Science in South Africa

How did scientific activity originate in South Africa?

South African-born professor of history at Sussex University, Saul Dubow, will answer this question in a series of lectures to be held in Gauteng, the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal this week.

The lecture series is hosted by the Academy­ of Science of South Africa.

Dubow is interested in the relationship between science and South African society over two centuries of colonial and post-colonial rule. He traces the development of scientific traditions in the 19th-century Cape and links this to efforts to create a sense of indigenous white colonial identity.

In the first decades of the 20th century he shows how Jan Smuts and others looked to scientific discoveries—such as the fossils found at Taung and at Sterkfontein—to develop a tradition of Anglo-Afrikaner South Africanism tied to the British Commonwealth.

In the post-1948 period he traces the way in which science and technology were captured by the apartheid government in pursuit of techno-nationalist white supremacy. In the contemporary moment, Dubow is concerned with the role of science and scientific institutions such as the Academy of Sciences: he suggests that science may be able to help advance the new South Africa in ways that promote reasoned debate and a culture of tolerant civic nationalism­.

Dubow has authored numerous articles and books. One of his published books focuses on a major study of the development of early institutionalised science and scientific knowledge in South Africa and is titled A Commonwealth of Learning: Science, Sensibility and White South Africa.

For more information about the lectures, phone Simon Rambau on 012 843 6486 or email simon@assaf.org.za or contact Ntsheu Mangena at 012 843 6488, email ntsheu@assaf.org.za