Abstract
University presses are often said to lie between the ‘cathedral’ and the ‘market’.1 What this means is that they have to balance the symbolic capital of knowledge production and the economic capital of commercial viability, to use Bourdieusian terms.2 South Africa’s four university presses now find themselves in this position, but historically they were not: cushioned by subventions, they did not compete with commercial publishers, and, at the same time, their role was more supportive and service-oriented than acquisitive or interventionist. In addition, the balance was complicated by a third pressure, which assumed overwhelming significance in this country: the political. The motivation of those opposing apartheid was neither profit nor prestige, but activism for the purpose of political change — a significant difference.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Archival sources University of KwaZulu-Natal Archives
Response to the Report of the 1988 Review Committee. Unpublished memorandum of University of Natal Press, tabled 27 March 1990. No file number.
Archival sources Wits University Archives (WUA)
Advertisement for WUP, 1990. No file number.
Annual Report of Wits University Press. 1981. S81/135.
Annual Report of Wits University Press. 1982. S83/240.
Correspondence of P. Freer to the Registrar. 23 August 1944.
Correspondence of H. R. Raikes to the Secretary of OUP, 1941. No file number.
Correspondence of Hans Zell to J. L. Sandrock, Publications Assistant. 14 June 1982. No file number.
Hutchings, M. A. 1969. ‘Witwatersrand University Press 1922–1969’. Unpublished report. No file number.
Memo of the Publications Committee, March 1962. MISC PS/167/62.
Minutes of the Publications Committee. 1936–1995. Irregular file numbers, including S71/620, S83/380, S86/309.
Minutes of Senate, 15/06/1987. S87/956.
Minutes of the Syndic of the Council of Education. 25 February 1922; 7 March 1922; 20 May 1922. No file number.
Report of the Publications Committee Working Group, 1984. S84/280.
Report of the Publications Committee Working Group. 1 August 1983.
Report on the Activities of the WUP in 1985. 27/02/1986. 286/308.
Review of WUP. Unpublished archival report, 1987. S87/415.
Wilson, N. H. 1983. ‘Witwatersrand University Press and Authors’. Memo submitted to Publications Committee, 26/07/1983.
Published sources
Adam, Heribert, ‘Predicaments and Opinions of Critical Intellectuals at South African Universities’, in The Future of the University in Southern Africa, ed. H. W. van der Merwe and D. Welsh (Cape Town: David Philip, 1977), pp. 269–87.
Ally, Shireen, ‘Oppositional Intellectualism as Reflection, not Rejection, of Power: Wits Sociology, 1975–1989’, Transformation, 59 (2005), pp. 66–96.
Ally, Shireen, Katie Mooney and Paul Stewart, ‘The State-Sponsored and Centralised Institutionalisation of an Academic Discipline: Sociology in South Africa, 1920–1970’, Society in Transition, 34:1 (2003), pp. 70–103.
Attwell, David, ‘Modernizing Tradition/Traditionalizing Modernity: Reflections on the Dhlomo-Vilakazi Dispute’, Research in African Literatures, 33:1 (2002), pp. 94–119.
Bourdieu, Pierre, ‘The Market of Symbolic Goods’, Poetics, 14:1/2 (1985), pp. 13–44.
Burawoy, Michael and Karl Von Holdt, Conversations with Bourdieu: The Johannesburg Moment (Johannesburg: Wits Press, 2012).
Butler, Jeffrey, Richard Elphick and David Welsh (eds), Democratic Liberalism in South Africa (Cape Town: David Philip, 1987).
Chakava, Henry, ‘An African Commercial and Textbook Publisher’, in African Scholarly Publishing Essays, ed. Alois Mlambo (Oxford: African Books Collective, 2007).
Choonoo, Neville, ‘Review: A Guide to Political Censorship in South Africa by Louise Silver’, Research in African Literatures, 17:3 (1986), pp. 416–18.
Doke, Clement, ‘Book Reviews’, Bantu Studies, 5:1 (1931), pp. 260–1.
— ‘Vernacular Text-Books in South African Native Schools’, Africa, 8 (1935), pp. 183–209.
— ‘Foreword’, African Studies, 8:4 (1949), p. 165.
Dubow, Saul, A Commonwealth of Knowledge (Oxford University Press, 2006).
‘Editorial: Native Studies in South Africa’, Bantu Studies, 1 (1921), pp. 1–3.
Hacksley, Malcolm, ‘An Oppositional Publisher under a Repressive Regime: David Philip’s role in the Struggle for Books’ (Paper presented at ‘A World Elsewhere’ conference, Cape Town, 2007).
Herbert, Robert K., ‘Not with One Mouth: An Introduction’, African Studies, 52:2 (1993), pp. 1–4.
Lawrie, Gordon, New Light on South West Africa: Some Extracts from and Comments on the Odendaal Report (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 1964).
Lever, Henry, ‘Sociology of South Africa: Supplementary Comments’, Annual Review of Sociology, 7 (1981), pp. 249–62.
Masilela, Ntongela, ‘African Intellectual and Literary Responses to Colonial Modernity in South Africa’, in ‘Grappling with the Beast: Indigenous Southern African Responses to Colonialism, 1830–1940’ (unpublished document, 2010), pp. 245–77.
Mokoena, Hlonipha, Magema Fuze: The Making of a ‘Kholwa’ Intellectual (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2011).
Mouton, Johan, Roland Waast, S. C. Boshof, E. Grebe, E. Ravat and N. Ravjee, Science in Africa at the Dawn of the 21st Century (Paris: IRD, 2001).
Murray, Bruce, Wits: The Early Years (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1982).
Newton-King, Susan, Masters and Servants on the Cape Eastern Frontier (Cambridge University Press, 1999).
The Open Universities (Cape Town and Johannesburg: Academic Freedom Committees of the Universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand, 1957).
Rex, J. (ed.), Apartheid and Social Research (Paris: UNESCO, 1981).
Rich, Paul, White Power and the Liberal Conscience (Manchester University Press, 1984).
Seekings, Jeremy, ‘The Uneven Development of Quantitative Social Science in South Africa’, Social Dynamics, 27:1 (2001), pp. 1–36.
Suttner, Raymond, ‘The Freedom Charter: The People’s Charter in the 1980s’, Crime and Social Justice, 24 (1985), pp. 72–95.
Taylor, J. Dexter, ‘Review of Inkondlo kaZulu’, Bantu Studies (1935), pp. 163–5.
Taylor, Rupert, ‘The Narrow Ground: Critical Intellectual Work on South Africa under Apartheid’, Critical Arts, 5:4 (1991), pp. 30–48.
Thompson, Frank, ‘Case Study: University Presses’, in Paper Empires: A History of the Book in Australia, 1946–2005, ed. C. Munro and R. Sheahan-Bright (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2006), pp. 328–35.
Walker, Eric A. ‘Review of The Cape Coloured People, 1652–1937 by J. S. Marais’, English Historical Review, 55:218 (1940), pp. 322–3.
Yudelman, David, ‘Industrialization, Race Relations and Change in South Africa: An Ideological and Academic Debate’, African Affairs, 74:294 (1975), pp. 82–96.
Zimbler, Jarad, ‘Under Local Eyes: The South African Publishing Context of J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, English Studies in Africa, 47:1 (2004), pp. 47–59.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 Elizabeth le Roux
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
le Roux, E. (2015). Between the Cathedral and the Market: A Study of Wits University Press. In: Davis, C., Johnson, D. (eds) The Book in Africa. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137401625_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137401625_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-48644-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-40162-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)