The Bachelor of Arts (Three years full-time) - For further information please contact the Administrator for the School of Humanities and Education on: 011 380 9057 or the Assistant Registrar (undergraduate) on: 011 380 9012.

To complete an application form please click here to download one.

This Degree is offered in 2010 and has received accreditation by the CHE.

Research consistently demonstrates that leaders in all sectors of society—government, business, legal, medical, educational and others—have a solid intellectual grounding in the liberal arts, especially the humanities. This degree incorporates classical elements in the study of the humanities: literature, history, economics, philosophy, political science and communication/cultural studies.

The distinctive feature of the St Augustine degree—what makes it different—is the integration of three emphases critical for the learner to succeed not only in the South African context but in the global one as well. First, the degree centres on the African context in the exploration of the liberal arts disciplines. The second is Graduates will possess the cultural fluency necessary to function and lead the multicultural society that is not only South Africa’s hallmark, but also that of the global context. The third is the imparting of ethically-based leadership abilities critical to capacity building in all sectors.

In addition to enabling BA students to take subjects listed under our other Bachelor offerings, such as Economics, Philosophy, Ethics (all offered within the BCom), Theology, Spirituality, or Church History (offered within the BTh, there are a number of modules offered within the BA which are listed here.

LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

LITR101 SELF-AWARENESS IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

This module aims to introduce learners to several nineteenth- and twentieth- century novels and poems and a Shakespeare tragedy. It also seeks to encourage learners to see how literature identifies crises of identity in characters and demonstrates possible ways in which they are resolved or in which resolution becomes impossible.

Students will engage the following content and themes: the role of literature in the humanities; moral complexity in English and North American texts; identity and self-awareness in English and North American texts. Selected texts from British and North American contexts will be read and analysed.

LITR102 SELF-AWARENESS IN AFRICAN LITERATURE

This module seeks to introduce learners to African novels, short stories, poems and plays; to understand the ways in which African literature has either confirmed or subverted dominant accounts of African identities at various stages in African history including the present; and to explore how literature illustrates the range of African diversity and the ways in which people from different parts of Africa have learned to understand themselves.

Students will engage the following content and themes: African literature written in the English language; society and time in the context of African English-language texts; moral complexity in African literature; identity and self-awareness in African literature. Reading and analysis will consider African texts written in English.

LITR201 AWARENESS OF OTHERS IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

This module seeks to introduce learners to poetry drawn from the early modern period and to expand learners’ reading of British and American literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century and two more Shakespeare plays, to encourage learners to recognise how in the plays and novels characters deal with different understandings of themselves through their encounter with unfamiliar situations or aspects of themselves of which they had been previously unaware and how to trace the consequences of such encounters, and to encourage learners to recognise how poets often attempt to give expression to unfamiliar experiences, unexpected insights and newly acquired beliefs.

The module’s content considers the following themes: how a sense of others develops from the early modern period through to the twentieth century; voyages and the various manifestations of imperialism; creating the other through the religious divisions of the Reformation; Romanticism’s recognition of multiple selves; awareness of class differences; religious scepticism and an awareness of different selves.

LITR202 AWARENESS OF OTHERS IN AFRICAN LITERATURE

This module aims to further learners’ exposure to and reading of colonial and post-colonial African literature with poems, short stories and novels supplementing first year; to help learners see how selected texts show a variety of ways in which a sense of the other is constructed in African literature. More specifically the module aims to enable learners to discover how works of literature take for granted cosmologies that are unfamiliar to them; to enable them to recognize the different perspectives from which people of different backgrounds may regard a similar situation; to introduce learners to works that show how the new societies created by decolonization, independence or democracy demanded new responses from outsiders and insiders alike.

The module’s content considers the following themes: how African literature shows certain common features in African cultures and societies but also registers considerable diversity; different ways in which African literature represents both African traditional religion and imported religions like Christianity; how colonial or settler racism alienates people of colour; different ways in which African literature regards the pre-colonial past, appropriates or rejects foreign cultures, anticipates a post-colonial world and confronts postcolonial successes and failures.

LITR301 LITERARY THEORY

This module aims to introduce learners to the main themes in classical and contemporary literary theory and their importance for understanding better the texts we have considered. It also seeks to enable learners to understand the different ways in which literature and its value have been debated over the centuries and to enable learners to understand how literary theory involves discussions of idealism, realism and representation and what authority literature possesses in establishing our sense of morality.

The module’s content considers the following themes: the concept of mimesis and why Plato’s mimesis is different from Aristotle’s; Renaissance neo-Platonism and how Sidney and Shakespeare respond to it; Romantic ideas of the poet and poetry; Victorian and African ideas on the moral purpose of literature; Feminism, Structuralism, Deconstruction, Post-Modernism and Post-Colonialism.

LITR311 TRAGEDY IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

This module aims to enable learners to understand the literary concept of tragedy. It also seeks to enable learners to examine various tragedies from Ancient Greece and the English Renaissance as well as more recent plays and novels from both Western and African contexts, as well as have learners consider what various tragic texts, widely separated by space and time, have in common and whether the tragic vision is a universal concept or whether it is contingent on religious beliefs and social circumstances.

The module’s content considers the following themes: tragedy and the Greeks; modern and contemporary tragedy; tragedy and simple pessimism. Learners will also read and discuss examples of the tragic form in African texts.

LITR321 LITERATURE IN FAITH AND SCEPTICISM

This module seeks to introduce learners to the tradition of English religious poetry that can be traced from medieval English lyrics to the so-called Metaphysical poets of the sixteenth century and to consider how these poems address Christology and Marian devotions and key concepts such as the Incarnation and the Atonement. It also aims to introduce learners to the development of scepticism in nineteenth-century literature; to introduce learners to the tensions of more recent and contemporary literature where works of religious doubt and the works affirming of faith occur contemporaneously; and to introduce learners to the literary representation of religion from non-Christian cultures.

Learners will consider the following content and themes: traditions of English religious poetry from the Medieval English lyrics to the so-called Metaphysical poets of the sixteenth century; religious poetry and Christian theological concepts; the rise of scepticism in literature in the 19th century; literature and the affirmation of faith in the 19th and 20th centuries; and religion in the literature of non-Christian cultures.

LITR302 WOMEN’S VOICES IN LITERATURE

Although since the sixteenth century women have contributed substantially to British literature only in the nineteenth century did works authored by women become part of the British and American canon. In most canonical texts of European, American and African literature women are only occasionally allowed to speak with any authority. This module therefore has the following aims: to introduce texts to learners in which women insist on their right to speak, confidently set their own agenda and sometimes register their subordination; to introduce and engage male-authored texts which show how women’s voices have been represented and perhaps distorted; and to establish whether when women do write they provide a different perspective to that of their male contemporaries.

This module has the following content: a historical survey of contributions of women authors to English Language literature; women speaking with authority; representations of others by authors (especially gender); women’s literature in Africa.

LITR312 RELIGION IN AFRICAN LITERATURE

Because classical African Literature in English and French was written during the period of decolonization and the early independence of the new African nations the political dimensions of such literature are often emphasized and their spiritual dimensions are ignored. In fact most African novels and dramas refer extensively to Christianity, Islam or African Traditional religion. With this in mind, this module aims to see how central religion and religious references are to African Literature.
 
Learners will consider the following content: the background and context to African literature, namely decolonization and early independence; religion and spirituality in African Literature; and the intersection of the political and religious spheres in African literature in English.

HISTORY

HIST101 AFRICA IN WORLD HISTORY

This module aims to introduce students to a macrohistorical narrative, by centering the story of the African continent and its people in a global context.

A such, the learner will consider the following content: Africa in pre-history; African Civilization in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean; Early Ethiopian Christian societies; Sub-Saharan civilization centers (Ghana/Mali, Islamic expansion, Swahili Kingdoms, Kongo, Gr. Zimbabwe); Africa and Globalization, I (Comparative colonial and imperial networks); Africa and Globalization, II (African diasporal communities); Decolonization and the Exhaustion of Empire (the end of colonial consensus and origins of the African Nation state, 1940-1960; Postcolonial Africa (1960-1994); Africa in contemporary world context (Africa as “8th civilization”, African engagement with China, the African Union and democracy).

HIST102 TOPICS IN SOUTHERN AFRICAN HISTORY

This module seeks to introduce students to selected regional themes in the historical development of the southern part of the African continent; to enable students to appreciate social, cultural and economic forces as critical to a historical narrative as political ones.

The learner will engage the following content:
1. Pre-colonial considerations (introducing archaeological and anthropological extrapolatory historical methods):
a. Great Zimbabwe;
  b. The Nguni Diaspora;
  c. Khoi-San Civilization;
2. Colonization(s): from gardens to gold:
  a. Settlement vs. Extraction colonial arrangements: Comparative European colonial structures;
  b. Interaction, conflict and cooperation.
3. Migrations and Motivations:
  a. Environmental motivations (the Difecane);
  b. Political/Economic (the Groot Trek; Khoi-San into the Kalahari;
  c. Movement and Conflict.
4. Industrialization, Mining and Resistance:
  a. Industrialization and the formation of working class(es) in Southern Africa;
  b. The Mission Schools as incubators of resistance;
  c. Solidarity and Regional movements: ANC and others;
5. Decolonization(s): of states, of minds, of economies.

HIST201 THE STUDY OF HISTORY: AN INTRODUCTION

The module will explore the nature and use of history, the meaning of historical mindedness, basic reading and communication skills, and institutional expectations for studying this discipline.

Thus the learner will engage the following content and skills development:
1. Thinking historically:
  Why history is important. Causality and context. Continuity and change.
2. Reading historically:
  The Library: mastering and harnessing sources of information. Reading to understand; discerning theses and biases, and following arguments; statistics and their interpretation; the internet as resource.
3. Writing historically:
  The book review as a means of understanding argument. Understanding the differences among primary, secondary and tertiary sources; oral History (history in preliterate and post-literate societies); interpretation, generalization, classification of evidence and writing the history essay.
4. History as a craft:
  The popular uses of history. History and memory: the difference. History as a civic tool, and as a tool of critique. Historiography, and history’s service to the humanities (the interdisciplinary role history can play).

HIST202 HISTORY OF THE ATLANTIC WORLD: 1500-1835

This module seeks to provide an alternative framework for understanding European colonialism by emphasizing a regional frame of reference for historical processes; also to consider non-state emphases (social and cultural history) in the analysis of the past.

The learner will study the following content: The Renaissance and the justification of colonialism; Prester John, the New World and the challenges to European Social thought; European non-elites and the making of New World societies; the Columbian Exchange, modern slavery and the making of the Atlantic capitalism; the Atlantic society in Latin America and indigenous American resistance;  the Atlantic economy and the destabilization of West Africa; the imposition of a racial and class order in Atlantic colonial societies; the (African and European) social roots of political reform: slavery and freedom in the British North American colonies; the social roots of the French Revolution; Western political revolution, African style (the revolution in Haiti); Creole society and revolution in Latin America; the end of British slavery and the beginnings of the Atlantic industrial economy.

HIST301 ORAL HISTORY METHODS AND APPROACHES

This module seeks to introduce students to the theory and methodological approaches of oral history; to show how this methodology has opened up prior historical debates, particularly those based on literary textual sources; and to show how this approach gives voice to peoples, societies and communities who have been marginalized in the historical record because of their limited documentary production.

As such, the learner will consider the following content: introducing Oral History; Memory and Non-literary Evidence; Theory and Method; Ethics and legal matters in this methodology; Advocacy, Empowerment and Public Preservation.

HIST302 HISTORY AND FILM

It is important for students to understand that history and popular memory is not the same thing. This is powerfully demonstrated in the medium of popular films. Thus this module will show how this medium helps to shape popular memory, and in turn is shaped by popular memory. It will also show the intersections between history properly constructed and popular memory.

The leaner will engage the following themes and illustrative films:
1. The biopic: How history is constructed from the point of view of the present, and who gets to tell another’s story:
  a. The story of Stephen Biko: Cry Freedom and Donald Woods;
  b. Patrice Lumumba, the United Nations and the independence of the DRC: Lumumba and the debates in the New York Review of Books.
2. The Spirit of the Ages: epochs vs. epics:
  a. Henry Fift, 1944 (Lawrence Olivier, director): World War II Britain;
  b. Henry V, 1989 (Kenneth Branaugh): Britain under Margaret Thatcher.
3. Film Making History: The Feature Film as Propaganda:
  a. Casablanca: the contested understanding of 1930s and 1940s;
  b. Hero (Ying Xiong), 2002: Parallel themes of Imperial, Maoist and Contemporary China.
4. Representation of historical events: the feature film as journalism:
  a. The Battle of Algiers (1965);
  b. Z (Costa-Gavras, director).