There is a vast and varied literature on the formation of 19th-century Jewish diasporic communities worldwide. Now, added to this are the previously unpublished autobiographical works of two members of the Schrire family, which form the core of The Reb and the Rebel, mainly covering the period 1892-1913. They comprise a diary, a poem and a memoir. The first two, written by Reb Yehuda Leib Schrire (1851-1912), chart his journey through a number of countries, including Lithuania, Holland, England and South Africa. The third is by his son, Harry Nathan (1895-1980). The social history within these documents paints a lively picture of South African Jewish communities at the turn of the 19th century. They reveal tiny details of shipboard life below deck; major issues of religious belief and practice in Lithuanian shtetls, Johannesburg goldfields and District Six homes; and global issues of mass migration, pandemics and war. They show how community formation in Cape Town replicates the orthodoxy of der alte heym, even as the new generation is integrated into a life undreamed of in the Old Country. Analyses of the contexts and authors, together with Appendices which include a genealogy, glossary and catalogued artworks, combine here to make the South African Jewish past come alive.

The Reb and the Rebel: Jewish Narratives in South Africa, 1892-1913

Biographies & Memoirs

Schrire, Carmel

Schrire, Gwynne

Historical

University of Cape Town Press

Fatal Indifference

David Sanders

Ronald Labonté

Ted Schrecker

Wilma Meeus

During the 1990s, nine out of ten of the bloodiest conflicts occurred on the African continent. And despite some 20 peacebuilding operations in Africa in the last 25 years there is still a significant lack of cohesive strategy to target the key areas in the regeneration of a conflict-ridden country. An Afrocentric perspective is therefore a suitable starting point for research into the possible strategies for post-conflict peacebuilding. It is clear that a military approach to peace missions needs to include developmental, economic and governance support to ensure lasting stability and human security. And an army needs to be equipped and trained for these multiple roles that previously were regarded as secondary functions but are now priorities in peace mission involvement. The authors of this book consider the problems around the concept of 'post-conflict' and the blurring of military and civilian roles, analysing the UN roles in the DRC and Sierra Leone, as well as the African union mission in Burundi. The main context of the book, however, is the South African Army's strategy for PCRD in Africa, which has been developed with the African Union's 2006 Post-conflict, reconstruction and development needs assessment guide in mind. This book emanates from this plan. It therefore also explores South Africa's policy imperatives to integrate development projects and peace missions, involving the military as well as civilian organisations. While this book is not intended as an instruction manual, it hopes to ignite an understanding of the particular processes required to develop a sustainable and cohesive post-conflict peacebuilding strategy within the African environment.

Post-conflict Reconstruction and Development in Africa: Concepts, role-players, policy and practice

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Offering a contemporary perspective on military culture within Africa and with contributions from scholars and practitioners from around the world, this work presents the argument that African armed forces need to come to terms with the elements of military culture if they want to become more professional. To this end, the book first focuses on the theory of military culture, its implications for civil–military relations, and the role of the armed forces in society before examining a number of cases, from Canada, Australia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Namibia. This work ends with a detailed discussion of the South African military culture and an examination of its post-apartheid vision. In a post-colonial world, discussions about the role of the military are regarded with suspicion, but if the role of the modern soldier is to serve society as well as to fight war, then scholarship is needed to determine the military culture of the 21st century, and On Military Culture provides such an analysis.

On Military Culture: Theory, Practice and African Armed Forces

J.M. Coetzee’s screenplay versions of In the Heart of the Country and Waiting for the Barbarians are original and as yet unproduced cinematic adaptations of his novels. Apart from a few early lyric experiments, Coetzee’s literary career has almost exclusively been dedicated to prose forms such as the novel, the memoir and the essay, and it is mainly for his accomplishments in novelistic fiction that he has achieved world-wide recognition. For readers familiar with Coetzee’s writing career spanning more than 40 years, the screenplays, published for the first time in this volume, are thus an unusual and unexpected addition to the oeuvre. They show his versatility as a writer able to cross over into the medium of script writing and film, and doing so in a technically proficient and highly accomplished manner. Academic Herman Wittenberg has written an introduction to this collection, examining the difference in treatment between the screenplays and the novels, as well as Coetzee’s relationship with cinema and film-making. This work is the only one to be produced in 2014 by J. M. Coetzee and will be celebrated at a conference in Adelaide, Australia, to be held in December, focusing on Coetzee’s life work. Recommended for: Readers interested in JM Coetzee’s work, scholars of film and literary studies.

J.M. Coetzee: two screenplays: Waiting for the barbarians and in the heart of the country

Humor & Entertainment

COETZEE,J.M.

Movies

Taking Joseph Conrad's short story 'An Outpost of Progress' as its catalyst, this volume of essays brings to light some new and contradictory readings of Conrad's approach to Africa that will be of interest to Conrad specialists and students alike. Key scholars in the field of Conrad studies have contributed to this book. They consider the relationship between Conrad's works and Disgrace, by South Africa's leading novelist, J.M. Coetzee; compare the role of the reader in Conrad's narratives and the writing of Chinua Achebe; and consider postcolonial texts from Africa in their intertextuality with Conrad's fiction: works by Nuruddin Farah, Veronique Tadjo, Dambudzo Marechera, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Zakes Mda and Zoë Wicomb, among others. The book is organised largely into three themes: language, culture and history; writing and genre in Conrad's fiction; and how Conrad positions his readers, living at different times and in different parts of the world. The contributors also focus on the word 'progress' - as used by Conrad in 1897, by his contemporaries, and as it might be used today. This volume present readers with a range of issues that demonstrate the significance and relevance of Conrad's work in the twenty-first century and underscore his seminal contribution to modernism and his inalienable position within postcolonial literature.

Outposts of Progress: Joseph Conrad, Modernism and Post-Colonialism

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

This book arises out of the University of Cape Town’s Emerging Researcher Programme. It identifies and promotes awareness of contemporary challenges in the local and global higher education context; explains the intrinsic nature of academia worldwide; and provides strategies for individual growth that result in sustained, high-quality research output. It also addresses institutional leadership whose responsibility is to create an environment conducive to the flourishing of research and researchers.

Growing the Next Generation of Researchers: A Handbook for Emerging Researchers and Their Mentors

Education & Teaching

Holness, Lyn

Higher & Continuing Education

In Greek mythology, the chimera was a hybrid monster made up of the parts of different animals. Bats look like they have the body of a mouse, the face of a gargoyle or fox, and the wings of a pterosaur, giving rise to this book’s title. Evolution’s Chimera describes the amazing physical and behavioral adaptations of bats, using them to illustrate the processes of natural evolution. Bats comprise a quarter of all mammals in the world and are the only mammals that can fly. They occupy every landmass and almost every habitat on Earth, except for the Antarctic, and make up the second-most diverse group of mammals on the planet, numbering more than 1,270 species. They are therefore ideal for the study of how evolution generates the diversity that is the most outstanding characteristic of life.

Evolution's Chimera: Bats and the Marvel of Evolutionary Adaptation

Science & Math

JACOBS, David

Biological Sciences

First premiered in South Africa at the Grahamstown Festival in 1997, the play Ubu and the Truth Commission is being restaged around the world to mark the occasion of 20 years after the end of apartheid. Over its life it has become a set work in drama courses locally and internationally. The play is a collaboration between writer Jane Taylor, artist William Kentridge, and Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler of the Handspring Puppet Company, recently acclaimed for their play War Horse, which has toured the world. The script, together with a selection of William Kentridge’s drawings, and photographs taken from the performance showing the puppets and performers, brings together the powerful multimedia effects of the stage performance. And in this revised edition, the writer, director and puppeteers have added to their notes accompanying the play, reflecting on what the play means 20 years after it was first performed.

Restaging Ubu and the Truth Commission: 20 Years On

Taylor, Jane.

Dramas & Plays

In 1899 the South African War (also known as the Anglo-Boer War) broke out. As the war progressed, in London the upper-class Emily Hobhouse learned of the camps in southern Africa that contained mostly Boer women and children who had been displaced by the hostilities. By herself and on her own initiative, she travelled by ship to Cape Town, to begin the distribution of aid to these camps. Historian Rob Eales has put together this narrative of her time in South Africa, based on letters and diaries she left behind.These reveal that she travelled thousands of kilometres through the war and was appalled by the British army's tactic of clearing the land and herding hundreds of thousands of people into concentration camps, where the awful conditions put the lives of these 'refugees' at risk. She urged the local authorities to provide better care and support, but little changed. So she returned to Britain to plead that immediate action be taken. She was met by indifference from the government and vitriol from the press.This remarkable woman was on the wrong side of history. Her heroic mission could unwittingly have brought down the British government, and her story was smothered. In this book, through careful research, her courageous and inspirational work is once again brought to life.

The Compassionate Englishwoman: Emily Hobhouse in the Boer War

Eales, Robert

Community & Culture

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the University of Cape Town Press publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by University of Cape Town Press