Histories of the North Atlantic have had a preponderant influence on scholarship about race. But, for scholars in the humanities and social sciences who study southern Africa, this is changing.
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When they arrived in Europe in the early 1960s, South African jazz outfit the Blue Notes revolutionised the London scene. Half a century later, their music is coming home in several new projects.
An exhibition in Berlin, called “Letters of Stone”, shows that there is more to memory than words and ideas.
The search for old or new African sounds is based around a nostalgia culture that is endemic to Anglo-American popular music.
Barack Obama may have chosen Mandela’s words for his tweet precisely because they offered some distance from the political space in the US.
To understand the full scale of the world’s linguistic diversity, we should be thinking about languages and how speakers relate to them.
Other than church, the pipe organ is often perceived as belonging in horror movies. But there’s more to the instrument that spans most musical genres.
It is five years since the Marikana massacre in South Africa - a related musical unfortunately contributes to the amnesia about the traumatic incident.
Former vice-chancellor Jonathan Jansen argues that there is no future for South African universities.
Some have suggested that the publisher and author of ‘Mandela’s Last Years’ were simply attempting to cash in on the Mandela legacy. This is not a basis for the withdrawal of a book.
The Andy Warhol exhibition embodies so many of the contradictions, complications and conflicts in both art and society in contemporary South Africa.
The contentious book documenting Nelson Mandela’s last days that was pulled of the shelves left many unanswered questions. Judgement must be suspended until it’s content is made public.
Namibian crafters may be on the verge of commercial success with the carving of the Makalani nut. But they are not sure if they want to commercialise operations.
What might be the purpose of historical fiction? Perhaps to the humble and subtle to recognise and pay tribute to lives that came before us.
Ethical engagement in multilingual communication is about mutual respect. More importantly, it’s about shaping a shared future through face-to-face communication.
As Senegal mourns the victims of the Demba Diop football stadium crush and searches for answers, it is to be hoped that lessons are learned, and consequences are swift.
Rock music against military conscription during 1980s South Africa resonated with wider fault lines in Afrikaner society - this as the apartheid regime’s grip on power started to slip.
Two of South Africa’s finest musicians, Johnny Mekoa and Ray Phiri, died recently. The permeable terrain between genres their careers negotiated, is being replaced by rigid marketing categories.
Namibian hero and former Robben Island prisoner Toivo ya Toivo was part of a generation who contributed to the struggles against apartheid and colonialism in the region.
Reggae in South Africa has lost its visibility and prominence inside the country after apartheid. But local artists have built up extensive international links.
European football matches allow African fans to partake in the aspirational dreams exported worldwide by the Premier League or the Champions League.
Andimba (Herman) Toivo Ya Toivo remained loyal to what made him the personification of the desire to live in an independent country governed by, and for, its people.
For many of contemporary Congolese musicians the idea of authenticité was seen as a positive one at a certain level, even though Mobutu abused Congo culture to build his own personality cult.
The introduction of an African passport has the capacity to bring about increased migration of Africans within Africa.
Sometimes people like poetic justice because the law is not in a position to mete out what is deserved.