Presenter: Glenn Moss
The Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) in the Institute of Social and Economic Research, in partnership with the Departments of Economics, Sociology, History, and Political & International Studies, invites you to the second seminar in a new inter-departmental Labour Studies Seminar Series.
Glenn Moss was a student leader at the University of the Witwatersrand in the 1970s, which was a time when a new radical challenge to apartheid emerged that directly challenged the economic foundations of the apartheid system. The voices of people like Steve Biko, Neville Curtis and Rick Turner – all three of whom were banned in 1973, and two of whom were killed by the apartheid police – helped to frame a complex emergent challenge from the campuses of South African universities that shifted the parameters of student politics. Initiatives such as the Wages Commissions and the Industrial Aid Society linked student activists directly to worker struggles, and contributed to a resurgence of the labour movement. Glenn’s book on that time – entitled “The New Radicals: A Generational Memoir of the 1970s” – provides a richly layered and engaging account of that time, drawing narrative strength from his own participation in many of the events he describes. A former editor of “Work in Progress” and the “South African Review”, as well as head of Ravan Press, Glenn Moss provides an important perspective on the currents that helped to shape opposition to apartheid and the rise of the labour movement. Glenn’s seminar will focus on the complex interface between student and worker politics in the 1970s.
