This article revisits the case of Woody Allen's mockumentary Zelig (1983) via Friedrich Nietzsche's diagnostic of mimicry in The Gay Science. It argues that the case of the "human chameleon"... Show moreThis article revisits the case of Woody Allen's mockumentary Zelig (1983) via Friedrich Nietzsche's diagnostic of mimicry in The Gay Science. It argues that the case of the "human chameleon" remains contemporary for both philosophical and political reasons. On the philosophical side, I argue that the case of Zelig challenges an autonomous conception of the subject based on rational self-sufficiency (or Homo Sapiens) by proposing a relational conception of the subject open to mimetic influences (or homo mimeticus) that will have to await the discovery of mirror neurons in the 1990s in order to find an empirical confirmation. On the political side, I say that Zelig foregrounds the power of authoritarian leaders in the 1930s to cast a spell on both imitative crowds and publics in terms that provide a mimetic supplement to Hannah Arendt's account of the "banality of evil". The philosophical purchase of Zelig's cinematic dramatization of a mimetic subject is that it reveals how the "inability to think" (Hannah Arendt) characteristic of the case of Eichmann rests on unnoticed affective principles constitutive of the all-too-human penchant for "mimicry" (Nietzsche) the film dramatises. Thus reframed, the human chameleon reflects (on) the dangers of mimetic dispossessions that reached massive proportions in the past century and continue to cast a shadow on the present century. Show less
Democracy is about competing "truths". This is why "rhetoric"- the study of public deliberation and the training in public debate and argumentation - is part of democracy in development. This... Show moreDemocracy is about competing "truths". This is why "rhetoric"- the study of public deliberation and the training in public debate and argumentation - is part of democracy in development. This volume acclimatizes "rhetoric" to the philosophical scene in South Africa, and more in general in Africa as a whole, and reflects on the emergence of public deliberation in the South African democracy through a reading of the 1995-1998 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in terms of Aristotelian rhetoric. Four papers (part 1) tackle, from four different angles, the re-telling of private truths about a public regimen of affairs in front of the TRC. In Part 2, public deliberation and the fashioning of truth are approached from a variety of perspectives, examples and situations of "rhetorical democracy" from elsewhere in Africa (Nigeria) and beyond. Part 3 offers examples of how rhetoric may be brought to bear upon politics in order to understand how dialogue between different levels of agency creates democratic negotiation and, in the process, shapes policy, as for example in the case of the African Renaissance, the land redistribution programme in postapartheid South Africa and the 1991 National Conference of Congo-Brazzaville. The volume closes on a philosophical analysis of the "ethical" dimension inherent to public deliberation as well as to the contest of beliefs, and on an examination of the volume's contents in the light of long-standing concerns of African philosophy and of the journal 'Quest'. Contributors: Charles Calder, Barbara Cassin, Mary Jane Collier, Erik Doxtader, Eugene Garver, Yehoshua Gitay, Lisa Hajjar, Darrin Hicks, Johnson Segun Ige, Abel Kouvouama, Andrea Lollini, Reingard Nethersole, Sanya Osha, Philippe-Joseph Salazar, Lydia Samarbakhsh-Liberge, Wim van Binsbergen, Charles Villa-Vicencio. [ASC Leiden abstract] Show less
Most of the papers included in this volume were presented at a symposium held at Uppsala University, Sweden, in August 1987. An introduction by A. Jacobson-Widding and W. van Beek on the theme... Show moreMost of the papers included in this volume were presented at a symposium held at Uppsala University, Sweden, in August 1987. An introduction by A. Jacobson-Widding and W. van Beek on the theme developed in the book, African folk models of fertility, is followed by three parts: I. Fertility from above, fertility from below (A. Jacobson-Widding on the fertility of incest; J.-P. Jacob on the Winye Gurunsi of Burkina Faso; J. Zwernemann on the Kasena, the Nuna (Burkina Faso, Ghana), and the Moba (Togo, Ghana); R. Devisch on the Yaka (Zaire); G. Dahl on the Borana (Kenya); M. Udvardy on the Giriama (Kenya); 2. Fertility from the wilderness (J. Hultin on the Macha Oromo (Ethiopia); P. Brandstr”m on the Sukuma-Nyamwezi (Tanzania); T. H†kansson on the Gusii (Kenya); K. rhem on the Maasai (Kenya, Tanzania); 3. The fertility of social communion (P. Baxter on the Oromo; A.-I. Berglund on the Zulu (southeastern Africa); L. Brydon on the people of Avatime in Ghana; W. van Beek on the Dogon (Mali) and the Kapsiki (Cameroon); M. Whyte on the Nyole of Uganda; and P. Riesman on the Fulbe and RiimaayBe of Burkina Faso) Show less
