ASRC 2515

Freedom Struggles in Southern Africa

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2024-2025.

This course will examine southern African definitions of freedom and methods and tactics used in the fight for freedom. It will investigate how different thinkers defined political and personal freedom and how they pursued it, paying careful attention to changing definitions and practices over time, and to the specificity of the southern African region, long a site of global and regional exchange. The course will consider major figures like Nelson Mandela but will also explore lesser-known histories of women's freedom struggles and grassroots and community movements to define a free society. It will emphasize the plurality and diversity of southern African theorizations of freedom. The course will engage with historiographical debates in the field of 'liberation histories', and will use diverse primary source materials, including trial documents, memoirs, political speeches and tracts, and novels.

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