Cape Radicals: Intellectual and political thought of the New Era Fellowship, 1930s-1960s

The New Era Fellowship (NEF) was a radical group of intellectuals who founded the New Era Fellowship, which shaped human rights precedents and social justice policy in South Africa. They challenged prevailing political narratives and race-based premises, playing a vital role in challenging society's responses to events such as the Second World War and the Hertzog Bills. Their significance has been overlooked but Crain Soudien shows how they were at the forefront of redefining the debate about social difference in a racially divided society.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 232 pages
Publication date: 01 June 2019
Publisher: Wits University Press

The New Era Fellowship (NEF) was a radical group of intellectuals who founded the New Era Fellowship, which shaped human rights precedents and social justice policy in South Africa. In 1937, a group of young Capetonians, socialist intellectuals from the Workers' Party of South Africa, embarked on a project to disrupt and challenge prevailing political narratives and the premises on which they were based. The NEF played a vital role in challenging society's responses to events such as the Second World War, the Hertzog Bills, and apartheid. In subsequent narratives of liberation, their significance has been overlooked, even disparaged, and has never been fully understood and acknowledged. By shining a contemporary light on the NEF and locating its contribution in current sociological and political discourse, educationist Crain Soudien shows how its members were at the forefront of redefining the debate about social difference in a racially divided society.

Weight: 394g
Dimension: 221 x 118 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781776143177