Staging Solidarity

Tanya Goodman brings to this study of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission an impressive set of analytic skills as well as a deep sensitivity to the cultural climate of South Africa. The hearings of the Commission were political theater, ritual performance, judicial procedure, moral pageant, and public ceremony all at once. They played a vital role in the beginnings of what may well become a true national community, and Goodman has caught their character and their spirit wonderfully. -Kai Erikson, Yale University

Tanya Goodman is an independent researcher who has taught at Yale Law School, worked with various human rights oriented nongovernmental organizations in South Africa, and developed a multimedia project related to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission under a grant from the U.S. Institute for Peace. Her research to date has focused on issues related to truth commissions and transitional justice on a local and global scale. Ronald Eyerman is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University. His recent books include Music and Social Movements (1998) and Cultural Trauma Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity (2002), both from Cambridge University Press. Jeffrey C. Alexander is the Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology at Yale University, where he is Codirector of the Center for Cultural Sociology. Among his many influential books is The Civic Sphere (2006).

Chapter 1 A Home for All; Chapter 2 Theoretical Backdrop; Chapter 3 Weaving the Threads of a Cultural Trauma: Testimony at the TRC; Chapter 4 Broadcasting the Trauma Drama: The Media as Sympathetic Interpreters; Chapter 5 Extending the TRC Narrative: Analyzing Positive Audience Response; Chapter 6 Ramifications and Conclusions;