About the Author:
Sabine Marschall, Dr.Phil. (1992) in History of Art, Eberhardt-Karls Universität Tübingen, is Associate Professor and programme director of Cultural and Heritage Tourism at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. She has published extensively on South African art, architecture, cultural heritage and commemoration.
Review:
'Marschall, program director of Cultural and Heritage Tourism at the University of KwaZulu-Natal,
critically examines South Africa's official attempts to reshape its commemorative landscape in the
postapartheid era through projects such as the Hector Pieterson Memorial, Constitution Hill, the
Sharpeville Massacre Memorial, Freedom Park, and the National Women's Monument. According to
Marschall, what makes the effort to reconstitute the heritage sector unique "is the systematic,
self-conscious, deliberate, and methodical manner in which new monuments engage with the legacy of
the past." In particular, postapartheid heritage development has focused on the production of memorials
that symbolize the liberation struggle against apartheid, colonialism, and racism in general. Designed to
promote nation building and reconciliation, many of these projects, according to Marschall, have instead
exposed the political fractures in postapartheid society. Nonetheless, South Africa has largely avoided the
tendency to sanitize or romanticize its heritage and has instead made an earnest effort "to come to terms
with previously denied, neglected or shameful aspects of [its] past." Summing Up: Recommended.
Upper-division undergraduates and above'.
J. O. Gump, University of San Diego, Reviewed in 2010nov CHOICE.
'This book is an in-depth, masterful analysis and discussion of the landscape of memorialisation and commemoration in South Africa in the two decades since the end of Apartheid. For her analysis Marschall draws on a variety of sources including interviews and statements by government and heritage officials, marketing material, feedback from the public as well as the analysis of the symbolism and physical form of numerous South African monuments and memorials from both a local and international perspective. While much of this discussion has been presented in article form elsewhere, this book brings all aspects of the project together in a dense, multi-layered volume that addresses the political and socially contentious nature of South Africa's memory landscape as well as the potential that such memorialisation offers for nation-building and reconciliation'.
Natalie Swanepoel, University of South Africa, in 'African Studies Quarterly', Volume 13, Issue 3, Summer 2012
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