Lehrstuhlunabhängige Oberassistentin, Historisches Seminar, Universität Zürich

Oktober 2023 – Februar 2024: Lehrstuhlvertretung der Professur «Geschichte Afrikas», Universität Bayreuth

Violence, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law: South Africa in the Global Twentieth Century
 

The book project explores the entanglements between violence, human rights, and the struggle for the rule of law in South Africa in the second half of the twentieth century from a global perspective.

• Politische Gewalt und Protestbewegungen
• Rechtsstaatlichkeit, Menschenrechte und Übergangsjustiz
• Erinnerung und Gedenken
• Kunst und Kultur
• Epistemologien des Globalen Südens
• Räumlichkeit und der Spatial Turn
• Materialität des Archivs
• Antikoloniale Bewegungen, Solidarität und Internationalismus
• Dekolonisation
• Alltagsgeschichte
• Globale Mikrogeschichte
• Transnationale Geschichte
• Oral History

• Seit Januar 2025: Lehrstuhlunabhängige Oberassistentin, Historisches Seminar, Universität Zürich

• Oktober 2023 – Februar 2024: Lehrstuhlvertretung der Professur «Geschichte Afrikas», Universität Bayreuth

• 2020-2021: Return Grant des Schweizerischen Nationalfonds (SNF) am Lehrstuhl von Prof. Dr. Svenja Goltermann zur Ausarbeitung der Monographie 'Rumours of War: Fear, Violence and the Politics of Belonging in Late Apartheid South Africa' (P4P4PG_186639)

• Januar - April 2020: Fellowship am History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand, Südafrika
• 2017–2019: Advanced Postdoc.Mobility, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds, mit dem Nachfolgeprojekt 'Amahem-hem: Rumour and the Social Production of Violent Conflict during the Transition Period in South Africa, c.1985–1995' (P300P1_174427), University of the Witwatersrand, Südafrika
• 2016–2017: Early Postdoc.Mobility, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds, mit dem Projekt 'Uncertain Times: The Role of Rumour in Political Violence and Conflict during the Transition Period in South Africa, c.1990–94' (P2SKP1_161682), University of the Witwatersrand, Südafrika
• 2013–2015: Postdoc im History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand, Südafrika
• 2008–2013: DPhil in Modern History, Merton College, University of Oxford. Dissertation mit dem Titel 'Political Mobilisation, Violence and Control in the Townships of the Vaal Triangle, South Africa, c.1976–1986', unterstützt durch Clarendon Fund und Merton College Greendale scholarship, Fellowship for Prospective Researchers des SNF sowie ein Stipendium der Janggen-Pöhn Stiftung
• 2007–2008: Assistenz am Lehrstuhl für Afrikanische Geschichte, Universität Basel (Lehrstuhl P.Harries)
• 2004–2007: MA Studium African Studies, Universität Basel (summa cum laude)
• 2004: Gastjahr an der University of Cape Town, Südafrika
• 2001–2004: Studium der Geschichte, Ethnologie und Medienwissenschaften, Universität Basel

Monografien (peer-reviewed)

Rueedi, F., The Vaal Uprising of 1984 and the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2021

Book launches

12.05.2021: Webinar, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (online): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA0vxHe4d44

22.07.2021: Webinar, Journal of Southern African Studies (online)

07. 11.2021: Roundtable zu meinem Buch an der Jozi Book Fair (online)

Zeitschriftenaufsätze

Rey, M. & F. Rueedi, ‘Relire la transition Sud-Africaine’, 20&21: Revue d’Histoire 166 (2025): 3–20

Rueedi, F., ‘The Hostel Peace Initiative: Rethinking Violence and Peace at the End of Apartheid’, Journal of Southern African Studies 50/6 (2024), Special Issue for William Beinart: 997–1015

Rueedi, F., ‘The Boipatong Massacre of 1992: Traces, Silences, and Truth(s)’, South African Historical Journal 74/4 (2022): 683–687

Swart, S.; Pearson, J.; Bruchhausen, S.; Shain, M.; Rueedi, F.; Gibbs, T.; Brown, J., ‘Coffee House Conversations: Historians on the Current Moment’, South African Historical Journal 73/3 (2021): 741–756

Rueedi, F., ‘The Hostel Wars in Late Apartheid South Africa: Rumour, Violence and the Discourse of Victimhood, Social Identities 26/6 (2020): 756–773

Rueedi, F., ‘“Our Bushes Are the Houses”: People’s War and the Social Geography of the Underground during the Insurrectionary Period in South Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies 46/4 (2020): 615–633

Rueedi, F., ‘The Politics of Difference and the Forging of a Political “Community”: Discourses and Practices of the Charterist Civic Movement in the Vaal Triangle, South Africa, 1980-84’, Journal of Southern African Studies 41/6 (2016): 1–18

Rueedi, F., ‘Narratives on Trial: Ideology, Violence and the Struggle Over Political Legitimacy in the Case of the Delmas Treason Trial, 1985-89’, South African Historical Journal 67/3 (2015): 335–355

Rueedi, F., ‘“Siyayinyova”! Patterns of Violence in the African Townships of the Vaal Triangle, 1980-86’, Africa 85/3 (2015): 395–416

Herausgeberschaften

Rueedi, F. & M.Rey, ‘La transition en Afrique du Sud’, 20&21e Siècle: Revue d’Histoire 166 (2025)

Buchkapitel

Rueedi, F., ‘Violence during the “Transition from Below” in South Africa’, in B.Bernet, L.Raphael & B.Zachariah (eds.), History from Below. Between Populism and Democratisation. Oldenbourg: de Gruyter, 2025

Rueedi, F. & A. Magengelele, ‘Knowledge Production and the Archives of Everyday Life in South Africa under Apartheid’, in K.Ferris & H. Halstead (eds.), Miniatures. A Reader in the History of Everyday Life. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2025

Rueedi, F., ‘“They Would Remind You of 1960”: The Emergence of Radical Student Politics in the Vaal Triangle, 1972-1985’, in A.Heffernan and N.Nieftagodien (eds), Students Must Rise. Youth Struggles in South Africa before and beyond Soweto ’76. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2015

Rueedi, F., ‘Reluctant Bonds. On the Role of Narrative in Post-Apartheid South Africa in V. Arlt, S.Bishop and P.Schmid (eds), Explorations in African History. Reading Patrick Harries. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2015

Weitere Publikationen

Rueedi, F., ‘Freedom and the Struggle for Dignity in South Africa’, Africa is a Country (1 August 2021), https://africasacountry.com/2021/08/freedom-and-the-struggle-for-dignity-in-south-africa

Rueedi, F., ‘Der Traum von Freiheit’, Geschichte der Gegenwart (1 September 2021), https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/der-traum-von-freiheit/

03/25                  Podcast der Informationsstelle Südliches Afrika (ISSA, Bonn): Solidarität Früher und Heute: https://www.issa-bonn.org/mediathek/podcast/

06/24                  Deutschlandfunk-Podcast, Der Rest ist Geschichte: Apartheid – Südafrikas Geschichte, Israels Gegenwart? https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/apartheid-suedafrika-israel-geschichte-100.html

Since 11/22       Honorary patron, Vaal History Research and Archive Initiative (HiRAI), South Africa

03/22                  Roundtable: Coffee House Conversations: Historians on the Current Moment (online) mit Publikation: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02582473.2021.2016153

• Violence Studies Network, University of the Witwatersrand
• Southern African Historical Society
• Swiss Society for African Studies