On Dialectical Reading: Marx@Marikana
This year’s Global Lecture discusses the ways in which Marx's pamphlet 'The Civil War in France' can throw new light on the understanding of the Marikana massacre.
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The 2015 UiB Global Lecture
John Higgins
Professor, University of Cape Town
In 2012, at a place called Marikana in South Africa, 34 mine workers on strike were shot to death by the police. Many other were wounded. The police was instrumental in bringing the strikers down. Later it has been shown that the responsibility goes to the top of politics. South Africa is still shocked by this event and a court case is ongoing about placing responsibility.
This year’s Global Lecture discusses the ways in which Marx's pamphlet 'The Civil War in France' can throw new light on the understanding of the Marikana massacre, at the same time as the understanding of Marikana challenges orthodox interpretations of Marx's famous pamphlet. Such simultaneous re-reading presents an example of 'dialectical' reading in action.
John Higgins holds the Arderne Chair in Literature at the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Cape Town. He was elected a Fellow of UCT in 2003, a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2009, and a Fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study in 2011.
His monograph Raymond Williams: Literature, Marxism and Cultural Materialism (Routledge 1999) won both the Altron National Book Award and the UCT Book Prize; and Blackwell published his Raymond Williams Reader in 2001. He was founding editor of the influential journal, Pretexts: literary and cultural studies (1989-2003), and was granted an Award of Excellence by The Cape Tercentenary Foundation for his services to literature and culture in South Africa in 2000.
His main research interests are in contemporary literary and cultural theory, and debates in and around the politics of higher education. Academic Freedom in a Democratic South Africa was published by Wits University Press in 2013, and Bucknell University Press in 2014. He has several times been a Visiting Professor at Columbia University in New York and at the International University in Germany, as well as at the Universities of Johannesburg, Wits and UNITRAN.
He is currently participating in the Council on Higher Education’s 20 year review of higher education in South Africa. He is a regular contributor on higher education matters to the Mail and Guardian and the Times Higher Education Supplement as well as an occasional reviewer of thrillers for the Cape Times.
Research Interests: Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory; Raymond Williams; Marx and C20 Marxism; Psychoanalysis and Cultural Theory; Avant-Garde Writing and Representation; Film Theory and Analysis; Literature from C18 to Present Day; Academic Freedom and Higher Education Policy.
The lecture is open to all!
