Courtroom as a Space of Resistance

Awol Allo is Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.

• 1. The Courtroom as a Space of Resistance: Reflections on the Legacy of the Rivonia Trial - Awol Allo2. In the Name of Mandela - Derek Hook3. When Time Gives: Reflections on Two Rivonia Renegades - Johan van der Walt4. Nelson Mandela and Civic Myths: A Law and Literature Approach to Rivonia - Peter Leman5. Justice in Transition: South Africa Political Trials, 1956–1964 - Catherine M. Cole6. The Rivonia Trial: Domination, Resistance and Transformation - Catherine Albertyn7. ‘The Road to Freedom Passes Through Gaol’: The Treason Trial and Rivonia Trial as Political Trials - Mia Swart8. ‘I am the first accused’: Seven Reflections (and a Postscript) on Derrida’s Mandela - Jaco Barnard-Naudé9. ‘Black man in the white man’s court’: Performative Genealogies in the Courtroom - Awol Allo10. Reading Choreographies of Black Resistance: Courtroom Performance as/and Critique - Joel M. Modiri11. What is Revealed by the Absence of a Reply? Courtesy, Pedagogy and the Spectre of UnansweredLetters in Mandela’s Trial - Alison Phipps12. Lawscapes: The Rivonia Trial and Pretoria - Isolde de Villiers13. Literary Autonomy on Trial: The 1974 Cape Trial of André Brink’s Kennis van die Aand - Ted Laros14. "The Unkindest Cut of All": Coloniality, Performance and Gender in the Courtroom and Beyond - Chloé S. Georas15. Spectacular Justice: Aesthetics and Power in the Gandhi Murder Trial - Kanika Sharma

"This timely and powerful volume presents the court not as a neutral instrument of justice but as a site of contestation and critique, where the normative and performative clash, and where discourses of domination encounter practices of resistance. The chapters are challenging in the best sense of the word - they contest accepted views and interrogate received orthodoxies." - Lawrence Douglas, Amherst College, USA "A welcome collection of intelligently crafted and often inspirational analyses that look back to the Rivonia Trial, a legendary and dramatic event in the struggle against Apartheid. At its heart, of course, is the bold and gracious figure of Nelson Mandela, the accused, engaging the rapt court with his momentous speech: a supreme act of resistance, articulated through the sincere admiration of Law, which served to expose the absurdities and betrayals of apartheid's perversion of Justice. The contributors explore the trial from their many complementary perspectives, showing how Mandela's vision for what seemed then like an impossible post-apartheid South Africa was a gift to which, still, we cannot stop giving time." - Vikki Bell, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK