The democratic arts of mourning : political theory and loss / edited by Alexander Keller Hirsch and David W. McIvor.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Hirsch, Alexander Keller, editor.

McIvor, David Wallace, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Collective memory--Political aspects--United States.

Collective memory.

Memorialization--Political aspects--United States.

Memorialization.

Bereavement--Political aspects--United States.

Bereavement.

United States.

Physical Description:

xxviii, 224 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, Maryland : Lexington Books, 2019.

Summary:

The Democratic Arts of Mourning reflects on the variety of ways in which mourning affects political and social life. In recent decades, political theorists have increasingly examined and explored the themes of loss, grief, and mourning. With an introduction that contextualizes the turn to mourning in previous scholarship on the politics of tragedy, this book includes twelve chapters that clarify the intertwinement between politics and mourning. The chapters are organized into five thematic sections that each shed light on how democratic societies relate to loss, grief, suffering, and death. Collectively, the chapters explore the concept of mourning and its relationship to civic rituals, memorials, taboos, social movements, and popular music. Chapters examine how social groups defend their members against experiences of grief or mourning, or how poetic expressions--such as ancient Greek tragedy--can address the catastrophes of human life. Other chapters explore the politics of symbols and bodies, and how they can become fraught objects that stand in for a society's undigested--unmourned--losses and absences. The book concludes with an interview with Bonnie Honig, whose own work on mourning has been deeply influential in contemporary political theory.

Contents:

Introduction : the democratic arts of mourning / David W. McIvor and Alexander Keller Hirsch

Groups can hardly mourn / C. Fred Alford

Must we always mourn? : a war on terror veterans memorial / Steven Johnston

Removing the confederate flag in South Carolina in the wake of Charleston : sovereignty, symbolism, and white domination in a "colorblind" state / Heather Pool

Mourning denied : the tabooed subject / Claudia Leeb

Not in my graveyard / Osman Balkan

Reparations, refusals, and grief : idle no more and democratic mourning / Vicki Hsueh

Burning rage : disenfranchised mourning and the political possibilities of anger / Shirin S. Deylami

The funeral and the riot : #blacklivesmatter, antagonistic politics, and the limits of (exceptional) mourning / David Myer Temin

Music, mourning, and democratic resilience : Bruce Springsteen's The rising / Simon Stow

Speaking silence : holding and the democratic arts of mourning / Joel Schlosser

Rituals of re-entry : an interview with Bonnie Honig / David W. McIvor and Alexander Keller Hirsch.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Democratic arts of mourning

ISBN:

9781498567244

149856724X

OCLC:

1057303418