Performing South Africa's Truth Commission: Stages of Transition (African Expressive Cultures)
A substantial contribution to the debate as to what is justice. This is a book not only for lawyers and those involved in the dramatic arts and philosophers. The depth of Cole's research and clarity of the arguments advanced is a very useful contribution as to what ought to be done in our troubled world.—George BizosCatherine Cole looks at the functioning of the Truth Commission as a mode of story-telling in itself. Her empathetic and richly detailed recovery of information adds a new dimension: an objective and nuanced story of the passionate TRC story of the stories of pain.—Albie SachsAn exceptionally cogent and substantial project by a leading scholar in theater and performance studies.—Joseph RoachIn this beautifully constructed and densely argued volume, Cole attends to actors, scripts, and audiences, and also to the literary and artistic renderings that carried the TRC hearings to a nation and to the world.—David W. Cohen, InterventionsAn original and meticulous study of one of the most important examples of transitional justice of our era.—Liz Gunner, University of WitwatersrandThe five well-crafted chapters present instances of how the public or the nation experienced or witnessed the public proceedings of the commission.—Lars Burr, PoLARCole retrieves the commission from any narrow legal or quantitative assessment to uncover a promising literariness at its core that should be read and interpreted.—Research in African LiteraturesA must-read for anyone interested in the work of the Truth Commission.—SafundiNo comparable media studies analysis approaches the level of complex layering with which Cole…thinks of television itself as a polyvalent, indeed over-determined, kind of performer.—Contemporary Theatre ReviewBy a scholar with a convincing interest in and profound understanding of the complexities of the South African process of transformation.—L'Homme