Rory Bester & Anthea Garman 
Babel Unbound [EPUB ebook] 
Rage, reason and rethinking public life

The notion that societies mediate issues through certain kinds of engagement is at the heart of the democratic project and often centres on an imagined public sphere where this takes place. But this imagined foundation of how we live collectively appears to have suffered a dramatic collapse across the world, with many democracies apparently unable to solve problems through talk – or even to agree on who speaks, in what ways and where.
In the 10 essays in this timely and erudite collection, writers from southern Africa combine theoretical analysis with the examination of historical cases and contemporary events to demonstrate that forms of publicness are multiple, mobile and varied. They propose new concepts and methodologies to analyse how public engagements work in society.
The book examines charged examples from the Global South, such as the centuries old Timbuktu archive, Nelson Mandela’s powerful absent presence in 1960s public life, and contemporary debates around the 2015/2016 student activism of #rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall. These cases show how issues of public discussion circulate in unpredictable ways.

Inhoudsopgave