View source for Institute for Languages, Literature and Arts

This was one of the original institutes of the [[Human Sciences Research Council]], a autonimous institution founded by the South African government in 1969 to undertake research in the humanities in South Africa. 

The Institute was the brainchild of [[P.J. Nienaber]], a strong advocate of [[Afrikaans]] literature and a compulsive collector of Africana. As a chairman of the [[SA Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns]] ("SA Academy of Arts and Sciences") and a member of the [[HSRC]] board, he agitated to have an institute founded to collect material on the languages and arts of South Africa and to undertake research in these fields. 



== Documenting the arts ==


The playwright and academic [[P.G. du Plessis]] was apponted the first Director of the Institute, with Nienaber as the first  Curator of the [[National Documentation Centre for Afrikaans Literature]] (He was later followed by [[Pirow Bekker]]).   Three more Documentation Centres were gradually developed, namely the [[National Documentation Centre for Music]] (director initially P.J. Nienaber, later [[J.P. Malan]], the author of the ''SA Music Encyclopaedia'', in his turn followed by Cosmo Hattingh, author of ''Graaff Reinet: a Cultural History''),  the National Documentation Centre for Art (director  Murray Schoonraad, followed by Liliana Daneel) and [[National Documentation Centre for Performing Arts]] (director initially [[P.P.B. Breytenbach]], former director of [[NTO]] and [[PACT]], followed by [[Rinie Stead]]).  There was also a  research programme on sociolinguistics (headed by Karel Prinsloo) and a National Centre for Onomastics (headed by Peter Raper).

== Research in the arts ==

Karel Prinsloo later followed Du Plessis as Director and shifted the Documentation Centres away from pure collection and archival work, to more active research. Thus the [[National Documentation Centre for the Performing Arts]]  became the [[Centre for South African Theatre Research]] (CESAT) (directed by [[Temple Hauptfleisch]]),  the [[National Documentation Centre for Afrikaans Literature]] became the [[Centre for South African Literatures]] (CENSAL) (directed by [[Charles Malan]]).  


== Disbandment ==


As the HSRC moved to a differently structured and more flexible organisation in the late 1980’s under the leadership of Johan Garbers, the Institute was broken up into a variety of focussed interdisciplinary projects, and its documentation centres disbanded and the materials moved to the [[State Archives]] in Pretoria. 


== Impact ==


Over the years the HSRC and the Institute spawned a number of linked institutions concerned with research and documentation in theatre and performance. See for example the [[National English Literary Museum]] ([[NELM]]) and the [[Nasionale Afrikaanse Letterkunde Museum en Dokumentasiesentrum]] ([[NALN]]). 


== Sources ==


== For more information ==



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