Institutions of Public Culture
2001-2002 Fellows
Research Fellows
Valmont Layne (District Six Museum, Cape Town) has been Sound Archivist at the District Six Museum since 1997, after helping to establish the archive and its active program in oral and musical history. Layne has done research on the history of popular music in Cape Town and written on jazz performance and the music industry. While at Emory, he examined tensions inherent in the process of developing an archive by writing an account of the District Six archives, Reflexivity and Engagement in the Growth of a Public Archive. He also collaborated with the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution. Spring semester
Peter Merrington (Department of English, University of the Western Cape) worked on Public Culture: Heritage, Pageantry, Narrative, and Time. This project traces the formation of a sense of public culture in South Africa in the early twentieth century by analyzing mass public performances, the development of national cultural institutions, and the role of imaginative literature in the propagation of public culture, identity, heritage and civil values. In historicizing the concept of cultural or national "heritage," Merrington also relates the South African material to parallel developments in other colonies or dominions within the British Commonwealth. Merrington has won awards both for creative writing and for his critical essays. Fall Semester.
Ciraj Rassool (History Dept., University of the Western Cape; District Six Museum Board) devoted his time at Emory to reflecting analytically and writing on the changing nature of historical practice in South Africa in the 1990s and 2000s. His project, Public Scholarship and the Rituals of Historical Practice Beyond the Academy, includes explorations of how the resistance movement has been historicized and the connections among political biography, resistance history, and public pasts. The biographies and representations of nationalist leader I.B. Tabata and Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first president, will provide specific cases through which to identify and analyze these issues. Along with Leslie Witz, Rassool coordinates the Post-Graduate Diploma in Museum and Heritage Studies. Spring semester
Leslie Witz (History Dept., University of the Western Cape) examined how festivals in the new South Africa have attempted to constitute a new nation with new histories, including festivals focused on political events, sporting occasions, and cultural activities. This project, Festivals and the Making of National Pasts, follows up on his important work on historical contests in the 1952 Jan Van Riebeeck Festival and the role that festival played in the development of apartheid. Witz has been leader of the Project on Public Pasts and received an award for innovative teaching at the University of the Western Cape. With Ciraj Rassool, he also coordinates the Post-Graduate Diploma in Museum and Heritage Studies. Spring semester
Student Fellows
Luvuyo Dondolo (Phaphamani Heritage Consultantacy; M.A. student in Public and Visual History, University of the Western Cape) has participated in a number of research projects on the social history and heritage of Cape Town, including the Guguletu Project, the District Six Museum, and the Project on Public Pasts. He also developed an exhibition called Langa Histories at Guga S'thebe, a community center in Langa, Cape Town, as part of the 2000 Cape Town One City Festival. To further his research work, he formed the Phaphamani Heritage Consultancy with Vuyani Booi in 2000. Together, they have conducted research and training for the South African Heritage Resources Agency, the Robben Island Museum, and the Cape Peninsula National Park, including Qunu and Mvezo historical research for conservation of the Nelson Mandela Heritage Trail. Originally from Queenstown, in the Eastern Cape, Dondolo is currently completing an M.A. thesis that addresses the constructions of public history in Cape Town's townships by studying routes, sites and heritage. Dondolo did his summer internship at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
Helen Joannides (M.A. student in Heritage Studies, University of the Witwatersrand) is particularly interested in the educational aspects of Heritage Studies. After completing her B.A. (Honours) in history at University of Cape Town, she taught English as a Foreign Language in Cape Town and in Poland. She has also been involved in a number of children's projects and workshops, including the creative arts workshop for street children at the Twilight Centre in Hillbrow. Joannides' internship included consultations with museum educators and exhibition evaluators both at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. and at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, followed by an extended period working with the Education Department at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia.
Josiah Mhute (National Mining Museum, Kwekwe, Zimbabwe) has curated a number of exhibitions in Zimbabwe, including Mining, Men and the Camera in Colonial Zimbabwe and Of Land and Peasants in Zimbabwe. He recently completed an M.A. thesis (Public and Visual History, University of the Western Cape) entitled Downcast: Mining, Social Landscapes and Visual Representation in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-1930. The thesis considers a range of visual representations of colonial mining, including depictions of landscape, labor, gender, and the personal album of a mineworker. Mhute has worked at the National Mining Museum for the past ten years and is currently Curator of Mining. Mhute spent his summer internship period at the Anacostia Museum in Washington, D.C.
CSPS Home | About CSPS | CSPS at Emory | Institutions of Public Culture: Cape Town-Atlanta | Programs and Opportunities | Calendar | Museums and Global Public Spheres | Sites of Interest | Contacts | Institute of Liberal Arts | Emory University |