How to create your own jurassic park. feb 2012.
Published in The New York Review of Science Fiction, this piece offers lessons from Michael Crichton’s novel and film about how to expand his fictional universe.
How Two South Asian Literary Festivals Are Defining the Role of the Writer. Feb 2012.
An article on the Jaipur (India) and Galle (Sri Lanka) literary festivals and how they are defining the role of the writer in the Huffington Post.
Click here to read the article.
Gold, Guns and Books: the Meyomesse Affair. Jan 2012.
An article in the Huffington Post on detained Cameroonian writer Enoh Meyomesse and the climate of free expression in the country.
click here to read the article
Soccer in haiti: 2 years after the quake. jan 2012.
This Huffington Post article examines soccer in Haiti through the lens of the development issues plaguing the country after the 2010 earthquake.
click here to Read the article
Interview with Zapiro. jan 2012.
I interviewed the elusive and celebrated South African political cartoonist Zapiro at PEN American Center. Zapiro is a true champion of free expression who has fearlessly taken on presidents and the compelling issues of the day. I also compiled an annotated history of his cartoons.
Click here to read the interview at PEN American Center.
Click here for the annotated retrospective of Zapiro’s cartoons.
Interview with crime writer margie orford. Oct 2011.
I interviewed the charming South African crime writer Margie Orford about her work as an activist at South African PEN.
Click here to read the interview at PEN American Center.
Storytelling for Justice. 2011 (ongoing series).
part i | Part II | Part III | Part IV
I’m guest editing a series of articles for American Jewish World Service—an international development organization—to understand how the organization utilizes storytelling to advance its mission of empowering marginalized peoples around the globe.
Risk and Responsibility: Protecting Human Rights Defenders (co-Author). June 2011.
click here to read the paper
This paper researches emerging issues confronting human rights defenders and recommends strategies for grantmakers.
The spirit of the National Peace Accord: The past and future of conflict resolution in South Africa. 2009.
CLICK HERE TO READ full journal | CLICK HERE TO read article ONSITE
Published in ACCORD: the African Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 9 No. 1, 2009). The work is a condensed version of my research as a Rotary scholar in South Africa. The article examines the groundbreaking initiative called the National Peace Accord, which helped shepherd South Africa away form apartheid. It goes on to look at the government’s new attempt to incorporate traditional justice systems into the state.
Mountain climbing and apartheid. 2007.
READ IT ON THE WEBSITE | DOWNLOAD A PDF
Apologizing in post-apartheid South Africa is not nearly as simple as it seems. This article documents the attempt by the Mountain Club of South Africa to apologize for its discriminatory policies during apartheid. There are a number of interviews with climbers and the apology is analyzed through the lens of the latest theories of reconciliation in countries suffering from mass trauma.
A Critical Legal Studies Primer. 2006.
click here to download a pdf
Karl Marx warned us that legal rights are not always to be trusted. His reasoning was simple: that legal rights often perpetuate systems of exploitation and bolster the status quo. But somehow, one hundred and fifty years later, we continue to believe in them. This lengthy academic essay looks at the role of rights through the lens of the Critical Legal Studies movement. Writing in the 70s and 80s, these scholars found that the law diffuses power in surprising and often unpredictable ways – but rarely is a sinister force at work.
Refugees and Conflict Resolution in the Western Cape of South Africa. 2007.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE
Published in Dialogue: the Journal of Global Majority (Vol. 1, No.1, 2007). This article describes some of the issues confronting refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa. It specifically addresses violence against the refugee community, and suggests plausible solutions.
Immigrants and Harm Reduction Statutes in California
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Published in the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, Volume 19, Issue 3 (Spring 2005). This article describes the effect of drug harm reduction statutes upon the immigrant community in California. Thankfully, the incongruencies that I identified in the Immigration and Naturalization Act — in which removal for a drug offense depended almost entirely on the state you were living in — has since been at least partially resolved by a Supreme Court decision.
The Use of Force: Punishing Military Contractors Abroad. 2005.
Download the article here
This article examines various means of holding military contractors accountable. It discusses the alien tort statute and delves into the quagmire of U.S. military procurement rules and regulations. Submitted for my MPhil in Justice & Transformation at the University of Cape Town.
Resurrecting Gandhi: A New Method of Conflict Resolution for South Africa and Beyond. 2005.
Download the article here
This article seeks to understand Gandhi’s method of Satyagraha and identify its relevancy in post-apartheid South Africa. Submitted for my MPhil in Justice & Transformation at the University of Cape Town. (I used a lot of big words in this one. Oh well!)
The Cycle of Life and Loss
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Published in the literary magazine Triplopia.com, Vol VII, Issue 3 (2007). A brief article about the cycle of life, through the lens of Haruki Murakami and Michael Ende. The article was written to address the theme of ‘Structure’. (Sadly, Triplopia has since disappeared into the cyberspace ether.)
Elephant in Jaipur photo by Xiquinho Silva
