Ciraj Rassool

Ciraj Rassool is Senior Professor in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and directs the African Programme in Museum and Heritage Studies. He directed the Remaking Societies, Remaking Persons Supranational Forum, which had partners in Accra, Kampala, and Cairo, and which supported research and scholarships in museum and heritage studies, exhibition production and forensic history. He was one of the principal investigators of the international project, Action for Restitution to Africa (ARA), which works on matters of museums and restitution. He is one of the principal investigators of the international collaborative project, Thinking Through the Museum.

Among his latest publications are The Politics of Heritage in Africa: Economies, Histories and Infrastructures (New York 2015), co-edited with Derek Peterson and Kodzo Gavua; Rethinking Empire in Southern Africa (published as Journal of Southern African Studies, 41, 3, June 2015), co-edited with Dag Henrichsen, Giorgio Miescher and Lorena Rizzo, Unsettled History: Making South African Public Pasts (Ann Arbor, 2017), written with Leslie Witz and Gary Minkley; and Missing and Missed: Subject, Politics, Memorialisation (published as Kronos: southern african histories, 44, 2018), co-edited with Nicky Rousseau and Riedwaan Moosage.

He served on the boards of the District Six Museum and Iziko Museums of South Africa, and on the Councils of the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) and the National Heritage Council. He previously chaired the Scientific Committee of the International Council of African Museums (AFRICOM), was a member of the High Level Museums Advisory Committee of UNESCO. He currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the study of the Physical Anthropology Collection ‘Felix von Luschan’ at the Museum of Ethnology at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany.
Teaching
I teach and supervise in a number of areas, including Museum and Heritage Studies, Curatorial Studies, The Politics of Memory, Public History, History of Cape Town, Political Biography and Liberation Movements, Heritage Disciplines.