Materializing democracy : toward a revitalized cultural politics / Russ Castronovo and Dana D. Nelson, editors.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Castronovo, Russ, 1965-

Nelson, Dana D.

Series:

New Americanists

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Democracy--United States.

Democracy.

United States.

Physical Description:

vii, 427 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2002.

Summary:

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 educations, 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.

Contents:

Introduction: Materializing democracy and other political fantasies / Russ Castronovo and Dana D. Nelson

Tocqueville's democratic thing: or, aristocracy in America / Donald E. Pease

Legal slaves and civil bodies / Joan Dayan

Mexicans in a material world: from John Wayne's The Alamo to stand-up democracy on the border / Richard R. Flores

Souls that matter: social death and the pedagogy of democratic citizenship / Russ Castronovo

Uncle Sam needs a wife: citizenship and denegation / Lauren Berlant

The new homonormativity: the sexual politics of neoliberalism / Lisa Duggan

The genealogy of a democratic crush / Chris Castiglia

Representative/democracy: the political work of countersymbolic representation / Dana D. Nelson

Rethinking space, rethinking rights: literature, law, and science / Wai Chee Dimock

A long foreground: re-materializing the history of Native American relations to mass culture / Michael Moon

From center to margin: internationalism and the origins of Black feminism / Kevin Gaines

Democratic passions: reconstructing individual agency / Christopher Newfield

Anti-ideology: education and politics as democratic practices / Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Moralism as antipolitics / Wendy Brown.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [393]-416) and index.

ISBN:

0822329107

0822329387

OCLC:

48675622