RICK TURNER'S POLITICS AS THE ART OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

271pp., paperback, Johannesburg, 2024

A collection of essays on South African political philosopher Rick Turner’s work. Turner taught political science at the University of Natal in the 1970s. In 1973 he published the book, The Eye of the Needle, towards participatory democracy in South Africa. The following year he was banned for five years by the South African authorities. In 1976 he was awarded a Humboldt Fellowship by Heidelberg University but was refused permission to travel to Germany. He was shot through the window of his Durban home by an unknown gunman in 1978. His killers have never been identified.

Contributions include:

"Decolonising Resistance: Political freedom in Rick Turner and Steve Biko" by Michael Onyebuchi Eze

"Women in the Frame: Reading Turner's The Eye of the Needle through Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex" by Paula Ensor

"Should We Take Turner's Democratic Model Seriously?" by Daryl Glaser

"The Relevance of Rick Turner's 'Utopian Thinking' for a Critical Pedagogy" by Crain Soudien

"Radical Contingency and Turner's Enduring Message to Relative Privilege" by Gideon van Riet

"What is the Point of Political Theory?" by Lawrence Hamilton.

"This extraordinary volume is both recovery and critique. Prior to his assassination as an anti-apartheid activist, Rick Turner was then - and is now - an inspiring political philosopher." Terrell Carver, Professor of Political Theory, School of Sociology, University of Bristol

Michael Onyebuchi Eze teaches Africana studies at California State University, Fresno, and is an associate to the SA-UK Bilateral Research Chair in Political Theory, University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cambridge.

Lawrence Hamilton is Professor in Political Studies and the SA-UK Bilateral Research Chair in Political Theory at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Laurence Piper is Professor of Political Science at the University of the Western Cape and University West, Sweden.

Gideon van Riet is Associate Professor in Political Studies at North-West University.