This course introduces students to the history of apartheid in South Africa. We will examine the cultural, social, economic, and political factors that created and sustained this oppressive and unequal system, paying attention to land alienation, profound cultural changes, constructions of races, ethnicities, and sexualities, and myriad forms of racial and gendered oppression. We will explore the diverse ways people resisted this racist order, what factors led to its collapse, as well as experiments in transitional justice and the legacies of apartheid in South Africa today.
