University of Cape Town

This course examines the foundational issues of academic art history. How and where did the study of art history begin, and what were its founding principles? The course considers art history's origins in the late 19th century and traces how it has changed in the course of the succeeding century and into the contemporary period. Students examine debates over issues of aesthetic quality, questions of the relationship between art and society, and questions of the art-historical canon and its exclusions. The core theme is art history as a subject of academic study, but this inevitably links to broader issues of how art is taught within the art school and how art is exhibited within the museum.

This course consists of two components: lectures on qualitative and quantitative research methods and research groups to engage in research exercises (from developing a research proposal to conducting pilot and/or main studies). The options vary from year to year and focus on a variety of contemporary South African themes which are linked to substantive topics covered in the second semester. The lectures provide an introductory course in research methods to equip students to conduct their research exercises. The research group meetings deal with substantive, methodological and theoretical issues related to the research proposal and offer personal supervision for research exercises.

This course explores the history of economic thought beginning with Adam Smith’s defense of market society at the start of the industrial revolution and Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism. It includes debates over socialist and development planning, the rise of development economics in the colonial and post-colonial context, and debates over the role of finance in shaping growth and inequality. The relationship between state, market, and society is a central theme – as is the contemporary relevance of economic thought for Africa. Additional lenses are also given to theories developed around African economic development and their linkages with other continents and development theories. Assessment: coursework (50%) and a final exam (50%).

This course examines the symbiotic relationship between power and wealth. Part I explores power, how it is produced, the way it works, and its relationship with inequality; Part II examines the production and circulation of wealth through the lens of economic anthropology; Part III focuses on neoliberalism through an anthropological critique of colonization and development. The course includes a short ethnographic project.