Race And Reconciliation

A meditation on the lessons to be learned from South Africas transformation in the wake of apartheid Justice, truth, and identity; race, society, and lawall come into dramatic play as South Africa makes the tumultuous transition to a post-apartheid democracy. Seeking the timeless through the timely and trying to find the deeper meaning in the sweep of events, Daniel Herwitz brings the vast resources of the philosophical essay to bear on the new realities of post-apartheid South Africafrom racial identity to truth commissions, from architecture to film and television. A public intellectuals reflections on public life, Herwitzs essays question how the new South Africa has constructed its concepts of reconciliation and return and how its historical emergence has meant a rethinking, reimagining, reexperiencing, relabeling, and repoliticizing of race. Herwitzs purpose is to give a philosophical reading of societya society already relying on implicitly philosophical concepts in its social and political agendas. Working through these concepts, testing their relevance for reading society, his book itself becomes a part of the politics of definition and description in the new South Africa.