Worthy Ancestors book to be launched at Open Book Festival

Can archive - our collective memory of the past - stand as a bulwark against political recidivism? This is one of the questions that Xolela Mangcu and Carolyn Hamilton will be honing in on as part of a discussion at Cape Town's Open Book Festival. Aptly scheduled for Heritage Day (24 September) their debate will be taking place from 12-1pm at the Townhouse Imbizo to mark the launch of the book, Becoming Worthy Ancestors: Archive, Public Deliberation and Identity in South Africa.

Why does it matter that nations should care for their archives, and that they should develop a sense of shared identity? And why should these processes take place in the
public domain? How can nations possibly speak about a shared sense of identity in pluralistic societies where individuals and groups have multiple identities? These are the issues that the Public Conversations lecture series - an initiative of the Constitution of Public Intellectual Life Project at Wits University - proceeded from in 2006.

'Five years later, cross currents in contemporary South Africa have made debates around the meanings of identity and citizenship even more imperative and an understanding of 'archive' even more urgent,' say the books publishers, Wits University Press. 'The 2006 lectures were collected, resulting in this volume which takes its title from Weber's point, elaborated on in the chapter by Benedict Anderson, that the
future asks us to be worthy ancestors to the yet unborn.'

Like the lecture series, the book aims to reach a broad and informed reading public because the topic is still of pressing interest in contemporary public discourse. In a changed (and, some might say, degraded) environment of public dialogue, the editor hopes to inspire a re-thinking of the very essence of what it means to be a citizen of South Africa.

Becoming Worthy Ancestorsaims to make accessible the theoretically informed, sometimes highly academic work of its various contributors. Edited by Xolela Mangcu, the book includes chapters by Ntongela Masilela, Frederick Van Zyl Slabbert, Martin Bernal, Pumla Dineo Gqola, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Benedict Anderson and Carolyn Hamilton. With chapters from high profile international and local contributors, it will be of interest to South African and international audiences.