, its emergence closely connected with political change and liberalisation in South Africa. Despite this close correlation with political processes, mural art appears to be strikingly unpolitical and uncritical in content. Murals are often perceived to be unchallenging, boringly re-iterating what we already know. They have a long tradition of being associated With advertisement or graffiti, justifying the fact that they are not taken seriously as art. (3) This paper will suggest that there is more to murals than meets the eye. It aims to challenge some of the common stereotypes and assumptions associated with urban community murals and question the customary (and often dismissive) ways of reading their contents. This attempt to reposition mural art is based on the premise that the reception and perceived meaning of murals may be a very different one to different communities (4) and that the current perception of mural art within academia rests solely on one societal group's reading and frames of reference. Postcolonial theory will provide the theoretical framework to first expose the subversive character of community murals as a form of visual arts practice located in opposition to `fine art', and then illustrate with reference to a few examples how a critical dimension manifests itself in the imagery of mural art in South Africa. `Community art' versus `fine art' Despite the current rapproachement of `high art' and `low art' realms in artistic practices and strategies of display, South Africa is still largely polarised between `fine art' on one end of the scale, and various forms of `low art', including craft, commercial art and what has been labelled `community art' on the other. `Fine art' usually implies academic training according to European (or more generally Western) models, although this may be substituted by more informal training if the artist is invested with great natural talent in accordance with the concept of `genius'. `Fine art' entails, knowledge and mastery of a specific norm of artistic ability, which is closely associated with Western aesthetic standards and artistic practices. `Fine art' in South Africa clearly follows international trends as evidenced, for example, by the recent 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Trade Routes--both in terms of art production and modes of display. After the end of South Africa's pariah status under apartheid and in particular the cultural boycott, South African artists clearly enjoy taking part in and meeting the challenges of a wide international competition in a global art world. `Community art' on the other hand, of which mural art plays an important part, is a collaborative art form that may involve the participation of non-trained artists, who do not necessarily adhere to `fine art' aesthetic standards and artistic techniques. Most importantly, community mural art often places more emphasis on the artistic process than on the final product, the painting itself. As opposed to such public art works as conventional monuments or sculptures, which could be called `fine art in public places', `community art' is highly site specific and presumes an active engagement of the local community in one form or another. …

African cinema: a historical, theoretical and analytical exploration

ABSTRACT For many years newspapers, magazines and universities remained silent about the history, culture and contemporary events in the lives of black people in South Africa as well as in the rest of Africa. There is for example a perception that Africa has contributed very little to the development of film art. For more than three decades, however, films have been produced in Africa with a voice, content and aesthetic which is rich, historical, creatively responsive to African social reality, oral storytelling traditions, modes of communication and, where the films reach their audience, immensely popular. As a result of apartheid and the international cultural boycott, local academics and film makers have been excluded from the major African film festivals and congresses. Since the unbanning of the ANC, PAC and SACP and the concomitant political changes in South Africa, individuals in the local film and television industries have worked more closely with their colleagues in Africa. It seems that there i...

Simposium tussen Nederlandse en Suid-Afrikaanse Nuwe-Testamentici: verslag en kritiese evaluering

Symposium between Dutch and South African New Testament scholars: report and critical evaluation A short historical survey of theological relations between Netherland and South Africa and especially of the consequences of the cultural boycott, highlights the importance of this meeting. The papers read at the meeting and some of the prominent issues, as well as deliberations on the possibility of future academic cooperation, are presented and evaluated.