Materializing Democracy

Toward a Revitalized Cultural Politics

Autor: Castronovo, Russ; Nelson, Dana D.; Pease, Donald E.; Dayan, Joan; Flores, Richard R.
Editor: Duke University Press
Col·lecció: New Americanists
ISBN: 9780822329107
eISBN Pdf: 9780822383901
Lloc de publicació: Durham , United States
Any de publicació digital: 2002
Mes: Juny
Pàgines: 440
DDC: 321.8
Idioma: Anglés

Descripció

For the most part, democracy is simply presumed to exist in the United States. It is viewed as a completed project rather than as a goal to be achieved. Fifteen leading scholars challenge that stasis in Materializing Democracy. They aim to reinvigorate the idea of democracy by placing it in the midst of a contentious political and cultural fray, which, the volume’s editors argue, is exactly where it belongs. Drawing on literary criticism, cultural studies, history, legal studies, and political theory, the essays collected here highlight competing definitions and practices of democracy—in politics, society, and, indeed, academia.

Covering topics ranging from rights discourse to Native American performance, from identity politics to gay marriage, and from rituals of public mourning to the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, the contributors seek to understand the practices, ideas, and material conditions that enable or foreclose democracy’s possibilities. Through readings of subjects as diverse as Will Rogers, Alexis de Tocqueville, slave narratives, interactions along the Texas-Mexico border, and liberal arts education, the contributors also explore ways of making democracy available for analysis. Materializing Democracy suggests that attention to disparate narratives is integral to the development of more complex, vibrant versions of democracy.

Contributors. Lauren Berlant, Wendy Brown, Chris Castiglia, Russ Castronovo, Joan Dayan, Wai Chee Dimock, Lisa Duggan, Richard R. Flores, Kevin Gaines, Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, Michael Moon, Dana D. Nelson, Christopher Newfield, Donald E. Pease

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Materializing Democracy and Other Political Fantasies
Tocqueville’s Democratic Thing; or, Aristocracy in America
Legal Slaves and Civil Bodies
Mexicans in a Material World: From John Wayne’s The Alamo to Stand-Up Democracy on the Border
Souls That Matter: Social Death and the Pedagogy of Democratic Citizenship
Uncle Sam Needs a Wife: Citizenship and Denegation
The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism
The Genealogy of a Democratic Crush
Representative/Democracy: The Political Work of Countersymbolic Representation
Rethinking Space, Rethinking Rights: Literature, Law, and Science
A Long Foreground: Re-Materializing the History of Native American Relations to Mass Culture
From Center to Margin: Internationalism and the Origins of Black Feminism
Democratic Passions: Reconstructing Individual Agency
Anti-Ideology: Education and Politics as Democratic Practices
Moralism as Antipolitics
Works Cited
Contributors
Index