Gary Baines

Biography

"Gary Baines is a Professor and HOD in the History Department. He holds an MA from Rhodes University and a PhD from the University of Cape Town. Baines joined the Rhodes History Department in 1990. Previously, he lived in Port Elizabeth and has published extensively on the history of that city. These publications include articles in African Studies, the Journal of Urban History, the Journal of African History, the Journal of Southern African Studies, the South African Historical Journal and Kronos: the Journal of Cape History. He has also published a monograph titled A History of New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, 1903-1953: The Detroit of the Union (Edwin Mellen Press, 2002). Baines has spent the last decade writing about how the Border War is represented and remembered. This has resulted in a number of articles published in journals such as History Today, Safundi: Journal of South African and American History, Interculture, Journal of Namibian Studies, Historia, and Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies. He has co-edited (with Peter Vale) the volume Beyond the Border War: New Perspectives on Southern Africa’s Late-Cold War Conflicts (2008), and is the author of South Africa’s Border War: Contested Narratives and Conflicting Memories (Bloomsbury, 2014)."

Research Interest

His areas of research include South African culture, especially film, literature and music. More recently he has ventured into the fields of public history, as well as memory and war studies. He has contributed chapters to books published by, amongst others, Berghahn, Blackwell, Ashgate, Equinox, Peter Lang, UCT Press and Witwatersrand University Press.