Art in South Africa - Essay Example

Abdulhadi Aldossari WD-#3-Essay Proposal AFRI 222 African Cultural Traditions (Time your meets) Haas Art in South Africa Preliminary Research Plan South African art mainly describes the creative outputs of the people living in South Africa. This research will focus on art in South Africa during the Mfecane and apartheid periods. The art of these periods helped in the rise of dominant ethnic groups, the dispersal of other tribes into other countries, and the rise of resistance movements that aimed at ending apartheid in the country (Afolayan 88).

The ethnic communities the research intends to cover are the Zulu and the Nguni that lived in the country at the beginning of the nineteenth century; moreover, the activities of the more aggressive Zulu community during the middle of the same century will be also analyzed (Harlow 55). The information acquired through this research will be shared with the black community in the South African ghettos for the purpose of reminding them of their fight for freedom and peace. It will be shared through community projects that will aim at fostering peaceful relations among the black communities living in Soweto and other ghettos in the country.

The information will be vital in promoting their peaceful coexistence and their eventual prosperity.Research Focus The aspects of the topic that will be interesting for the research are resistant literature, the period’s poems, and dances performed by the Zulu and the Nguni communities. This will be carried out in an effort to determine their influence in the fight for freedom and equality among the different races in the country (Harlow 98). The literature, poems, and dances were previously written and performed in the native languages though this changed in the early twentieth century when some of them were translated into English.

Their translations led to the exile of many writers and performers in the country who had been accused by the white’s regime of influencing the black communities into war. During the Mfecane period, many tribes and the Nguni among them were pushed from the country by the Zulu who had become increasingly aggressive. These events are expounded on well by their literature, poems, and their dances which have been documented for future generations (Singh 228). Researching these three issues will help in providing insight into how their literature has affected the current literature and how it helped them in their struggle for liberty.

The poems provided by poets like Miriam Tlali and Mothobi Mutloatse who were from the two tribes greatly helped in influencing events like the 1960 Sharpeville which raised the awareness of black suffering (Chandler 47). Their works touched upon the theme of black consciousness; thus, they will be helpful in the research providing more information concerning the period’s activities. Their themes were developed due to the political oppression that the black community was encountering. On the other hand, the role of the community’s dances was vital in educating, entertaining, and raising the political awareness of their members bringing social changes.

Their dances were responsible for depicting some of the brutalities that they encountered in addition to influencing their fighting spirit against the white community for equal rights (Singh 232). Finally, resistance literature from the two communities has been influential in transforming the country by describing how the wars of the period were organized and won. This literature has enabled the fight against apartheid to be won and has been documented in the works of writers like Peter Abrahams and Alex La Guma (Harlow 116).

Works CitedAfolayan, Funso. Culture and Customs of South Africa. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004. Print.Chandler, Robin M. “Visual Culture and Public Memory in a Democratic South Africa: History after Apartheid.” African Studies Review 47.3 (2004): 228+. Web. 26 Oct. 2012.Harlow, Barbara. Resistance Literature. Villanova University Online. http://www19.homepage.villanova.edu/silvia.nagyzekmi/postcol/harlow%20resistance%20literature.pdf. Web. 26 Oct. 2012.Singh, Jaspal K.

Trauma, Resistance, Reconstruction in Post-1994 South African Writing. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. Print.