Search results for ""Author Bruce Murray""

This, the second volume of the history of University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Wits) by historian Bruce Murray, has as its central theme the process by which Wits became an ‘open’ university admitting students of all races, the compromises this process entailed, and the defence the University mounted to preserve its ‘open’ status in the face of the challenges posed by the Nationalist Government. The University’s institutional autonomy is highlighted by Yunus Ballim in his preface to the centenary edition of WITS: The ‘Open’ Years. He writes: ‘The emerging posture of a university willing to rise in defence of academic freedom was important because this was to become infused into the institutional culture of Wits.’The book looks at the University’s role in South Africa’s war effort, its contribution to the education of ex-volunteers after the war, its leading role in training job-seeking professionals required by a rapidly expanding economy, and the rise of research and postgraduate study. WITS: The ‘Open’ Years paints a vivid picture of student life through their political activities, the flourishing of a student intelligentsia, the heyday of the Remember and Give (Rag) parade, rugby intervarsity, and the stunning success of Wits sportsmen and women.

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WITS: The Early Years is a history of the University up to 1939. First established in 1922, the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg developed out of the South African School of Mines in Kimberley circa 1896. Examining the historical foundations, the struggle to establish a university in Johannesburg, and the progress of the University in the two decades prior to World War II, historian Bruce Murray captures the quality and texture of life in the early years of Wits University and the personalities who enlivened it and contributed to its growth. Particular attention is given to the wider issues and the challenges which faced Wits in its formative years. The book examines the role Wits came to occupy as a major centre of liberal thought and criticism in South Africa, its contribution to the development of the professions of the country, the relationship of its research to the wider society, and its attempts to grapple with a range of peculiarly South African problems, such as the admission of black students to the University and the relations of English- and Afrikaans-speaking white students within it. This edition of WITS: The Early Years is republished in the University’s centenary year with a preface by Keith Breckenridge, who writes, ‘In the republication of Murray’s two volume history of Wits, readers have an opportunity to explore the often dramatic and contested story of this university … Murray produced an intimate, almost scandalous intellectual history of the institution that served as his home for practically half a century.’

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