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 in the digital age, with many democracies apparently unable to solve problems through talk - or even to agree on who speaks, in what ways and where. 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.

Drawing primarily on insights and materials from Africa for their capacity to speak to global developments, the authors in this volume propose new concepts and methodologies to analyse how public engagements work in society. The contributions examine charged examples from the Global South, such as the centuries old Timbuktu archive, Nelson Mandela's powerful absent presence in 1960s public life, and the contemporary debates around the 2015/2016 student activism of #rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall. These cases show how issues of public discussion circulate in unpredictable ways.

Babel Unbound will be of interest to anyone looking to find alternative ways of thinking about publicness in contemporary society in order to make better sense of the cacophony of conversations in circulation.

Unveiling Whiteness in the Twenty-First Century: Global Manifestations, Transdisciplinary Interventions is a tightly interconnected and richly collaborative book that will advance our understanding of why it is so difficult to re-form and reimagine whiteness in the twenty-first century. Composed after the election of the first black U.S. president, post-global financial crisis, more than a decade after 9/11, and concomitant with a rash of xenophobic incidents across the globe, the book distills several key themes associated with a post-millennial global whiteness: the individual and collective emotions of whiteness, the recentering of whiteness through governing and legal strategies, and the retreats from social equity and justice that have characterized the late twentieth and twenty-first century nation state. It also attempts the difficult work of reimagining white identities and cultures for a new era. Chapters in Unveiling Whiteness in the Twenty-First Century draw from the fields of African-American studies, English studies, media studies, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, education, and women's studies. Using transdisciplinarity as a mode of inquiry for the project and responding to the changing phenomenon of whiteness across several continents (Australia, Canada, France, Romania, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States), the collection brings together established and emerging scholars and a range of critical approaches to unveil and intervene in the ideologies of whiteness in our contemporary moment. Unveiling Whiteness in the Twenty-First Century demonstrates that complex inquiry and activism are needed to challenge new iterations of whiteness in twenty-first-century political and social spaces.

How central are the media to the functioning of democracy? Is democracy primarily about citizens using their vote? Does the expression of their voice necessarily empower citizens? Media and Citizenship challenges some assumptions about the relationship between the media and democracy in highly unequal societies like South Africa. In a post-apartheid society where an enfranchised majority is still unable to fundamentally practise their citizenship and experiences marginalisation on a daily basis, notions like listening and belonging may be more useful ways of thinking about the role of the media. In this context, protest is taken seriously as a form of political expression and the media's role is foregrounded as actively seeking out the voices of those on the margins of society. Through a range of case studies, the contributors show how listening, both as a political concept and as a form of practice, has transformative and even radical potential for both emerging and established democracies.

Antjie Krog has been known in Afrikaans literary circles and media for decades for her poetry and her strong political convictions. Often known simply as `Antjie’, she is also affectionately called `our beloved poet’ and our `Joan of Arc’ by Afrikaans commentators. It was through her work on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an SABC radio journalist and her subsequent book, Country of My Skull, that she then became known to English-speakers in South Africa and across the world. This work catapulted her particular brand of poetics and politics, honed over many years of her opposition to apartheid, into the South African public sphere at a time when the country was not only looking for a humane and just resolution after the apartheid era but was also establishing itself as a new democracy. These were heady days as South Africa discovered an exciting place in the world, as it realised it had things to say and teach about race, conflict and justice. It was also a time when the new government was seeking solutions and urging all those who could contribute positively to stand up and speak out. The language of `public intellectuals’ was in the air. In this book, Anthea Garman considers how Krog, the prolific poet, journalist, non-fiction book author in English and now also academic and researcher, has made a significant contribution to the South African post-apartheid public sphere. Krog’s inimitable style, rooted in her sensibility as a poet, has allowed her to develop a particular persona and subjectivity as a writer of testimony and witness.