Nick Bromell – författare

"Why," asks Nick Bromell, "should the political thought of white Americans remain the only theory to which Americans of all ethnicities turn when constructing and reconstructing their understanding of democracy? Must Americans remain locked in an apartheid of experience and perception even after whites have become a minority population in this nation? Hasn't the 2012 presidential election made clear that the time has come to build not just on the votes of citizens of color, but on the varieties of democratic thought their experience has engendered?"In his answers to these questions, Bromell brings to light an underappreciated stream of democratic reflection by black writers and activists from David Walker to Malcolm X. Bromell argues that these thinkers urge Americans to fundamentally re-imagine the nature of their democracy and recognize that indignation can be a powerful and productive democratic emotion; that dignity is just as important to democracy as equality and liberty; that national citizenship can be infused with a sense of responsibility to the world; and that faith can actually promote rather than threaten democratic pluralism. A literary critic and intellectual historian, Bromell draws on a wide range of fiction, essays, speeches, and oral histories, deftly synthesizing recent work in U.S. history, literary and cultural studies, and political theory. Like the figures he discusses, he puts this thought to work in the present moment, this "now." Black democratic insights, he shows, are strikingly relevant to the challenges facing US democracy today, and they provide the basis for a new, post-liberal public philosophy with which to turn back the rise of radical conservatism.Historian Robin D.G. Kelley writes: "In this work of enormous breadth, depth, and imagination, Nick Bromell makes what may be the most original contribution to political theory in the past decade. In this age of alleged color blindness, Bromell has the vision and the chutzpah to turn to African American thought-ideas born of struggle, anchored in questions of dignity, human relationships, and faith-in order to revitalize American democracy. "

Frederick Douglass' fame as an activist and abolitionist often eclipses his less appreciated work as a political philosopher. Indeed, few people know that he declared in an 1867 speech: "From this little bit of experience, slave experience, I have elaborated quite a lengthy chapter of political philosophy, applicable to the American people." However, Douglass did not develop this philosophy systematically. Instead, he expressed it in myriad moments and fragments throughout his writings, and for this reason it is often overlooked, even by scholars of philosophy.The philosophy Douglass drew from his experience of enslavement and anti-Black racism is as relevant today as it was in his lifetime. More than any other abolitionist and Black activist of his day, Douglass saw that the slavery system was both the cause and the consequence of virulent anti-Black racism. Seeking to understand and repudiate not just racism, but also sexism and nativism, he developed a powerful theory of human nature, human powers, and human dignity that he subsequently wove into a profound theory of democracy and democratic citizenship. This collection, carefully curated by editor Nick Bromell, makes Douglass's philosophical ideas available and compelling to a new generation of readers.

Frederick Douglass' fame as an activist and abolitionist often eclipses his less appreciated work as a political philosopher. Indeed, few people know that he declared in an 1867 speech: "From this little bit of experience, slave experience, I have elaborated quite a lengthy chapter of political philosophy, applicable to the American people." However, Douglass did not develop this philosophy systematically. Instead, he expressed it in myriad moments and fragments throughout his writings, and for this reason it is often overlooked, even by scholars of philosophy.The philosophy Douglass drew from his experience of enslavement and anti-Black racism is as relevant today as it was in his lifetime. More than any other abolitionist and Black activist of his day, Douglass saw that the slavery system was both the cause and the consequence of virulent anti-Black racism. Seeking to understand and repudiate not just racism, but also sexism and nativism, he developed a powerful theory of human nature, human powers, and human dignity that he subsequently wove into a profound theory of democracy and democratic citizenship. This collection, carefully curated by editor Nick Bromell, makes Douglass's philosophical ideas available and compelling to a new generation of readers.

Tomorrow Never Knows takes us back to the primal scene of the 1960s and asks: what happened when young people got high and listened to rock as if it really mattered - as if it offered meaning and sustenance, not just escape and entertainment? What did young people hear in the music of Dylan, Hendrix, or the Beatles? Bromell's pursuit of these questions radically revises our understanding of rock, psychedelics, and their relation to the politics of the 60s, exploring the period's controversial legacy and the reasons why being "experienced" has been an essential part of American youth culture to the present day.

This Norton Critical Edition includes:Nick Bromell and R. Blakeslee Gilpin’s introduction to Frederick Douglass’s second autobiography, providing the deep contextualisation teachers want and students need.The first edition text (1855), accompanied by the editors’ detailed explanatory footnotes.Twelve contemporary works that relate to My Bondage and My Freedom, including writings by Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Franklin, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry David Thoreau, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Jacobs.Nineteen critical assessments of My Bondage and My Freedom—nine contemporary and ten recent interpretations—to inspire classroom discussion and research topics across the curriculumA chronology of Frederick Douglass’s life and work and a selected bibliography.

Literary scholars and historians have long considered W. E. B. Du Bois (1868--1963) an extremely influential writer and a powerful cultural critic. The author of more than one hundred books, hundreds of published articles, and founding editor of the NAACP journal The Crisis, Du Bois has been widely studied for his profound insights on the politics of race and class in America. An activist as well as a scholar, Du Bois proclaimed, "I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy."In A Political Companion to W. E. B. Du Bois, Nick Bromell assembles essays from both new and established scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore Du Bois's contributions to American political thought. The contributors establish a conceptual context within which to read the author, revealing how richly and variously he engaged with the aesthetic and theological modalities of political thinking and action. This volume further reveals how Du Bois's work challenges and revises contemporary political theory, providing commentary on the author's strengths and limitations as a theorist for the twenty-first century. In doing so, it helps readers gain an understanding of how Du Bois's work and life continue to stimulate lively and constructive debate about the theory and practice of democracy in America.

In The Powers of Dignity Nick Bromell unpacks Frederick Douglass's 1867 claim that he had “elaborated a political philosophy” from his own “slave experience.” Bromell shows that Douglass devised his philosophy because he found that antebellum Americans' liberal-republican understanding of democracy did not provide a sufficient principled basis on which to fight anti-Black racism. To remedy this deficiency, Douglass deployed insights from his distinctively Black experience and developed a Black philosophy of democracy. He began by contesting the founders' racist assumptions about humanity and advancing instead a more robust theory of “the human” as a collection of human “powers.” He asserted further that the conscious exercise of those powers is what confirms human dignity and that human rights and democracy come into being as ways to affirm and protect that dignity. Thus, by emphasizing the powers and the dignity of all citizens, deriving democratic rights from these, and promoting a remarkably activist, power-oriented model of citizenship, Douglass's Black political philosophy aimed to rectify two major failings of US democracy in his time and ours: its complacence and its racism.