The Mozambican Miner: A study in the export of labour

Marc Wuyts' copy of the Mozambican Miner report. A report on Mozambican miners produced by the Centro de Estudos Africanos at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, 1977. The research was directed by Ruth First and conducted by up to 40 other researchers and activists

The Barrel of a Gun: Political Power in Africa and the Coup d'État

In this powerful and concentrated exam­ ination of army interventions in African politics, Ruth First produces a general theory of power for independent states which goes a long way towards explain­ ing why they are so vulnerable to military coups. She gives detailed accounts of the coups in Nigeria,the Sudan and Ghana, and includes material on the role of the army in Algeria and Egypt,showing the kinds of conflict which lead to the situation where the political machinery is short-circuited and guns do the leading. She makes use of interviews, conveying a vivid idea of what a coup means to those involved in it. 'I count myself an African', writes Ruth First,'and there is no cause I hold dearer.' And though she makes harsh judgement on Africa's independent leaderships. her purpose is not to confirm irrational European prejudice but to contribute to the continent's ultimate liberation

Scrapbook RF/1/4/1/1: 1949-50

Ruth First's scrapbook of newspaper cuttings from 1949 to 1950. Many articles are unauthored

Scrapbook RF/1/4/1/2: 1948

Ruth First's scrapbook of newspaper cuttings from 1948. Many articles are unauthored

Ruth First papers

Scope and content: The collection includes personal material of First and her immediate family such as correspondence and financial records, papers relating to First's work as a journalist in South Africa, as a university lecturer, an anti-apartheid activist, and as an author and editor of numerous books and articles on Africa and other political topics. Also included are research papers and printed material relating to First and her family, collected both during her lifetime and after her death. System of arrangement: The collection is divided into individual deposits which have been presented separately to the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. As far as has been possible, the arrangement of the material within each deposit reflects the system of arrangement used by First, although much has been resorted. Throughout this catalogue the series into which the collection is divided are shown with the reference, title and date underlined. Orderable files are described without underlining

Scrapbook RF/1/4/1/4: 1947-8

Ruth First's scrapbook of newspaper cuttings from 1947 to 1948. Many articles are unauthored

Letter from Ruth Lappin, 1987

A letter written by Ruth Lappin on her memories of the First Christian Church of Morehead, Kentucky from 1987

Allegory and animals in Olive Schreiner’s Undine : A Queer Little Child (1929)

Written and abandoned in the 1870s, and published posthumously in 1929, Undine: A Queer Little Child has remained on the margins of Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) studies, repeatedly dismissed as a juvenile and poor antecedent to The Story of An African Farm (1883), or deemed valuable primarily for its autobiographical content. This article redresses these schematic readings by analysing how Schreiner draws on allegorical forms in order to explore aspects of her burgeoning radicalism. Focusing on one of the main allegorical thrusts of the novel, provided by the zoomorphic and anthropomorphic animal characters that descend from mythical, fairytale, and Ancient Greek philosophical origins, it investigates how the protagonist’s metaphorically significant associations with animals relate to freethinking, feminist, and anti-imperialist ideas introduced by the novel. Undine thus undermines dominant nineteenth-century models of the “primitive” human or animal as less evolutionarily developed and without political platform, which can be seen to be a liberating move when the novel is read in dialogue with Jacques Derrida’s lectures on animals, and with other recent work in postcolonial ecocriticism

Interpersonal Dysfunction in Depressed Women: Impairments Independent of Depressive Symptoms

Background: The study explored the generality of interpersonal impairments in depressed women and examined the extent of their independence of current depressive episodes or symptoms. Methods: 812 community women who were formerly depressed, currently depressed, or never depressed were compared on a variety of indices of interpersonal behavior and beliefs. Information was also obtained from their spouses, adolescent children, and raters. Current depressive mood and sociodemographic factors that might affect social functioning were controlled. Results: Consistent with the hypotheses that interpersonal difficulties are not just consequences of depressive symptoms, formerly but not currently depressed women were significantly more impaired than never-depressed women on nearly all measures. They were less likely to be stably married, had poorer marital satisfaction, reported more spouse coercion and physical injury, had more problematic relationships with their child, friends, and extended family, reported more stressful life events with interpersonal and conflict content, and were more insecure in their beliefs about other people. Their spouses and boyfriends also reported more problems, and were themselves more likely to have diagnosable disorders. However, the groups did not differ in their children's perceptions of maternal warmth or hostility. Limitations: The cross-sectional design precluded conclusions about the causal direction of the relationship between interpersonal impairment and depressive disorder. Since clinical depression is more often than not followed by subthreshold symptoms that are not captured by standard diagnostic instruments, such symptoms are not easily discernable from preceding or co-existing interpersonal problems. Only women were studied. Conclusions: Interpersonal impairment is a stable feature of depression, a significant challenge to treatment, and may reflect underlying vulnerability to the onset, and recurrence, of depressive experiences