What are the political roots of South Africa's truth and reconciliation commission (TRC)? By what means did the Commission endeavor to understand South Africa's violent past and promote a spirit of national unity? Did the commission's acclaimed and controversial efforts help South Africans to walk the bridge from apartheid to nonracial democracy?

This groundbreaking volume provides an explicit and often startling view of the Truth and reconciliation commission. In the name of understanding the commission's development, work, and findings, it features a rich variety of materials, including many selections from the TRC's archive of testimony and its Final Report that have yet to receive significant public scrutiny. These fundamental documents challenge conventional accounts of the Commission. They also shed light on how the Commission undertook a public process of history-making, attempted to deal with the past in a manner that gave voice to experiences long silenced, endeavoured to expose the violence of apartheid and the excesses of struggle, and demonstrated the political necessity of repairing a crime against humanity.

For both citizen and student, this volume affords an opportunity to grapple with the difficult concepts of truth and reconciliation in South Africa and a chance to reflect on why these two simple words have challenged international preconceptions about the power and potential of African politics.

With faith in the works of words is the first book to look behind the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and examine reconciliation's larger and fundamental role in the transition from apartheid to nonracial democracy. In doing so, it finds that there have been many beginnings of reconciliation in South Africa. Based on documents that have received little public attention, including controversial texts from the religious community and fascinating transcripts from South Africa's constitutional negotiations, the title reveals how reconciliation was used to energize the struggle against apartheid and the ways in which it underwrote the negotiated revolution, including the development of a constitution whose very promise was pegged to the willingness of South Africans to pursue the work of "reconciliation and reconstruction." Faith in the works of words challenges many common assumptions about the discourse and dynamics of reconciliation in South Africa. An important history of reconciliation’s rhetorical power, this title shows how reconciliation shaped the process of South African nation-building long before the TRC took to the stage and captured the world’s imagination.

Reconciliation is an open and urgent question. We do not agree about what reconciliation means, or how it works. We certainly do not agree about what it has done or the ways in which it can be brought to bear on the problems that confront South Africa today. In short, reconciliation keeps us off balance. In the balance opens a space for critical and imaginative reflection on the contested legacy, contemporary meanings, and future possibilities of reconciliation in South Africa. With essays from a diverse and leading set of commentators, the title aims to move beyond current thinking about reconciliation. Presenting the good news with the bad, the staunch advocates of reconciliation along with its sharpest critics, it seeks to provide individuals, citizens and publics with ideas about how and why they might wish to undertake their own discussions and deliberations about the meaning and value of reconciliation. Direct and thought-provoking, the essays here offer staunch defenses and pointed criticisms of reconciliation. Together, they challenge the conventional wisdom and sound an important call: once again, it is time to ask after reconciliation's meaning, practice and value.

The African Renaissance and the Afro-Arab Spring addresses the often unspoken connection between the powerful call for a political-cultural renaissance that emerged with the end of South African apartheid and the popular revolts of 2011 that dramatically remade the landscape in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. Looking between southern and northern Africa, the transcontinental line from Cape to Cairo that for so long supported colonialism, its chapters explore the deep roots of these two decisive events and demonstrate how they are linked by shared opposition to legacies of political, economic, and cultural subjugation. As they work from African, Islamic, and Western perspectives, the book's contributors shed important light on a continent's difficult history and undertake a critical conversation about whether and how the desire for radical change holds the possibility of a new beginning for Africa, a beginning that may well reshape the contours of global affairs.

The African Renaissance and the Afro-Arab Spring addresses the often unspoken connection between the powerful call for a political-cultural renaissance that emerged with the end of South African apartheid and the popular revolts of 2011 that dramatically remade the landscape in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. Looking between southern and northern Africa, the transcontinental line from Cape to Cairo that for so long supported colonialism, its chapters explore the deep roots of these two decisive events and demonstrate how they are linked by shared opposition to legacies of political, economic, and cultural subjugation. As they work from African, Islamic, and Western perspectives, the book's contributors shed important light on a continent's difficult history and undertake a critical conversation about whether and how the desire for radical change holds the possibility of a new beginning for Africa, a beginning that may well reshape the contours of global affairs.

The question of reparation remains. As South Africa prepares to enter its second decade of democracy, there are no easy answers about how to best repair the damage inflicted by the past. The wounds are deep and they haunt. If left unresolved, apartheid's legacy of inequality may come to thwart ongoing efforts to build a culture of human rights, nurture democratic politics, and move forward with the project of reconciliation. A difficult concept and an even more difficult process, reparation in South Africa appears to require a sustained combination of resources, will power and committed dialogue. Beginning with a detailed analysis of the TRC's recommendations for reparation and the ensuing public debate over their implementation, To Repair the Irreparable features over twenty essays from leading commentators about the past, present, and future of reparation in South Africa. What are the benefits and limits of current reparation policy? How can South Africa best balance the demands of reparation, democracy-building and justice? How does the South African experience contribute to international debates over reparation? What is the best way to resolve ongoing debates over land redistribution, the reconstruction of civil society, the promise of restorative justice, and the legal disputes that surround calls for reparation? These problems are urgent. For both citizen and scholar, this book makes an important case for why reparation matters and offers a timely discussion of how South Africa can best continue the work of reconstruction.

A Philosophy and Rhetoric Special Issue.

Over the course of a distinguished and celebrated career, Thomas Farrell held that rhetoric is a rich source of creative reason and a vital element of contemporary public life. In his award-winning 1995 book, Norms of Rhetorical Culture, Farrell took this position a step further, arguing that "Rhetoric is the primary--indeed the only--humane manner for an argumentative culture to sustain public institutions that reflect on themselves, that learn, so to speak, from their own history." In the midst of violence and social fragmentation, according to Farrell, the renewal of rhetoric's difficult art offers an opportunity to invigorate critique, cultivate the grounds for mutual understanding, and foster the practical wisdom that sustains democracy's politics.

Inventing the Potential of Rhetorical Culture sheds new light on Thomas Farrell's provocative defense of rhetoric and makes an innovative case for the contemporary importance of rhetorical theory and practice. Featuring two previously unpublished works by Thomas Farrell himself, including one that plots a path beyond Norms of Rhetorical Culture, the volume's original contributions offer timely reflections on the aesthetic, vernacular, and deliberative functions of rhetoric and draw significant connections among classical, modern, and postmodern accounts of public discourse. At a moment when many fields of study have found cause to reconsider the question of rhetoric's potential, this collection will engage those seeking a fuller understanding of rhetoric's role in politics, ethics, and public culture. With an introduction by Erik Doxtader, the volume includes essays by James Arnt Aune, Maurice Charland, G. Thomas Goodnight, Gerard A. Hauser, Carol Poster, and Philippe-Joseph Salazar.