Transnational South Africa: Apartheid and the Global Anti-Apartheid Movement

Catalog description

By the 1980s, people around the world were protesting South Africa's apartheid policies, through demonstrations, sit-ins, concerts, and educational campaigns. This pressure helped precipitate - though did not entirely cause - apartheid's collapse. This seminar explores how and why the anti-apartheid cause became a worldwide social movement. To answer this question, we will first study what apartheid meant and how it was experienced, and then consider how South Africans explained this system to audiences abroad. Given that both the apartheid government and its opponents fought to win over world public opinion to their side, we will examine their strategies, including their media, books, art, and lobbying. We will also address Ithaca and Cornell's long history of anti-apartheid activism, including by using archival materials in Cornell's archives. (HIST-HGS)