Grappling With The Beast

This volume contributes rich, new material to provide insights into indigenous responses to the colonial empires of Great Britain (South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe (Rhodesia)) and Germany (Namibia) and explore the complex intellectual, cultural, literary, and political borders and identities that emerged across these spaces. Contributors include distinguished global scholars in the field as well as exciting young scholars. The essays link global-national-local forces in history by analysing how indigenous elites not only interacted with colonial empires to absorb, adapt and re-cast new ideas, forms of discourse, and social formations, but also networked with ordinary people to forge new social, ethnic, and political identities and viable social forces. Translated and other primary texts in appendices add to the insights.

The spread of Christianity is often told as a story of conquest, of powerful European missionaries waging a cultural assault on hapless indigenous victims. Yet the presence of indigenous men among missionary ranks in the nineteenth century complicates these narratives. What compelled these individuals to embrace Christianity? How did they reconcile being both Christian and indigenous in an age of empire? Tolly Bradford finds answers to these questions in the lives and legacies of Henry Budd, a Cree missionary from western Canada, and Tiyo Soga, a Xhosa missionary from southern Africa. Inspired by both faith and family, these men found in Christianity a way to construct a modern conception of indigeneity, one informed by their ties to Britain and rooted in land and language, rather than religion and lifestyle. Prophetic Identities portrays indigenous missionaries not as victims of colonialism but rather as people who made conscious, difficult choices about their spirituality, identity, and relationship with the British colonial world.

This much-awaited volume uncovers the long-lost pages of the major African multilingual newspaper, Abantu-Batho. Founded in 1912 by African National Congress (ANC) convenor Pixley Seme, with assistance from the Swazi Queen, it was published up until 1931, attracting the cream of African politicians, journalists and poets Mqhayi, Nontsisi Mgqweth, and Grendon. In its pages burning issues of the day were articulated alongside cultural by-ways. The People's Paper - comprising both essays and an anthology - explores the complex movements and individuals that emerged in the almost twenty years of its publication. The essays contribute rich, new material to provide clearer insights into South African politics and intellectual life. The anthology unveils a judicious selection of never-before published columns from the paper spanning every year of its life and drawn from repositories on three continents. Abantu-Batho had a regional and international focus, and by examining all these dynamics across boundaries and disciplines, The People's Paper transcends established historiographical frontiers to fill a lacuna that scholars have long lamented.

This book makes a very significant, timely and relevant contribution to a very topical subject of immense local as well as global interest. Through tracing the evolution of media discourse about race and racism, which the author prefers to call ‘race talk’, the writer prised open a window to a panoramic, variegated and yet nuanced perspective of the perennial South African race question etched across the vistas of time and memory since Jan Van Riebeeck set up the first European settlement as a refreshment station for the Dutch East India Company, at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 up to the time of writing this book. It lends a fresh lens through which to re-read South African society, not only to a studious scholar of media history but also to anybody interested in the general history of South Africa. - Dr Zvenyika Mugari, WITS This book is based on meticulous archival searching, presented in a new, fresh and highly engaging way. This is a book based on evidentiary-led scholarly principles that has lucidity as a goal. Unlike so many scholarly works which are turgid and very difficult to read because they are written in restricted codes meant only for other academics, this manuscript is wonderfully lucid, accessible and a pleasure to read. The prime readership will be academics but its lucidity makes it appealing beyond a purely academic readership, hopefully reaching media professionals and students also and influencing debates on race policy. This is how academic books, in fact, should be written. - Prof Keyan Tomaselli, University of Johannesburg The author has embarked on a very difficult and complex task of understanding the race construct in the South African media context. This is a highly contested and contentious space in South Africa and it is particularly arduous for a “white, middle-class, middle-aged, Afrikaans male” to navigate this space. The author has however eloquently managed to pilot this fine line of controversy. He offers a balanced view of the belligerent debate without treading insensitively on the toes of protagonists and at the same time challenges prevailing views. - André Rose, National Cancer Institute

This volume explores the formative and expressive dynamics of Khoesan identity during a crucial period of incorporation as an underclass into Cape colonial society. Khoesan and Imperial Citizenship in Nineteenth Century South Africa emphasises loyalism and subjecthood – posited as imperial citizenship – as foundational aspects of Khoesan resistance to the debilitating effects of settler colonialism. The work argues that Khoesan were active in the creation of their identity as imperial citizens and that expressions of loyalty to the British Crown were reflective of a political and civic consciousness that transcended their racially defined place in Cape colonial society. Following a chronological trajectory from the mid-1790s to the late 1850s, author Jared McDonald examines the combined influences of colonial law, evangelical-humanitarianism, imperial commissions of inquiry, and the abolition of slavery as conduits for the notion of imperial citizenship. As histories and legacies of colonialism come under increasing scrutiny, the history of the Khoesan during this period highlights the complex nature of power and its imposition, and the myriad, nuanced ways in which the oppressed react, resist, and engage. This book will be of interest to scholars and students working on British imperialism in Africa, as well as histories of settler colonialism, nationalism, and loyalism.

This volume presents new research and critical debates in African book history, and brings together a range of disciplinary perspectives by leading scholars in the subject. It includes case studies from across Africa, ranging from third-century manuscript traditions to twenty-first century internet communications.

Among world's three major philosophic traditions, Chinese philosophy excels in ethical discourse. As a collective wisdom on a par with Aristotle's 'Ethics' and Kant's 'Critique of Practical Reason', Chinese philosophy now needs to be systematized and developed. Today, Chinese philosophy per se has often been reduced to the historical approach to it, hence its slower development in comparison with European and Indian philosophies. The author of this book avails himself of Kant's model of human psychic structure, synthesizes the basic elements of Chinese philosophy into a rigorous theoretical framework, and presents a panoptic view of the edifice of traditional Chinese philosophy.

Despite the remarkable growth of Christianity in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in the twentieth century, there is a dearth of primary material produced by these Christians. This volume explores the problem of writing the history of indigenous Christian communities in the Global South. Many such indigenous Christian groups pass along knowledge orally, and colonial forces have often not deemed their ideas and activities worth preserving. In some instances, documentation from these communities has been destroyed by people or nature. Highlighting the creative solutions that historians have found to this problem, the essays in this volume detail the strategies employed in discerning the perspectives, ideas, activities, motives, and agency of indigenous Christians. The contributors approach the problem on a case-by-case basis, acknowledging the impact of diverse geographical, cultural, political, and ecclesiastical factors. This volume will inspire historians of World Christianity to critically interrogate—and imaginatively use—existing Western and indigenous documentary material in writing the history of Christianity in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume include J. J. Carney, Adrian Hermann, Paul Kollman, Kenneth Mills, Esther Mombo, Mrinalini Sebastian, Christopher Vecsey, Haruko Nawata Ward, and Yanna Yannakakis.