idw - Informationsdienst
Wissenschaft
Prof. Dr. Terence Ranger (Emeritus Professor of African History, University of Oxford) spricht am Donnerstag, dem 26. Mai 2005, um 18.00 Uhr am Zentrum Moderner Orient zum Thema:
"Reclaiming the African City - the World and the Township"
(ZMO, Kirchweg 33, 14129 Berlin, Telefon 030 - 80 30 70, zmo@rz.hu-berlin.de)
Die Veranstaltung ist Teil der World-History-Vortragsreihe.
Professor Ranger will begin by reviewing new research projects and publications on the rise of cities in Africa in the 21st century. He will show that the new literature insists on the impact of globalisation on African cities; at the same time it also insists on the importance of the local, stressing a new African commitment to cities as homes and focussing on associational life as an index of urban civil society. Finally, the new literature suggests that contemporary African urban cultures can only be understood in the context of post-modernity and post-coloniality. As a social historian Professor Ranger welcomes these perspectives but will argue that they do not apply only to contemporary African urbanisation. They also constitute the best way to analyse colonial townships in the 20th century, which have too often been seen regionally rather than globally or locally. Colonial towns have also been seen as places of transit rather than of community, with no possibility of black urban civil society. Drawing on his research on the social history of Bulawayo, Professor Ranger will demonstrate the elements of globality and locality in colonial black urban communities. He will focus particularly on associational life. He will conclude that an understanding of Africa's 21st century cities and their relation with the world has to grow out of historical understanding of 20th century ones.
Terence Ranger is Emeritus Professor of African History in the University of Oxford. He has taught at universities in Africa, the United States and Britain. He has published 8 monographs, edited some 20 collections and written some 200 chapters and articles. These deal with resistance, religion, rural society, identity, landscape etc. He is currently writing a social history of the city of Bulawayo. To non-Africanists he is best known for the collection edited with Eric Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition, CUP, 1983.
http://www.zmo.de/veranstaltungen
Criteria of this press release:
History / archaeology, Law, Politics, Social studies
transregional, national
Miscellaneous scientific news/publications, Research results
English
You can combine search terms with and, or and/or not, e.g. Philo not logy.
You can use brackets to separate combinations from each other, e.g. (Philo not logy) or (Psycho and logy).
Coherent groups of words will be located as complete phrases if you put them into quotation marks, e.g. “Federal Republic of Germany”.
You can also use the advanced search without entering search terms. It will then follow the criteria you have selected (e.g. country or subject area).
If you have not selected any criteria in a given category, the entire category will be searched (e.g. all subject areas or all countries).