After The Thrill Is Gone: A Decade Of Post-apartheid South Africa

by Barnard, Rita; Farred, Grant

• ISBN13: 9780822365907
• ISBN10: 0822365901
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-01-05
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

After the Thrill Is Gone is a serious appraisal of what South African democracy has yielded and has failed to yield in the era following the heady expectations of liberation from apartheid's multiple repressions. Since that time, South Africa has revealed itself as a turbulent, dynamic nation. After the release of black political prisoners in 1990 and the first national democratic election in 1994, its citizens have witnessed a massive increase in crime, unemployment and poverty and an educational system in chaos. In a range of politically inflected essays by philosophers, community activists, political scientists, sociologists, literary scholars, and cultural and postcolonial theorists-many of whom are diasporic or resident South Africans-this special issue of SAQ provides a critical look at the realities of black majority governance, at the African National Congress, and at the costs of ANC rule to the populace. One essay draws a condemning sketch of poverty and violence in the townships and the growing communities of squatters that continue despite the emergence of democracy. A philosophical piece contemplates the practice of human rights in a South African society grappling with the memory of apartheid abuses. Representing a different line of inquiry, the fiction and poetry in the collection explore sexual identity, including issues created by the AIDS epidemic, and offer critiques of government policies. Using comic strips, another contributor demonstrates the ability of South African popular culture to satirize the nation's political status quo. Taken together, the essays in After the Thrill Is Gone open a sobering perspective on South Africa's recent history, its present, and its future. Contributors. Rita Barnard, Patrick Bond, Ashwin Desai, Emmanuel Eze, Grant Farred, Michiel Heyns, Shaun Irlam, Neil Lazarus, Michael MacDonald, Zine Magubane, Richard Pithouse, Lesego Rampholokeng, Adam Sitze

Table of Contents

SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORS: RITA BARNARD AND GRANT FARRED
The Not-Yet Counterpartisan: A New Politics of Oppositionality	589	(18)
GRANT FARRED
The South African Ideology: The Myth of Exceptionalism, the Idea of Renaissance	607	(22)
NEIL LAZARUS
The Political Economy of Identity Politics	629	(28)
MICHAEL MACDONALD
The Revolution Betrayed? Globalization, Neoliberalism, and the Post-Apartheid State	657	(16)
ZINE MAGUBANE
From The Reluctant Passenger	673	(22)
MICHIEL HEYNS
Unraveling the Rainbow: The Remission of Nation in Post-Apartheid Literature	695	(24)
SHAUN IRLAM
Bitterkomix: Notes from the Post-Apartheid Underground	719	(36)
RITA BARNARD
Transition and the Reasons of Memory	755	(14)
EMMANUEL CHUKWUDI EZE
Denialism	769	(44)
ADAM SITZE
Poems	813	(4)
LESEGO RAMPOLOKENG
South Africa Tackles Global Apartheid: Is the Reform Strategy Working?	817	(24)
PATRICK BOND
"What stank in the past is the present's perfume": Dispossession, Resistance, and Repression in Mandela Park	841	(36)
ASHWIN DESAI AND RICHARD PITHOUSE
Notes on Contributors	877	(4)
Volume Index	881