Emerging in the late nineteenth century and gaining currency in the 1930s and 1940s, Afrikaner nationalist fervour underpinned the establishment of white Afrikaner political and cultural domination during South Africa's apartheid years. Focusing on manifestations of Afrikaner nationalism in paintings, sculptures, monuments, buildings, cartoons, photographs, illustrations and exhibitions, Troubling Images offers a critical account of the role of art and visual culture in the construction of a unified Afrikaner imaginary, which helped secure hegemonic claims to the nation-state. This insightful volume examines the implications of metaphors and styles deployed in visual culture, and considers how the design, production, collecting and commissioning of objects, images and architecture were informed by Afrikaner nationalist imperatives and ideals. While some chapters focus only on instances of adherence to Afrikaner nationalism, others consider articulations of dissent and criticism. By 'troubling' these images: looking at them, teasing out their meanings, and connecting them to a political and social project that still has a major impact on the present moment, the authors engage with the ways in which an Afrikaner nationalist inheritance is understood and negotiated in contemporary South Africa. They examine the management of its material effects in contemporary art, in archives, the commemorative landscape and the built environment. Troubling Images adds to current debates about the histories and ideological underpinnings of nationalism and is particularly relevant in the current context of globalism and diaspora, resurgent nationalisms and calls for decolonisation.

"In this touching, disturbing and meticulously researched play, each vulgar and bullying witticism reinforces the indoctrinating brutality with which young, susceptible minds were beaten into submission. Each word is like a razor wire pulled across the soul." --Leon van Nierop, "Artslink" "Somewhere on the Border "was written by Anthony Akerman while in exile more than two decades ago. The play was intercepted in the post and banned as a publication by the apartheid censors because the language was considered "offensive" and the portrayal of the South African Armed Forces "prejudicial to the safety of the state." This publication of a one-act version of the play brings the South African Border War back into public discourse and pierces through the armour of silence, secrecy, and shame that still surrounds it. The script is complemented by an author's preface and an afterword by historian Gary Baines, as well as photographs of its 2011 production.

South Africa's 'Border War' provides a timely study of the 'war of words' waged by retired South African Defence Force (SADF) generals and other veterans against critics and detractors. The book explores the impact of the 'Border War' on South African culture and society during apartheid and in the new dispensation and discusses the lasting legacy or 'afterlife' of the war in great detail. It also offers an appraisal of the secondary literature of the 'Border War', supplemented by archival research, interviews and an analysis of articles, newspaper reports, reviews and blogs. Adopting a genuinely multidisciplinary approach that borrows from the study of history, literature, visual culture, memory, politics and international relations, South Africa's 'Border War' is an important volume for anyone interested in the study of war and memory or the modern history of South Africa.

""This is one of the best books to have emerged from South African musicology in the last decadeIt opens up a new level of discourse about music during the apartheid era: a level on which the theoretical, the ethical, the historical and the aesthetic play against each other in newly meaningful ways.""
--Roger Parker, Cambridge University (UK)

""Composing Apartheid endeavors to trace the relationships between names, concepts and realities as they variously interacted, and continue to interact, on the musical landscape, and it does so as historically and socially responsible scholarship.""
--Grant Olwage, from the Introduction

"Composing Apartheid" is the first book ever to chart the musical world of a notorious period in world history, apartheid South Africa. It explores how music was produced through, and was productive of, key features of apartheid's social and political topography. The collection of essays is intentionally broad, and, the contributors include historians, sociologists, and anthropologists, as well as ethnomusicologists, music theorists, and historical musicologists.

The essays focus on a variety of music (jazz, music in the Western art tradition, popular music), major composers (such as Kevin Volans) and works (Handel's "Messiah"). Musical institutions and previously little-researched performers (such as the African National Congress's troupe-in-exile Amandla) are explored. The writers move well beyond their subject matter, intervening in debates on race, historiography, and postcolonial epistemologies and pedagogies.

This book includes contributions by Lara Allen, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; Gary Baines, Rhodes University (South Africa); Ingrid Byerly, Duke University; Christopher Cockburn, University of KwaZulu-Natal; David Coplan, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (South Africa); Michael Drewett, Rhodes University; Shirli Gilbert, University of Southampton; Bennetta Jules-Rosette, University of California, San Diego; Christine Lucia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; Carol A. Muller, University of Pennsylvania; Stephanus Muller, University of Stellenbosch (South Africa); Brett Pyper, New York University; and Martin Scherzinger, Princeton University.

"Grant Olwage" is a senior lecturer at the School of Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Awakened by great shouted oaths below. Peeped over the side of the manger and saw a Belgian lass milking and addressing a cow with a comprehensive luridness that left no doubt in my mind that British soldiers had been billeted here before.' Private Norman Ellison, 1/6th King's Liverpool Regiment Humour helped the British soldier survive the terrible experiences they faced in the trenches of the Western Front during the Great War. Human beings are complicated, and there is no set pattern as to how they react to the outrageous stresses of war. But humour, often dark and representative of the horrors around them could and often did help. They may have been up to their knees in mud and blood, soaking wet and shot at from all sides, but many were still determined to see the funny side', rather than surrender to utter misery. Peter Hart and Gary Bain have delved deep into the archives to find examples of the soldier's wit. The results are at times hilarious but rooted in tragedy. You have to laugh or cry.

How does South Africa deal with public art from its years of colonialism and apartheid? How do new monuments address fraught histories and commemorate heroes of the struggle? Across South Africa, statues commemorating figures such as Cecil Rhodes have provoked heated protests, while new works commemorating icons of the liberation struggle have also sometimes proved contentious. In this lively volume, Kim Miller, Brenda Schmahmann and an international group of contributors explore how works in the public domain in South Africa serve as a forum in which important debates about race, gender, identity and nationhood play out. Examining statues and memorials as well as performance, billboards, and other temporal modes of communication, the authors of these essays consider the implications of not only the exposure, but also erasure of events and icons from the public domain. Revealing how public visual expressions articulate histories and memories, they explore how such works may serve as a forum in which tensions surrounding race, gender, identity, or nationhood play out.

How does South Africa deal with public art from its years of colonialism and apartheid? How do new monuments address fraught histories and commemorate heroes of the struggle? Across South Africa, statues commemorating figures such as Cecil Rhodes have provoked heated protests, while new works commemorating icons of the liberation struggle have also sometimes proved contentious. In this lively volume, Kim Miller, Brenda Schmahmann and an international group of contributors explore how works in the public domain in South Africa serve as a forum in which important debates about race, gender, identity and nationhood play out. Examining statues and memorials as well as performance, billboards, and other temporal modes of communication, the authors of these essays consider the implications of not only the exposure, but also erasure of events and icons from the public domain. Revealing how public visual expressions articulate histories and memories, they explore how such works may serve as a forum in which tensions surrounding race, gender, identity, or nationhood play out.

South Africa's 'Border War' provides a timely study of the 'war of words' waged by retired South African Defence Force (SADF) generals and other veterans against critics and detractors. The book explores the impact of the 'Border War' on South African culture and society during apartheid and in the new dispensation and discusses the lasting legacy or 'afterlife' of the war in great detail. It also offers an appraisal of the secondary literature of the 'Border War', supplemented by archival research, interviews and an analysis of articles, newspaper reports, reviews and blogs. Adopting a genuinely multidisciplinary approach that borrows from the study of history, literature, visual culture, memory, politics and international relations, South Africa's 'Border War' is an important volume for anyone interested in the study of war and memory or the modern history of South Africa.