When watching Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade, one cannot help but be reminded of the boldness and daring of one Michael Jackson’s Thriller. In 1983 the Thriller music video was received as a masterpiece in how to create a visual spectacle to narrate a soundtrack. That said, Lemonade and Thriller are different beasts. Lemonade is a […]
General
Posted inGeneral
I’ve seen Donald Trump and he isn’t pretty
By Caitlin Dean When Donald Trump triumphantly descended from that escalator in Trump Towers to announce his candidacy for president, I was bemused and disinterested. I had not been living in the US that long and although I was familiar with the name Trump and what it meant, I knew little about him beyond his […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics, Tech
Why we need a politics of ‘spirit’ not consumption
Most people reading this are probably wondering what a “politics of spirit” could possibly mean. After all, it seems like an oxymoron to juxtapose “politics” and “spirit”. I would agree with that, at first sight anyway. Until you read Bernard Stiegler’s transfixing book, The Re-Enchancement of the World, subtitled: The Value of Spirit against Industrial […]
Posted inEquality, General
My dream was to matter and not be invisible
By Lisa Thelma Sidambe Most of us enjoy a juicy, delicious and well-cut steak. Some like to have it casually and others have it to punctuate a celebratory mood. I am sure even now some of us are impatiently waiting for these festivities to be over so that we can have a lusciously juicy steak […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The TRC as biopolitical imperative (Part 2: The ‘Tumult Commission’)
In the previous post, I mentioned that Sitze (2013) argues that the TRC had its jurisprudential origins (or precedents) in “colonial sovereignty and governmentality”. I discussed how Sitze argues that the indemnity convention originated in the theory of parliamentary (political) sovereignty of Dicey’s English constitutional law. I then discussed how the indemnity convention, as an […]
Posted inGeneral, Tech
Gelernter: A dissenting voice in the field of artificial intelligence
The relationship between the human mind and body is something that has occupied philosophers at least since the father of modern philosophy, René Descartes, bequeathed his notorious “dualism” to his successors. For Descartes the mind was a different “substance” compared to the body – the former was a “thinking substance” and the latter an “extended […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, General, News/Politics
#RUReferenceList could prove crucial in influencing the rape conversation
Is the time for South Africa to have the difficult discussion about rape finally here? Is it now time to do our utmost to provide protection and care for survivors and those vulnerable? The release of a list of 11 male students accused of sexual assault at Rhodes University, and subsequent protests by students, could […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The TRC as biopolitical imperative (Part 1: Indemnity)
Now that 20 years have passed since the TRC undertook the complex task of promoting national unity and reconciliation, it is an opportune moment to reflect on its legacy. In an as yet little known book, The Impossible Machine: a genealogy of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, published in 2013, Adam Sitze targets much […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Hallowed be Thy name (and the non-sense of property ownership)
“Hello be Thy name.” That is what I used to say as a seven year old at boarding school, in my pyjamas with knees pressed on the cold floor of the dormitory. “Oh cheeses!” I would say whenever frustrated. A fellow boarder pointed out that I was blaspheming the Lord’s name. That I was saying, […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, General, Lifestyle
Lessons on language while in Beijing
By Curwyn Mapaling Naturally, when you attend a symposium or a conference in another country, you expect to learn, to share, to travel, and to explore. There’s so much to learn when entering a foreign country for the first time – everything is new, everything is interesting. I was recently selected to attend the Yenching […]
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Do you need to own a vagina to write the manual for it?
I am in my late twenties which means a number of things. The first, an increase in pregnancies. The second, an increase in sexual awareness among female friends and family. The third is doing squats before it’s too late and my hind quarters can no longer be saved. Bar the last one this list involves […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Zuma-Concourt saga: Constitutionalism (Episode IV)
The widespread use of the phrase “a victory of democracy”, when referring to the Constitutional Court Nkandla ruling, is a disservice to South Africa. Words have the power to shine light on a meaning. Words have the power to marginalise. The choice of the word democracy in this instance is not a trivial matter because […]