About 

Jonathan joined the History of Art department at Warwick in 2021, following postdoctoral fellowships in Critical Urbanism and Architecture and Oceanic Humanities for the Global South at the University of Pretoria and University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He works on modern and contemporary art and architecture from Africa and the Global South, with a particular interest in the study of materiality and ecology. His monograph, Civilising Grass: The Art of the Lawn on the South African Highveld was published in 2019 by Wits University Press and is a queer postcolonial study of gardening in Johannesburg and its surrounds. His practice-based research and design work has been exhibited and published on numerous platforms. His two decades of output has resulted in video artworks, installations, a number of typeset and designed publications and, most recently, web-based works.  

Research interests

Landscape art in the Global South. Lusophone and southern African art and architecture. African modern architecture. Queer theory. Critical civil engineering, science and technology studies.

Teaching and supervision 

• Art Histories from Africa
• Art of the African City

Selected publications 

Cane. J. 2021. ‘Concrete Oceans: The Dolos, Apartheid Engineering and the Intertidal Zone’. GeoHumanities. 7(1): 44–64. DOI: 10.1080/2373566X.2021.1926306

Cane, J. 2021. ‘The Promises, Poetics and Politics of Verticality in the Really High African City.’ Critical African Studies. DOI: 10.1080/21681392.2020.1850305

Cane, J. 2019. Civilising Grass: The Art of the Lawn on the South African Highveld. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

Cane, J. 2019. ‘Cruising Queer, Old Joburg.’ Anthropology Southern Africa. 42(1), pp. 14–28. DOI: 10.1080/23323256.2019.1583064

Cane, J. 2019. ‘Welcome to the Jungle: Tropical Modernism, Decadence, Gardening in Africa’. African Luxury: Aesthetics and Politics. Iqani, M. & Dosekun, S. (eds). Chicago: Intellect, University of Chicago Press, pp. 155–170.

Qualifications 

• BA (University of Cape Town)

• PhD (University of the Witwatersrand)

Dr Jonathan Cane

Assistant Professor

Email: jonathan.cane@warwick.ac.uk 
 
F49 
Millburn House 
University of Warwick 
Coventry CV4 7HS

Office hours 

Autumn 2021: (TBC)

Teaching 

Undergraduate modules:

• HA2G1 Art Histories from Africa

Postgraduate modules:

• HA981 Art of the African City 

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