Tag Archives: South Africa

Paul Landau Discusses the End of Apartheid in South Africa

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In the last Washington History Seminar for the semester, Paul S. Landau, historian at the University of Maryland, will discuss “South Africa and the End of Apartheid” on Monday, May 2, 2011 at 4:00 pm at the Wilson Center.

Upon his release from prison, Nelson Mandela led the crowd in a rousing chant of the old resistance phrase, “Come Back Africa.” Now, twenty years later, we may begin to ask what kind of Africa is coming back. The question can be addressed by looking beyond the struggle of the African National Congress to focus on ordinary people’s mobilizations in the past. A history of generational conflict, chiefship, and trans-ethnic solidarity continues to be felt in the present.

Paul S. Landau teaches history at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400–1948 (2010), and The Realm of the Word (1995). His current research focuses on the turn to violence in the 1960s in the history of the struggle against Apartheid.

To watch a video presentation of this seminar, please click here.

 

Reservations are requested because of limited seating.  To reserve a seat at the seminar, contact Miriam Cunningham at 202-544-2422 ext 103.  The seminar takes place at the Wilson Center, located in the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW (Federal Triangle Metro stop).

This is the last seminar for the semester.  The series will begin again Monday, September 12, 2011. Please check back with the Center to see the schedule.

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center (an initiative of the American Historical Association) and the Wilson Center and facilitates the understanding of contemporary affairs in light of historical knowledge of all times and places, and from multiple perspectives Click for the Spring 2011 schedule and topics, as well as links to videos of past presentations. The seminar is grateful for the support given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

Trudy Huskamp Peterson Discusses Archives After Conflict

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When a country emerges from conflict, citizens demand that perpetrators be held accountable for past violations of human rights; that the governmental system be reformed to prevent a future recurrence of past repressive practices; that the truth be told about what really happened, both in personal terms (such as learning the fate of a loved one) and in terms of how the society came to be what it was; and that reparation be made for the moral and material losses suffered during the period of oppression. Archives are essential to meet these demands.  At the next Washington History Seminar on Monday, January 31, 2011, Certified Archivist Trudy Huskamp Peterson will discuss examples of using archives for accountability in countries around the world, in her presentation entitled “Unfinished Business: Archives after Conflict in Guatemala, Sierra Leone, and South Africa.”  

Click here to see the video of her presentation.

Trudy Huskamp Peterson, a former Acting Archivist of the United States, is presently the chair of the Human Rights Working Group of the International Council on Archives. She advised the police archives in Guatemala, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, among others. Her books, Final Acts: Preserving the Records of Truth Commissions (2005), and Temporary Courts, Permanent Records (2008), were published by the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Reservations are requested because of limited seating.  To reserve a seat at the seminar, contact Miriam Cunningham at 202-544-2422 ext 103.  The seminar takes place at the Wilson Center, located in the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW (Federal Triangle Metro stop).

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center (an initiative of the American Historical Association) and the Wilson Center and facilitates the understanding of contemporary affairs in light of historical knowledge of all times and places, and from multiple perspectives Click for the Spring 2011 schedule and topics, as well as links to videos of past presentations. The seminar is grateful for the support given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.