 | Professor William Beinart
Rhodes Professor of Race Relations, University of Oxford; Professorial Fellow, St Antony’s College (H10) History and politics of southern Africa, especially the rural Eastern Cape; environmental history and the politics of conservation
William Beinart has been Rhodes Professor of Race Relations at the University of Oxford since 1997. The post was established in the 1950s with a particular focus on southern African. He formerly taught at the University of Bristol (1983-1997). He was born and did his undergraduate work, in Cape Town before completing a masters and doctoral degree at the University of London (1979). He has remained fascinated by South African history, politics and society and this continues to form an important part of his research, teaching and supervision. This includes detailed studies of rural African communities, as well as a general history of the country (Twentieth-Century South Africa, 2001). In recent years, he has focussed on environmental history, both in southern Africa and beyond. He published Environment and Empire, co-authored with Lotte Hughes, in 2007 and is currently completing a book, with Luvuyo Wotshela on the history of a plant, prickly pear, in South Africa. He has recently received a grant to write a history of wildlife films and literature on Africa. At Oxford, he was Director of the African Studies Centre, 2002-6 and chair of the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies (parts of 2006-8). He is currently president of the African Studies Association of the UK. He is strongly committed to the expansion of African Studies, both in the University and beyond. The British Academy has initiated some innovative partnership programmes with African institutions in recent years and he hopes to facilitate these connections |
