Thembisa Waetjen
| Research: I am interested in politics of gender and culture, and the way they inform debates about modernity and national identity. My book, Workers and Warriors: Masculinity and the Struggle for Nation in South Africa, explored these themes in the case of Inkatha during the 1980s. More currently, I am working on two projects which highlight the role of civic organizations in shaping ideas about modernity and communitarian identity in segregated Durban. With my colleague Goolam Vahed, have edited a series of letters between Ahmed Kathrada and Zuleikha Mayat (1979-1989) and completing a history of the "Women's Cultural Group" of Durban. |  |
| Teaching: I teach a first year Internet Studies course called "News Media and the Internet Society", which charts the political roles played by the printed newspaper prior to the internet era, and then explore the ways in which these functions are being changed by the proliferation of publishing forms available on the internet. The other first year course I teach is called "Empires of the Modern World", which explores the way that imperialism has shaped the world we live in, both locally and globally. It is structured around key concepts that help track social change (gender, labour, culture) which inform various case studies, and considers the relationship between individual agency and social structure in making history. Before coming to UKZN, my teaching was in Feminist Studies and in Sociology, with courses such as Political Sociology, Development studies, Feminist Theory, Social Inequalities, Sociology of the Body, and Deviance and Social Control. I have also taught in the pre-First Year "Access" programmes both at UKZN and at University of Oregon, with courses in African and U.S. History. |
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| waetjent1@ukzn.ac.za |