2115 Francis Scott Key
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
phone: 301-405-4291
fax: 301-314-9399
Email:plandau@umd.edu
website

           Dr. Landau is a historian of culture and politics in southern Africa. His recent book, Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400 to 1948 (Cambridge University Press, Nov. 2010), was shortlisted in Nov. 2011 for the Herskovits prize for best work in African studies for 2010. (His first book, The Realm of the Word: Language, Gender and Christianity in a Southern African Kingdom, was similarly shortlisted in 1996.) His recent work includes a chapter on the radicalism of 1918 for a history of the ANC’s newspaper, Abantu-Batho; and before that, a chapter called “Transformations in Consciousness,” for the Cambridge History of South Africa (2010). He is co-editor and part author of Images and Empires: Visuality in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa (Univ. of Cal., 2002), and coeditor of the African Historical Review (Pretoria). Since 2011, he has also been a Fellow in Historical Studies at the University of Johannesburg.

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Current Projects:
I am currently writing about five critical years, 1960-4, in South Africa. My preliminary research has resulted in an article in the main journal of South African history on the even of the 100th anniversary on the African National Congress, “The ANC, MK, and the Turn to Violence in South Africa, 1960–62.” In it, I write about Mandela, Sisulu, Kotane, Lutuli, Slovo, Rusty Bernstein, Ben Turok, Govan Mbeki, and lesser known figures such as Fred Carneson, Looksmart Ngudle, “Squire” Makgothi, and Flag Boshielo, many of the seminal figures of modern South African history. My work over the next two years will consist of locating and interviewing participants in the politics, planning, and sabotage campaigns of this short period.