Neil Roos
Biographic Data
| ID | 3827717 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Neil Roos |
| GIVEN NAMES | Neil |
| FAMILY NAME | Roos |
| SIGNATURE | ROOS N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Free State |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8457-2150 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1975 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society
Notes from the University of the Free State
Through an ethnographic telling of a curriculum reform project, this short contribution seeks to elucidate developments in the Department of History at the University of the Free State in South Africa. It touches on questions of transformation – both demographic and intellectual, what historical knowledge is valued, decolonization and international engagement, and it ends with some prognoses for the future
Political and Intellectual Lineages of Southern African Anti-Fascism
The article is the introduction to a special issue of the South African Historical Journal on anti-fascism. It starts by explaining the contemporary relevance of the subject. It then places Southern Africa within the contemporary historiographical debates on anti-fascism. The article provides a broad overview of the history of the anti-fascist political ideas and practice within the region. It examines in detail both the impact of ‘historical’ an…
Contemporary African history in unusual times
Initially, we envisaged that this editorial essay would focus on history-writing in the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. In particular, we hoped to examine how that self-proclaimed moment of technological evangelism raises questions about the future of society and whether, paradoxically, the study of the past might provide a beacon, a pilot light, to navigate these unknown places. Tapping into the 1923 debates between biochemist John Burdo…
Journal preface
This is another pandemic issue of the Southern Journal for Contemporary History (SJCH). In the last issue, we carried an editorial essay on the forms that history-writing might take under the shadow of the global Covid-19 pandemic – new questions, new collaborations, new methodologies. In this issue, we have had to contend with the pandemic on another level. Varying regimes of lockdown, re-organising of academic calendars and online learning have…
Profile
Damilola Adebayo is a historian on the rise. With a recent PhD from Cambridge, he began his scholarly journey at the University of Ibadan, followed by an MA in Geneva. And with an interest in histories of infrastructure, he stakes his place on the frontiers not only of African history but other historiographies too. Coming out of the directions championed by the African Economic History Network (AEHN), his doctoral thesis was titled “A socioecono…
Journal preface
Recently the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) produced a consensus report on the standing, and the editorial policies and practices of historical journals published in South Africa, including our predecessor, the Journal for Contemporary History. The findings and recommendations of this report, to be published soon on the ASSAf website, vindicate the decision that we took last year to introduce our editorial changes at one go, rather th…
South African History and Subaltern Historiography
In considering how “radical” histories of ordinary whites under apartheid might be written, this essay engages with several traditions of historical scholarship “from” and “of” below. For three decades, Marxist-inspired social history dominated radical historiography in South Africa. It has, however, proved little able to nurture historiography of whites that is politically engaged and acknowledges post-Marxist currents in the discipline. I advoc…
Alcohol Panic, Social Engineering, and Some Reflections on the Management of Whites in Early Apartheid Society, 1948–1960
The connection between ideologies of nation, alcohol abuse, and social engineering have not received systematic attention from historians. This article offers a case-study from the history of apartheid South Africa. Working around a fragment of apartheid history, a bureaucratic panic that excessive white drinking threatened the stability of the racial order, it explores geneaologies of state responses to white drinking in South Africa. It then co…
John Bottomley, 1953–2011
I met John Bottomley in January 1993 when I began working in the History Department at UNIBO (University of Bophuthatswana) in Mafikeng. Or rather, John met me. On my first day, he came and introdu
Work colonies and South African historiography
Work colonies were a feature of South Africa's cultural landscape for about seventy years from the 1890s, but have been little studied.1 Their emergence was due to the growing visibility of white p
The Springbok and the Skunk
This article draws on oral and written sources to explore the wartime and post-war \nexperiences of white South African men who volunteered to serve in the Second World War. \nBy examining the meaning of war service for these men, I argue that their history offers a \ncritical perspective of the production of popular whiteness in mid-twentieth-century South \nAfrica. The act of volunteering created a sense of entitlement among these men and, for …
Ordinary Springboks
Preface Bullsheet and brass tacks White men and racial boundaries in pre-war South Africa Big words and little stories White servicemen and the army education scheme Trade union of the ranks: the springbok legion and social justice The Helwan riot and the beginning of white ex-servicemen's disillusionment 'Jannie promises,' white veterans and the struggle for social justice The rise and fall of the torch Beyond the politics of whiteness: the spri…
We Need Some Knowledge of Detail to Chuck Out the Rubbish”
Adolph jentsch en die suidwes-afrikaanse landskap
Work colonies and South African historiography
Work colonies were a feature of South Africa's cultural landscape for about seventy years from the 1890s, but have been little studied.1 Their emergence was due to the growing visibility of white p
South African History and Subaltern Historiography
In considering how “radical” histories of ordinary whites under apartheid might be written, this essay engages with several traditions of historical scholarship “from” and “of” below. For three decades, Marxist-inspired social history dominated radical historiography in South Africa. It has, however, proved little able to nurture historiography of whites that is politically engaged and acknowledges post-Marxist currents in the discipline. I advoc…
Alcohol Panic, Social Engineering, and Some Reflections on the Management of Whites in Early Apartheid Society, 1948–1960
The connection between ideologies of nation, alcohol abuse, and social engineering have not received systematic attention from historians. This article offers a case-study from the history of apartheid South Africa. Working around a fragment of apartheid history, a bureaucratic panic that excessive white drinking threatened the stability of the racial order, it explores geneaologies of state responses to white drinking in South Africa. It then co…
The Springbok and the Skunk
This article draws on oral and written sources to explore the wartime and post-war \nexperiences of white South African men who volunteered to serve in the Second World War. \nBy examining the meaning of war service for these men, I argue that their history offers a \ncritical perspective of the production of popular whiteness in mid-twentieth-century South \nAfrica. The act of volunteering created a sense of entitlement among these men and, for …
Adolph jentsch en die suidwes-afrikaanse landskap
We Need Some Knowledge of Detail to Chuck Out the Rubbish”
Ordinary Springboks
Preface Bullsheet and brass tacks White men and racial boundaries in pre-war South Africa Big words and little stories White servicemen and the army education scheme Trade union of the ranks: the springbok legion and social justice The Helwan riot and the beginning of white ex-servicemen's disillusionment 'Jannie promises,' white veterans and the struggle for social justice The rise and fall of the torch Beyond the politics of whiteness: the spri…
The Springbok and the Skunk
This article draws on oral and written sources to explore the wartime and post-war \nexperiences of white South African men who volunteered to serve in the Second World War. \nBy examining the meaning of war service for these men, I argue that their history offers a \ncritical perspective of the production of popular whiteness in mid-twentieth-century South \nAfrica. The act of volunteering created a sense of entitlement among these men and, for …
Work colonies and South African historiography
Work colonies were a feature of South Africa's cultural landscape for about seventy years from the 1890s, but have been little studied.1 Their emergence was due to the growing visibility of white p
John Bottomley, 1953–2011
I met John Bottomley in January 1993 when I began working in the History Department at UNIBO (University of Bophuthatswana) in Mafikeng. Or rather, John met me. On my first day, he came and introdu
Alcohol Panic, Social Engineering, and Some Reflections on the Management of Whites in Early Apartheid Society, 1948–1960
The connection between ideologies of nation, alcohol abuse, and social engineering have not received systematic attention from historians. This article offers a case-study from the history of apartheid South Africa. Working around a fragment of apartheid history, a bureaucratic panic that excessive white drinking threatened the stability of the racial order, it explores geneaologies of state responses to white drinking in South Africa. It then co…
South African History and Subaltern Historiography
In considering how “radical” histories of ordinary whites under apartheid might be written, this essay engages with several traditions of historical scholarship “from” and “of” below. For three decades, Marxist-inspired social history dominated radical historiography in South Africa. It has, however, proved little able to nurture historiography of whites that is politically engaged and acknowledges post-Marxist currents in the discipline. I advoc…
Contemporary African history in unusual times
Initially, we envisaged that this editorial essay would focus on history-writing in the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. In particular, we hoped to examine how that self-proclaimed moment of technological evangelism raises questions about the future of society and whether, paradoxically, the study of the past might provide a beacon, a pilot light, to navigate these unknown places. Tapping into the 1923 debates between biochemist John Burdo…
Journal preface
This is another pandemic issue of the Southern Journal for Contemporary History (SJCH). In the last issue, we carried an editorial essay on the forms that history-writing might take under the shadow of the global Covid-19 pandemic – new questions, new collaborations, new methodologies. In this issue, we have had to contend with the pandemic on another level. Varying regimes of lockdown, re-organising of academic calendars and online learning have…
Profile
Damilola Adebayo is a historian on the rise. With a recent PhD from Cambridge, he began his scholarly journey at the University of Ibadan, followed by an MA in Geneva. And with an interest in histories of infrastructure, he stakes his place on the frontiers not only of African history but other historiographies too. Coming out of the directions championed by the African Economic History Network (AEHN), his doctoral thesis was titled “A socioecono…
Journal preface
Recently the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) produced a consensus report on the standing, and the editorial policies and practices of historical journals published in South Africa, including our predecessor, the Journal for Contemporary History. The findings and recommendations of this report, to be published soon on the ASSAf website, vindicate the decision that we took last year to introduce our editorial changes at one go, rather th…
Notes from the University of the Free State
Through an ethnographic telling of a curriculum reform project, this short contribution seeks to elucidate developments in the Department of History at the University of the Free State in South Africa. It touches on questions of transformation – both demographic and intellectual, what historical knowledge is valued, decolonization and international engagement, and it ends with some prognoses for the future
Political and Intellectual Lineages of Southern African Anti-Fascism
The article is the introduction to a special issue of the South African Historical Journal on anti-fascism. It starts by explaining the contemporary relevance of the subject. It then places Southern Africa within the contemporary historiographical debates on anti-fascism. The article provides a broad overview of the history of the anti-fascist political ideas and practice within the region. It examines in detail both the impact of ‘historical’ an…
Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society
History (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · South African History and Culture (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · History (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · African history and culture studies (4 works) · Gender Studies (4 works) · Law (4 works)