David Coplan
Biographic Data
| ID | 644884 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Coplan |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Coplan |
| SIGNATURE | COPLAN D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Witwatersrand |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
A Long Way Home: Migrant worker worlds 1800–2014
Notes on new and old world African drumming: Just playing it like you mean it is not playing
Certainly the most lasting impression I brought home from my "hippie summer" of 1968 in Berkeley, California was of those fierce conga drum ensembles that gathered almost daily in lower Sproul Plaza. Then, as now, there was great variation in the quality of the playing. On one set of benches sat a motley crew of drum thumpers, banging away without Time; sound and fury signifying egotism and indiscipline. At a deliberate distance sat another ensem…
Community acceptability of minimally invasive autopsy (MIA) in children under five years of age in Soweto, South Africa
This interdisciplinary study, using qualitative and ethnographic research methods, collected data from 330 men and women in Soweto, South Africa, in order to understand the community acceptability of minimally invasive autopsy (MIA) in children who died under five years of age. The study found that the acceptability of MIAs depended on people’s socio-cultural belief systems regarding death and afterlife; on power and gender dynamics within househ…
What did I almost say: Divining Werbner
Comment on Werbner, Richard. 2015. Divination's grasp: African encounters with the almost said. Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Obituary: Patrick Allan Lifford Harries (1950-2016)
Introduction: From empiricism to theory in African border studies
This special issue represents a small milestone in the crossing of Africa into the sovereign territory of border studies. In June 2007, a first step in this direction was taken at the workshop on “African Borderlands Research: Emerging Agendas and Critical Reflections” at the African Studies Centre of the University of Edinburgh. There, the “African Borderland Research Network” ABORNE (www.aborne.org) was founded by fifteen participants as an int…
Association for Africanist Anthropology
South Africa, Republic of
The JVC & Smithsonian Folkways Video Anthology of Music and Dance of Africa
Musics
Homeland 2: A Collection of Black South African Music
The Praises of Dingana (Izibongo Zikadingana)
Iscathamiya: Zulu Workers Choirs in South Africa
The Venanda Lovely Boys: Bo-Tata
Noise Khanyile: The Art of Noise
Retying the Blood Knot: Fugard on Broadway
(1987). RETYING THE BLOOD KNOT: FUGARD ON BROADWAY. South African Theatre Journal: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 114-117
Come to Laugh: African Traditional Theatre in Ghana
Performance, Self-Definition, and Social Experience in the Oral Poetry of Sotho Migrant Mineworkers
Attempts to further the study of popular culture in Africa face the difficulty of defining “popular” as distinct from traditional or folk culture on the one hand, and elite or dominant culture on the other. The features that emerge most often from the discussion of these distinctions center on the relative degree of separation between performers and audiences, and on change from gemeinschaft to gesellschaft as a basis for social interaction (Bigs…
Theatre review: Poppie nongena in New York
With its final performance on 3 May at the off-Broadway Douglas Fairbanks Theatre on West 42nd Street, The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena ended in New York. Though the show had been packing the house for weeks, the management complained that most tickets were sold at low package-tour or subscription rates, so that the revenues did not match expenses. Once again the economics of New York theatre deprived an enthusiastic audience of a powerful and …
The development of African drama
Teachers and students who wish to practice the arts of African theatre as well as analyse its performances and texts wili welcome Michael Etherton's The development of African Drama. Written specifically to enhance theatre arts programmes in African universities, the book maintains a straightforward, demystifying style that should be a boon to teachers in Britain and America as well as Anglophone Africa. General readers may wish to pass over sect…
The urbanisation of African music: Some Theoretical Observations
Interest in the processes of change involved in the transformation of rural African recreational music into popular music under urban conditions has grown substantially over the past decade (see Nettl 1978; Mukuna 1980). This interest has largely focused on two complementary problem areas: what such change can tell us about the principles and dynamics of musical development, and what processes of musical change may reveal about human behaviour (s…
Explorations in African Systems of Thought
Explorations in African Systems of Thought examines the problems currently faced by researchers in the analysis of systems of belief in African societies. In contrast to the prevailing emphasis on the analysis of partial systems of thought, such as witchcraft beliefs or spirit possession, the present collection of thirteen original essays stresses a more broadly analytic approach that relates the study of African systems of thought to other aspec…
The African musician and the development of the Johannesburg entertainment industry, 1900-1960
This study is primarily concerned with the music and musicians of a selfconsciously urban community: Africans who were of Johannesburg and not merely in it. Its purposes are, firstly, to explore the role of certain forms of cultural expression in the emergence of urban African identity and social order, and secondly, to outline the nature of the conflict between the African performing community and white commercial and political agencies over con…
The urbanisation of African music: Some Theoretical Observations
Interest in the processes of change involved in the transformation of rural African recreational music into popular music under urban conditions has grown substantially over the past decade (see Nettl 1978; Mukuna 1980). This interest has largely focused on two complementary problem areas: what such change can tell us about the principles and dynamics of musical development, and what processes of musical change may reveal about human behaviour (s…
The African musician and the development of the Johannesburg entertainment industry, 1900-1960
This study is primarily concerned with the music and musicians of a selfconsciously urban community: Africans who were of Johannesburg and not merely in it. Its purposes are, firstly, to explore the role of certain forms of cultural expression in the emergence of urban African identity and social order, and secondly, to outline the nature of the conflict between the African performing community and white commercial and political agencies over con…
Performance, Self-Definition, and Social Experience in the Oral Poetry of Sotho Migrant Mineworkers
Attempts to further the study of popular culture in Africa face the difficulty of defining “popular” as distinct from traditional or folk culture on the one hand, and elite or dominant culture on the other. The features that emerge most often from the discussion of these distinctions center on the relative degree of separation between performers and audiences, and on change from gemeinschaft to gesellschaft as a basis for social interaction (Bigs…
Introduction: From empiricism to theory in African border studies
This special issue represents a small milestone in the crossing of Africa into the sovereign territory of border studies. In June 2007, a first step in this direction was taken at the workshop on “African Borderlands Research: Emerging Agendas and Critical Reflections” at the African Studies Centre of the University of Edinburgh. There, the “African Borderland Research Network” ABORNE (www.aborne.org) was founded by fifteen participants as an int…
What did I almost say: Divining Werbner
Comment on Werbner, Richard. 2015. Divination's grasp: African encounters with the almost said. Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Obituary: Patrick Allan Lifford Harries (1950-2016)
Homeland 2: A Collection of Black South African Music
The African musician and the development of the Johannesburg entertainment industry, 1900-1960
This study is primarily concerned with the music and musicians of a selfconsciously urban community: Africans who were of Johannesburg and not merely in it. Its purposes are, firstly, to explore the role of certain forms of cultural expression in the emergence of urban African identity and social order, and secondly, to outline the nature of the conflict between the African performing community and white commercial and political agencies over con…
The urbanisation of African music: Some Theoretical Observations
Interest in the processes of change involved in the transformation of rural African recreational music into popular music under urban conditions has grown substantially over the past decade (see Nettl 1978; Mukuna 1980). This interest has largely focused on two complementary problem areas: what such change can tell us about the principles and dynamics of musical development, and what processes of musical change may reveal about human behaviour (s…
Explorations in African Systems of Thought
Explorations in African Systems of Thought examines the problems currently faced by researchers in the analysis of systems of belief in African societies. In contrast to the prevailing emphasis on the analysis of partial systems of thought, such as witchcraft beliefs or spirit possession, the present collection of thirteen original essays stresses a more broadly analytic approach that relates the study of African systems of thought to other aspec…
Theatre review: Poppie nongena in New York
With its final performance on 3 May at the off-Broadway Douglas Fairbanks Theatre on West 42nd Street, The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena ended in New York. Though the show had been packing the house for weeks, the management complained that most tickets were sold at low package-tour or subscription rates, so that the revenues did not match expenses. Once again the economics of New York theatre deprived an enthusiastic audience of a powerful and …
The development of African drama
Teachers and students who wish to practice the arts of African theatre as well as analyse its performances and texts wili welcome Michael Etherton's The development of African Drama. Written specifically to enhance theatre arts programmes in African universities, the book maintains a straightforward, demystifying style that should be a boon to teachers in Britain and America as well as Anglophone Africa. General readers may wish to pass over sect…
Come to Laugh: African Traditional Theatre in Ghana
Performance, Self-Definition, and Social Experience in the Oral Poetry of Sotho Migrant Mineworkers
Attempts to further the study of popular culture in Africa face the difficulty of defining “popular” as distinct from traditional or folk culture on the one hand, and elite or dominant culture on the other. The features that emerge most often from the discussion of these distinctions center on the relative degree of separation between performers and audiences, and on change from gemeinschaft to gesellschaft as a basis for social interaction (Bigs…
Retying the Blood Knot: Fugard on Broadway
(1987). RETYING THE BLOOD KNOT: FUGARD ON BROADWAY. South African Theatre Journal: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 114-117
The Praises of Dingana (Izibongo Zikadingana)
Iscathamiya: Zulu Workers Choirs in South Africa
The Venanda Lovely Boys: Bo-Tata
Noise Khanyile: The Art of Noise
Homeland 2: A Collection of Black South African Music
Musics
The JVC & Smithsonian Folkways Video Anthology of Music and Dance of Africa
South Africa, Republic of
Association for Africanist Anthropology
Introduction: From empiricism to theory in African border studies
This special issue represents a small milestone in the crossing of Africa into the sovereign territory of border studies. In June 2007, a first step in this direction was taken at the workshop on “African Borderlands Research: Emerging Agendas and Critical Reflections” at the African Studies Centre of the University of Edinburgh. There, the “African Borderland Research Network” ABORNE (www.aborne.org) was founded by fifteen participants as an int…
What did I almost say: Divining Werbner
Comment on Werbner, Richard. 2015. Divination's grasp: African encounters with the almost said. Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Obituary: Patrick Allan Lifford Harries (1950-2016)
A Long Way Home: Migrant worker worlds 1800–2014
Notes on new and old world African drumming: Just playing it like you mean it is not playing
Certainly the most lasting impression I brought home from my "hippie summer" of 1968 in Berkeley, California was of those fierce conga drum ensembles that gathered almost daily in lower Sproul Plaza. Then, as now, there was great variation in the quality of the playing. On one set of benches sat a motley crew of drum thumpers, banging away without Time; sound and fury signifying egotism and indiscipline. At a deliberate distance sat another ensem…
Community acceptability of minimally invasive autopsy (MIA) in children under five years of age in Soweto, South Africa
This interdisciplinary study, using qualitative and ethnographic research methods, collected data from 330 men and women in Soweto, South Africa, in order to understand the community acceptability of minimally invasive autopsy (MIA) in children who died under five years of age. The study found that the acceptability of MIAs depended on people’s socio-cultural belief systems regarding death and afterlife; on power and gender dynamics within househ…
Art (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · History (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Geography (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Music History and Culture (5 works) · Visual arts (5 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · African history and culture studies (3 works)