Mbeki's African Renaissance Vision as Reflected in isiXhosa Written Poetry: 2005–2011

IsiXhosa literary critics have not yet interrogated literature that was produced during and after the tenure of Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki as deputy president and president of the Republic of South Africa in order to study the impact of his African Renaissance doctrine. This article analyses poetry that was produced from 2005 to 2011. The content of the isiXhosa written poetry is profoundly influenced by the context of former President Mbeki's African Renaissance philosophy, its implementation structures and philosophy of self-confidence and self-reliance. The selected poems analysed and interpreted in this article suggest that Mbeki's legacy of the African Renaissance empowered poets to develop a narrative that advances the building of a regenerated South African nation and the African continent. Selected poetry of the period is contextualised, and the findings reveal that the poets have a dialectical relationship with historical developments of the time, and that they demonstrate acquiescence to the African Renaissance ideology, and support the operational structures created; namely African Union, Pan-African Parliament and the Vuk’uzenzele programme.     

Coetzee’s stones: Dusklands and the nonhuman witness

Bringing together theoretical writing on objects, testimony, and trauma to develop the category of the “nonhuman witness,” this essay considers the narrative, ethical, and ecological work performed by peripheral objects in J. M. Coetzee’s Dusklands (1974). Coetzee’s insistent object catalogues acquire narrative agency and provide material for a counter-narrative parody of first-personal reports of violence in Dusklands. Such collections of nonhuman witnesses further disclose the longer temporality of ecological violence that extends beyond the text’s represented and imagined casualties. Linking the paired novellas of Dusklands, which concern 1970s America and 1760s South Africa, the essay finds in Coetzee’s strange early work a durable ethical contribution to South African literature precisely for its attention to nonhuman claimants and environments.     

Troubling frames: Zapiro’s iconography on Oscar Pistorius as traumics

ABSTRACT

This study aims to examine the comics form in relation to its representation of perpetrator trauma. Specifically, the study considers a selection of Jonathan Shapiro’s iconography on Oscar Pistorius as biograph(y)ics, since the artist ‘commixes’ Pistorius’s life from his rise to athletic fame – through the court trials for his alleged murder of Reeva Steenkamp on 14 February 2013 – to his conviction followed by a thirteen-year jail sentence on 24th November 2017. In my reading of the panels, I draw on Hilary Chute’s notion of the ethics of testimony in illustrative art and Jacques Derrida’s theorising on hauntology and the revenant to argue that wrongdoers can also experience their crimes as trauma. This critical engagement enables me to read Shapiro’s panels as not merely reinforcing dominant interpretations of the fallen hero, but also as a means by which the cartoonist destabilises and reconfigures socially accepted notions of the villain.     

知情同意诉讼中的证据学:英美法的观察

在传统的医疗过失侵权诉讼中,为了体现行外人士对医疗这一专家型行业的尊重,医疗专家证言在诉讼中发挥着重要的甚至决定性的作用。知情同意诉讼,虽被归入医疗过失侵权诉讼,却提供了一个不同于传统的医疗领域——诊断治疗——的情景。知情同意的独特性改变了专家证言在诉讼中的格局。在知情同意诉讼中,医疗专家证言的参与度和重要性遭到削弱。以患者为取向的信息披露标准的建立意味着法律的关注点已从"专家"整体转移到"患者";对"医学判断"所管辖领域的精细分割也说明,医疗专家证言只应在证明医疗信息的感知和启用"医疗特权"上有应用价值,医疗信息的实质性判断已让位于一般人知识,而且对"医疗特权"的严格控制会缩减医疗专家证言的适用空间;因果关系的认定和选择影响到医疗专家证言和患者证言的地位变化,尽管存在"事后诸葛"效应,为了与知情同意法则之主旨相匹配,主观化的因果关系应是前进方向。     

论我国拒证推定规则的完善——还其推定之本来面目

我国《证据规定》第乃条所规定的拒证推定规则没能够充分体现推定之基本特征，给予法官自由心证的空间过大，阻碍了拒证推定规则本身所具有的有利于实现诉讼经济等优势的发挥。《证据规定》第75条所规定的拒证推定规则应被还以推定之本来面目，并且其本身的运用不应使当事人之间的证明责任发生转移。     

论陈词证据及其定义

陈词认识论是当代西方哲学认识论的重要话题之一。对于陈词是什么,学者的意见存在分歧。可以将现有主流的定义分为三种类型:以科迪为代表的证据观;以弗里克为代表的思想表达观;以拉基为代表的思想交流观。通过对这三种类型定义的分析,可以看出语言交流行为是定义陈词的一个基本出发点。     

刑事庭审中的证据调查

证据调查是刑事庭审程序的核心内容.审判中心主义、法律的形式理性、程序正义理论和裁判事实的可接受性理论是刑事庭审中设置证据调查的理论基础.两大法系基于不同的诉讼理念,在证据调查中表现出不同的特点,以日本法、意大利法为代表的"混合式"诉讼构造在证据调查的设计上的确体现出"混合式"的特征.与此相比较,我国刑事庭审中的证据调查存在很多问题,应借鉴国外的立法和司法经验对我国的证据调查予以重新构建.     

英美民事诉讼法中对证言可靠性的审查及其启示

根据英美法系,证言的可靠性包括证言的可信赖性与证言的可信任性,这样的分类对我国具有极大的借鉴意义,其以此分类为基础建立的唤醒记忆、品格证据提出、对陪审团的特殊指引等证言的可靠性审查制度也对我国具有一定的启示。我国目前对证言可靠性的审查存在一定的缺陷,尤其对证言的证据效果的认定上需要进行完善。借鉴英美法系对证言可靠性的审查制度,我国民事诉讼法应该明确证言可靠性对证据证明力的影响、引入品格证据、加强法官对证言可靠性的审查意识等方面予以改善。     

Mock-juror reactions to multiple interview presentation and rapport-building

ABSTRACT

In the UK and some US states, video-recorded investigative interviews of child victims/witnesses can be presented in court as the child’s evidence-in-chief. However, there is scarce advice or research on the effect that presenting different sections of the interviews may have on juror perceptions of the child’s testimony. Two aspects of testimony presentation are examined here: first, whether to show the rapport-building phase of the interview, and second, the presentation of multiple interviews (i.e. more than one interview with the same child). Participants (n?=?103) informed they were watching two interviews of the same child separated by a week had more positive perceptions of the child’s testimony than those informed they were watching just one extended interview with a ten-minute break. Also, those watching the rapport-building phase had less positive perceptions of the child’s testimony than those who did not watch this phase. Participants’ perceptions of the interviewer and their case progression decisions were mainly not related to the above presentational differences. Thus, (i) mock-jurors were not inherently biased against multiple interviews and (ii) decisions regarding whether or not to show the rapport-building phase in court may have significant effects on jurors’ perceptions of the child and their testimony.     

摇晃婴儿综合征:科学(与非科学)专家的一场真实交战

本文从科学和法律层面介绍了摇晃婴儿综合征的有关内容,就关于摇晃婴儿综合征的科学和非科学专家证言的可采性进行了评价,称在科学和非科学专家之间正在发生一场真实的交战。