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Cover image of "A Prophet of the People" by Lauren Jarvis

Cover image of "A Prophet of the People" by Lauren Jarvis

October 2, 2024 00:39:27

Guests: Jarvis, Lauren

Host: Alegi, Peter

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Episode 136

Shembe and the Making of a South African Church

Lauren Jarvis (History, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill) on her new book, A Prophet of the People: Isaiah Shembe and the Making of a South African Church (Michigan State University Press, 2024). Dr. Jarvis discusses the remarkable life of Shembe, the building of a religious community of people left behind by industrial capitalism, strategies of evasion, and the key role of women in the church. She then reflects on written, oral, and visual sources, white authorities’ anxieties about the Nazaretha church, and what happened to the community after Shembe’s death in 1935.

00:00:00 - 00:01:27 Introduction
00:01:28 - 00:04:56 Becoming a professional historian of South Africa
00:04:57 - 00:11:58 Shembe as Nazaretha Church founder and “great integrator” of Black South Africans
00:11:59 - 00:16:33 Girls and women in the growth and development of Shembe’s religious community
00:16:34 - 00:22:33 Sources and methods
00:22:34 - 00:26:12 White authorities’ concerns about Shembe’s church
00:26:13 - 00:35:27 Reflections on photographs in the book and on the Nazaretha after Shembe’s death
00:35:28 - 00:38:24 Jarvis on her new research project
00:38:25 - 00:39:27 Wrap up and Outro