"The struggle to be independent": a history of the black press in South Africa 1836 - 1960

Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid, 6-10 February, 1990

Life, time, and the organism:Temporal registers in the construction of life forms

In this paper, we articulate how time and temporalities are involved in the making of living things. For these purposes, we draw on an instructive episode concerning Norfolk Horn sheep. We attend to historical debates over the nature of the breed, whether it is extinct or not, and whether presently living exemplars are faithful copies of those that came before. We argue that there are features to these debates that are important to understanding contemporary configurations of life, time and the organism, especially as these are articulated within the field of synthetic biology. In particular, we highlight how organisms are configured within different material and semiotic assemblages that are always structured temporally. While we identify three distinct structures, namely the historical, phyletic and molecular registers, we do not regard the list as exhaustive. We also highlight how these structures are related to the care and value invested in the organisms at issue. Finally, because we are interested ultimately in ways of producing time, our subject matter requires us to think about historiographical practice reflexively. This draws us into dialogue with other scholars interested in time, not just historians, but also philosophers and sociologists, and into conversations with them about time as always multiple and never an inert background

International law and Australian law

The Australian legal system is not an island, and Australian law has felt the influence of law and legal ideas from other jurisdictions, particularly other common law countries. Australian law has also been shaped by public international law both directly and indirectly and this interaction has become increasingly important as the scope and content of international law have grown. The relationship between Australian law and international law is mediated by Australia’s constitutional framework in which the separation of powers between the executive, legislature and the courts holds central place. Unlike the constitutions in many other legal systems, the Australian Constitution does not address the relationship between international and domestic law, and most of the relevant legal principles are to be found in the common law. This chapter examines how each arm of government in Australia has engaged with international law, identifying areas where the relationship is well settled (as it is in relation to treaties) and areas where there remains some uncertainty (as in relation to customary international law)

Literature for the rainbow nation: The case of sol Plaatje's <i>Mhudi</i>

The rise in critical status of Sol Plaatje's Mhudi is traced, with the connections between the changing political conditions and the (increasingly generous) receptions of the novel sketched. Brief comparisons to canon construction in Roman, English, and United States literatures provide a basis for the argument that a conservative aesthetic is likely to prevail in the new South Africa, with writing “too angry”, “not literary enough”, and “not truly South African” marginalised. Brief suggestions are given as to how such an aesthetic might be resisted