Reflections on the South African Visual Arts Historians and the Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art (or What happens when art history collides with the global South and Vasari's Lives of the artists)

This article was first given as an inaugural lecture. As such, it sets out a particular agenda for the researcher’s interest. Here, the notions of being African and Reformed are interrogated. The research notes that these notions are rarely used in the same vein. It is admitted that notions tend to pick up different meanings as they evolve, so these notions are especially seen in that light. The theological hegemony, which in the South African academic circles had become enveloped in the Reformed identity, is here forced to critically consider Africanness. This is considered significant, especially in a context where the Christian faith is seen to be flourishing in the global South. The article challenges attempts at explaining what Africanness mean as a front to perpetuate a status quo that from its inception never thought much of Africa and or Africanness. The author argues that the African Reformed Christian must acknowledge is status as a partial outsider in Reformed theological discourses.

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Laubser, Maggie (1886–1972)

Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism ◽

10.4324/9781135000356-rem472-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Judy Peter

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

South African ◽

Art History ◽

Academic Training ◽

Artistic Practice ◽

The South ◽

African Art ◽

German Expressionism ◽

Rural South ◽

Profound Impact

The painter Maggie Laubser occupies an important space in South African art history. Her evolution as an artist was greatly influenced by her initial European-style academic training in South Africa and her later travels in Europe, which included London, Belgium, Italy and Germany. Laubser’s contact with the German Expressionists from 1922 to 1924 had the most profound impact on her artistic practice. The influence of German Expressionism was readily recognized in her paintings. The naïve, apolitical and impersonal treatment of subjects in her paintings exposed her to a hostile audience at home in South Africa. In 1936, Laubser’s paintings were included in the Large Empire Exhibition; her work had become more acceptable as the South African audience grew less conservative. Her inclusion in this exhibition marked her entrance into the South African scene as an established artist. Throughout her prolific career, Laubser remained true to the rural South African landscape in paintings of farmsteads, ducks, and Cape Dutch architecture—speaking clearly of her rural beginnings in the Boland region.

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The museum art library as a bridge between the artist and society, with special reference to the South African National Gallery

Art Libraries Journal ◽

10.1017/s0307472200009299 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 4-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Josephine Andersen

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

North America ◽

South African ◽

Visual Arts ◽

National Gallery ◽

The South ◽

Special Collections ◽

Parent Institution ◽

Museum Staff ◽

Disadvantaged People

Art museums can help to promote art in society, but not all artists have their work selected for permanent collections or temporary exhibitions, and museums may be isolated from society. In Europe and North America, the primary function of museum libraries is to serve the parent institution, thereby serving the wider community only indirectly. In South Africa, where there are comparatively fewer museums, libraries, and publications concerned with the visual arts, and where there are so many disadvantaged people, it is vital that special collections such as the South Africa National Gallery (SANG) Library collection are made accessible in the widest possible sense and that museum library information programmes should be directed externally, as well as internally to the museum staff.

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Marginalisation of ‘global South’ epistemics: the case of a soil science textbook

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South ◽

10.36615/sotls.v3i2.93 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 31-48

Author(s):

Milton Milaras ◽

Tracey McKay

Keyword(s):

South African ◽

Teaching And Learning ◽

World View ◽

Global South ◽

Academic Disciplines ◽

Soil Science ◽

Soil Conditions ◽

Science Textbook ◽

The South ◽

Global North

Scientific textbooks are often seen as critical teaching and learning tools for undergraduate students. Furthermore, textbooks can shape and define students’ comprehension and internalisation of academic disciplines. Despite this, textbooks are not necessarily error free. Additionally, textbooks can be laden with hidden representational presumptions and biases, foregrounding a particular culture, knowledge system, or hegemonic world-view. This can include the epistemology of the ‘global North’. How appropriate it is to prescribe such textbooks in the ‘global South’ is, therefore, debatable. Thus, this research represents an attempt to determine the suitability of a soil science textbook – produced in the global North – for use in the global South, specifically the South African context. Accordingly, one particular textbook, in use at some South African universities, was analysed using textual analysis, in order to ascertain its applicability within the context of an Africanised curriculum. The study found that, despite the publisher’s claim of ‘universality’, the book presents soil science knowledge as written with a northern geographical setting in mind and for a Western European or North American audience. Thus, for South Africa, with its radically different geographical, cultural, and soil conditions, the textbook is inappropriate and may even be moulding a particular global North worldview. On this basis it is recommended that academics of the global South adopt a critical approach when selecting textbooks; as well as actively promote and write textbooks directly suited to an African setting. How to cite this article: MILARAS, Milton; MCKAY, Tracey. Marginalisation of ‘global South’ epistemics: the case of a soil science textbook. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South. v. 3, n. 2, p. 31-48. Sept. 2019. Available at: https://sotl-south-journal.net/?journal=sotls&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=93&path%5B%5D=45 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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The words about us

Art Libraries Journal ◽

10.1017/s030747220000362x ◽

1983 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 14-22 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Gavin Jantjes

Keyword(s):

South African ◽

Visual Arts ◽

Art History ◽

Visual Art ◽

African History ◽

African Art ◽

Black Artists ◽

British Art ◽

Cultural Life ◽

Commonwealth Institute

This article challenges the history and interpretation of the visual arts of Africa promulgated by much of the documentation on African art found in British art libraries — both that based on the colonial archaeological, ethnographic and anthropological approach, and that stemming from the influence of African arts on early twentieth century European art. Drawing parallels between the false picture of African history produced by colonial historians, and the perception of African art history by non-African art historians, the author draws attention to the need for Africans to document their own art, and to the lack of documentation on the contribution of Black artists to British cultural life.The author is a South African artist and writer living in Britain, who will be exhibiting with the Midlands Art Group, Nottingham, January – February 1984. The article is a revised version of a paper delivered at the ARLIS/UK course ‘Visual art documentation for a multi-cultural society’, held on 11 November 1983 at the Commonwealth Institute, London.

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African Corporate Lawyering and Globalization

10.31219/osf.io/qw4d8 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jonathan Klaaren

Keyword(s):

Global Change ◽

South African ◽

Research Agenda ◽

Global South ◽

Legal Services ◽

The South ◽

Commercial Practice ◽

Everyday Work ◽

Theoretical Frame ◽

Rapid Transformation

Influenced by processes of globalization and localization, many fields of social and commercial practice – including legal services – across Africa are undergoing rapid transformation. It should come as no surprise that these processes of globalization and transformation include the ongoing transformation of corporate lawyering. Lawyers from Johannesburg to Algiers – not to mention Khartoum and Ouagadougou – are experiencing and participating in rapid global change in their profession and everyday work. This paper identifies some of the questions and issues that emerge from this process, as well as providing a vignette of the South African corporate legal sector and tentatively outlining the emergence of an African corporate lawyering field. It does so in order to propose a research agenda into the trends and potential pathways of growth in this field. It does so in four steps, moving from a theoretical frame to one of the Global South to a portrait of the South African jurisdiction and ending with an agenda for African corporate lawyering.

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