SUNY series, INTERRUPTIONS: Border Testimony(ies) and Critical Discourse/s – serie

Political Literacy confronts and responds to the question: What is required of the citizens of a democracy to ensure their individual and social rights? Exploring the rhetoric of legal interpretation, this book answers that citizens must be so educated as to have an intellectual awareness of the inherently rhetorical nature of language.Political Literacy explodes the myth that justice is delivered in the measured, seemingly disinterested, written decisions of America's highest courts. Instead, it reveals the political nature of legal opinions and their necessarily ideological perspectives. Using arguments and examples from a variety of ancient and modern writers and thinkers, the book defines political literacy for the first time. Fredric Gale passionately calls for changes in the way the public is educated about the justice system and about the risk of complacency in this crucial area of public life.

Examines photography and its contribution to changing notions of the body in modernity.Lalvani argues that modernity represents the powerful privileging of vision and the introduction of a paradigm of seeing that is historically distinctive. Taking the introduction of photography in the nineteenth century as a crucial development in the expansion of modern vision, he draws on the writings of Alan Sekula, John Tagg, Jonathan Crary, Norman Bryson and Martin Jay to examine in a comprehensive manner how photography functioned to organize a set of relations between knowledge, power, and the body. However, in taking a broad cultural studies approach Lalvani situates the practices of photography within the larger visual order of the nineteenth century. He demonstrates how the new lines of visibility formed not only by photography but by new urban spaces and new modes of transportation resulted in a particular organizing of the social order, of subjectivity and social relations.

A fascinating, immensely readable biography of one of the most important radical intellectuals of the twentieth century.C. L. R. James: A Political Biography offers the first sustained account of the life and work of one of the twentieth-century's most important radical intellectuals.C. L. R. James (1901-1989) was born and raised in Trinidad and became one of the most prominent figures to emerge out of the West Indian diaspora. He authored numerous books and essays on Caribbean history, Marxist theory, literary criticism, Western civilization, African politics, Hegelian philosophy, and popular culture. His best known works, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, and Beyond a Boundary are classics of twentieth-century thought. James played an active part in democratic movements in the West Indies and Africa as well as in left-wing and Pan-African campaigns in Britain, the United States, and Trinidad.

Addresses the questions: What might be the role of the artist in the 21st century? How essential is art to the psychic and political well-being of American society?This collection of essays by cultural critic Carol Becker plumbs particular areas of controversy to understand what information these "zones of contention" might yield about the multifarious culture wars taking place within American society today.In the process she addresses the place of art and artists in society, the difficulties facing women in the workplace, why male bonding exists, why women experience anxiety in relationship to creative endeavors, and why artists are misunderstood within American society. She positions art and artists, as well as institutional dynamics within a philosophical framework.

This collection of six interviews with internationally known scholars explores feminism, rhetoric, writing, and multiculturalism.Women Writing Culture is a collection of six interviews with internationally prominent scholars about feminism, rhetoric, writing, and multiculturalism. Those interviewed include feminist philosopher of science Sandra Harding; cultural critic and philosopher of science Donna Haraway; noted American theorist of women's epistemology Mary Belenky; African-American cultural critic bell hooks; Luce Irigaray, a major exponent of "French Feminism"; and Jean-Francois Lyotard, a philosopher and cultural critic who has helped to define "the postmodern condition." Together, these interviews afford significant insight into these eminent scholars' perspectives on women, writing, and culture, and explore how women write culture through the various postmodern discourses in which they engage.

Discusses the impact of inner city redevelopment programs and policies on the homeless and shows the methods used (civil protests, squatting, and legal advocacy) by the homeless to organize a tactical resistance to restructuring efforts. Presents case studies of two different types of homeless organized resistance groups in Chicago and San Jose.Winner of the 1998 Distinguished Scholarship Award of the Section on Marxist Sociology of the American Sociological Association Homeless persons find themselves excluded, repressed, and displaced in all sectors of everyday life—from punitive police and city zoning practices to media stereotypes. Wandering through the streets of developing cities, these poorest of the poor have no place to go. More and more, these city developments are not simply accepted passively; rather, resistance by organized homeless groups—civil protests, squatting, and legal advocacy—spread as conditions of everyday life deteriorate for the very poor.Out of Place: Homeless Mobilizations, Subcities, and Contested Landscapes details the development of two organized homeless resistances in two different cities. From the redevelopment protesters and squatting activities of the Student-Homeless Alliance in San Jose to the squatter camps of Tranquility City in Chicago, the differences and similarities between both groups are highlighted within the context of city redevelopment policies. Wright argues for considering homelessness not merely as an issue for social welfare, but first and foremost as a land use issue directly connected to issues of gentrification, displacement, and the cultural imaginings of what the city should look like by those who have the power to shape its development.How the homeless combat the restructurings of everyday life, how they attempt to establish a "place" is understood within the context of tactical resistances. Questions of collective identity and collective action are raised as a result of the successful organizing efforts of homeless groups who refuse to be victims. The struggle between individual and collective forms of empowerment is highlighted, with the conclusions pointing to the necessity to rethink and go beyond the traditional solutions of more housing and job training.

Challenges the conventional wisdom that violent horror films can only degrade women and incite violence.In Recreational Terror, Isabel Cristina Pinedo analyzes how the contemporary horror film produces recreational terror as a pleasurable encounter with violence and danger for female spectators. She challenges the conventional wisdom that violent horror films can only degrade women and incite violence, and contends instead that the contemporary horror film speaks to the cultural need to express rage and terror in the midst of social upheaval.

The trauma of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrates the limits of dominant visual models, such as photography, for providing adequate historical memory. The author argues that collective traumas suggest the need for a prolonged gaze, such as can be provided by expressive art.Beclouded Visions is an exploration of the many and varied ways in which atrocity has shaped the requirements of art, vision, and collective memory in the twentieth century. The atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki serve as a starting point, but what begins as a study of visual culture related to the atomic bombings soon generates questions that can be applied to multiple sites and practices of communal remembrance.Drawing on a diverse array of images-ranging from military photographs to survivor paintings-Maclear asks what it means to see such representations. What does it mean to put a face to horror? Does "seeing everything" make us more humane? Is it possible to become inured to images of violence? She probes the nature of our fascination with images of horror, and she questions our attachment to pictorial realism and graphic memory. Placing philosophers such as Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, and Theodore Adorno in the context of ongoing debates about history and memory, Beclouded Visions provides a refreshing perspective on art, remembrance, and mourning.

A survey of contemporary Chinese intellectuals.Zhidong Hao's fascinating book, Intellectuals at a Crossroads, examines groups of contemporary Chinese intellectuals, their successes, failures, identity contradictions, and ethical dilemmas. Three categories of intellectuals are studied: organic intellectuals who serve specific interests, from government and business to working class movements; critical intellectuals who defy authority with continued social criticism; and "unattached" intellectuals who are fast being professionalized. Using a historical-comparative approach enhanced with demographic and rare interview data, the book bridges the traditional with the modern and the Chinese with the foreign by exploring how these intellectuals are adapting to their roles and influencing political, economic, and social change in the "new" China.

Essays explore the contemporary contexts, activism, and cultural productions of queer youth and their communities.Engaging a wide range of cultural practices, including zine-making, drag performance, online chatting, music, gay porn, and organizing resistance, the essays in Susan Driver's Queer Youth Cultures explore the creative, political, energetic, and artistic worlds of contemporary queer youth. The research in this collection bridges the perspectives of academics and queer youth, and the voices of the youth resonate throughout the analyses of their communities and lives. Through a variety of methodological approaches, the contributors bring into focus the institutional regulations of youth sexuality and gender, the complex and changing embodied experiences of queer youth, and the visual and textual languages through which the experiences of the youth are represented. Rather than seeing queer youth as victims, contributors celebrate the creative ways that sexual and gender minority youth forge subcultures and challenge exclusionary and heteronormative ways of understanding young people.

Political Literacy confronts and responds to the question: What is required of the citizens of a democracy to ensure their individual and social rights? Exploring the rhetoric of legal interpretation, this book answers that citizens must be so educated as to have an intellectual awareness of the inherently rhetorical nature of language.Political Literacy explodes the myth that justice is delivered in the measured, seemingly disinterested, written decisions of America's highest courts. Instead, it reveals the political nature of legal opinions and their necessarily ideological perspectives. Using arguments and examples from a variety of ancient and modern writers and thinkers, the book defines political literacy for the first time. Fredric Gale passionately calls for changes in the way the public is educated about the justice system and about the risk of complacency in this crucial area of public life.

Looks at the political and cultural issues involved in teaching postcolonial literatures and theories.Order and Partialities explores the complex and problematic relations among postcolonial literatures and theories, the people who teach them at the university level, and the institutions in which they are taught. Each essay traces a path through these relations; yet each also comments on the fundamental paradox and contradiction within which these relations operate: that they must engage with the powerful, labyrinthine apparatus of Western cultural hegemony-a set of systematic, interpretative procedures corresponding to, and in service of, a regime of ideological expectations and its institutional representatives-in order to disengage themselves from its operations. There is no way to teach these relations without entering, oneself, into the entanglements of postcolonial power.

A fascinating, immensely readable biography of one of the most important radical intellectuals of the twentieth century.C. L. R. James: A Political Biography offers the first sustained account of the life and work of one of the twentieth-century's most important radical intellectuals.C. L. R. James (1901-1989) was born and raised in Trinidad and became one of the most prominent figures to emerge out of the West Indian diaspora. He authored numerous books and essays on Caribbean history, Marxist theory, literary criticism, Western civilization, African politics, Hegelian philosophy, and popular culture. His best known works, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, and Beyond a Boundary are classics of twentieth-century thought. James played an active part in democratic movements in the West Indies and Africa as well as in left-wing and Pan-African campaigns in Britain, the United States, and Trinidad.

Contains narratives of the experiences of teachers using the testimonial of Rigoberta Menchu, a Guatemalan Indian woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. Includes background essays on Menchu and the role of her story in political correctness debates.By utilizing the testimonial narrative of Rigoberta Menchú-a Mayan-Quiché of Guatemala and winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize-teachers in this volume engage students in vital and relevant cross-cultural learning in a variety of locations, disciplines, and levels. Teaching and Testimony tells teachers' stories of using Menchu's testimonial in their classrooms, and invites reflection on the transformative possibility of integrating previously marginalized voices. Energized by the teaching of Menchu's testimonial narrative, I, Rigoberta Menchú, these teachers let their guard down, wrestle with the immediate difficulties and possibilities of multicultural teaching, and speak with passion about the importance of what they and their students are learning.

Follows the work of a range of public intellectuals like Aronowitz, Giroux, hooks, Mouffe, and West, and argues for a 'radical democracy' capable of subverting traditional divisions of 'left' and'right.'Following the work of a range of public intellectuals like Stanley Aronowitz, Henry Giroux, bell hooks, Chantal Mouffe, and Cornel West, Cultural Democracy argues for a "radical democracy" capable of subverting traditional divisions of "left" and "right". In so doing, Trend suggests that solutions to contemporary cultural and political problems are not so far away as one might think. Their roots lie in the very democratic principles upon which the U.S.was founded, although many such principles need to be brought up to date and radicalized.

A book for teachers, parents, and other concerned citizens who care about public education, who want schools to be democratic in the best sense, and who seek argumentative ammunition for defending schools and for placing school issues within the larger framework of the long struggle to keep and expand democracy in the United StatesFraser argues that advocates of the public schools must recapture and redefine democracy so that it becomes both the purpose of public education and the model on which schools are structured.Defending an inclusive understanding of democracy, in which every citizen's contribution is essential to the health of the whole, Fraser responds to mean-spirited attacks on multicultural education, on school funding, and on progressive education itself. Finally, he explores the democratic and antidemocratic potential in increased use of computers in schools and in the reform of teacher education.This is a book for teachers, parents, and other concerned citizens who care about public education, who want schools to be democratic in the best sense, and who seek ammunition for defending schools and for placing school issues in the larger context of the long struggle for a more just and humane society.

Challenges the conventional wisdom that violent horror films can only degrade women and incite violence.In Recreational Terror, Isabel Cristina Pinedo analyzes how the contemporary horror film produces recreational terror as a pleasurable encounter with violence and danger for female spectators. She challenges the conventional wisdom that violent horror films can only degrade women and incite violence, and contends instead that the contemporary horror film speaks to the cultural need to express rage and terror in the midst of social upheaval.

A collection of interviews with some of the most provocative artists of the postmodern era, including Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Carrie Mae Weems, Carolee Schneemann, Andres Serrano, Karen Finley, and Kathy Acker. These sculptors, writers, filmmakers, activists, and performance artists have forged a new vision of art that is confrontational, political, and concerned with interrupting the domination of our lives by mass culture.This book presents interviews with some of the most provocative artists of the postmodern era, including Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Carrie Mae Weems, Carolee Schneemann, Andres Serrano, Karen Finley, and Kathy Acker. These sculptors, writers, filmmakers, activists, and performance artists have forged a new vision of art that is confrontational, political, and concerned with interrupting the domination of our lives by mass culture.

A collection of interviews with some of the most provocative artists of the postmodern era, including Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Carrie Mae Weems, Carolee Schneemann, Andres Serrano, Karen Finley, and Kathy Acker. These sculptors, writers, filmmakers, activists, and performance artists have forged a new vision of art that is confrontational, political, and concerned with interrupting the domination of our lives by mass culture.This book presents interviews with some of the most provocative artists of the postmodern era, including Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Carrie Mae Weems, Carolee Schneemann, Andres Serrano, Karen Finley, and Kathy Acker. These sculptors, writers, filmmakers, activists, and performance artists have forged a new vision of art that is confrontational, political, and concerned with interrupting the domination of our lives by mass culture.

Focusing on the political movements of the 1950s and 1960s, this book argues that the arts can strengthen democracy by politically educating citizens.Focusing on a period in which the meaning of democracy came to the forefront of public debate, the fifties and sixties, the author argues that the arts can strengthen democracy by politically educating citizens. Hersch addresses this issue by first looking at the ideas of Lionel Trilling and the New York Intellectuals in the 1950s, as expressed through literature and social commentary, and then by showing how jazz and rock musicians in the 1960s, through their individual songs and performances, expressed the ideas and ideals of the political movements of that decade. Democratic Artworks is the first to consider the New York Intellectuals, sixties jazz, or Bob Dylan from the perspective of political theory and to focus on their contributions to democracy.

Focusing on the political movements of the 1950s and 1960s, this book argues that the arts can strengthen democracy by politically educating citizens.Focusing on a period in which the meaning of democracy came to the forefront of public debate, the fifties and sixties, the author argues that the arts can strengthen democracy by politically educating citizens. Hersch addresses this issue by first looking at the ideas of Lionel Trilling and the New York Intellectuals in the 1950s, as expressed through literature and social commentary, and then by showing how jazz and rock musicians in the 1960s, through their individual songs and performances, expressed the ideas and ideals of the political movements of that decade. Democratic Artworks is the first to consider the New York Intellectuals, sixties jazz, or Bob Dylan from the perspective of political theory and to focus on their contributions to democracy.

The trauma of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrates the limits of dominant visual models, such as photography, for providing adequate historical memory. The author argues that collective traumas suggest the need for a prolonged gaze, such as can be provided by expressive art.Beclouded Visions is an exploration of the many and varied ways in which atrocity has shaped the requirements of art, vision, and collective memory in the twentieth century. The atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki serve as a starting point, but what begins as a study of visual culture related to the atomic bombings soon generates questions that can be applied to multiple sites and practices of communal remembrance.Drawing on a diverse array of images-ranging from military photographs to survivor paintings-Maclear asks what it means to see such representations. What does it mean to put a face to horror? Does "seeing everything" make us more humane? Is it possible to become inured to images of violence? She probes the nature of our fascination with images of horror, and she questions our attachment to pictorial realism and graphic memory. Placing philosophers such as Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, and Theodore Adorno in the context of ongoing debates about history and memory, Beclouded Visions provides a refreshing perspective on art, remembrance, and mourning.

For almost a century, writers such as Ralph Ellison, Michael Ondaatje, and Ishmael Reed have expressed an affinity for jazz, hearing the music as a model for writing. Jarrett examines their work and the work of others who have brought jazz into language, pushing "interpretation" into the realm of "invention."For almost a century, writers such as Ralph Ellison, Michael Ondaatje, and Ishmael Reed have expressed an affinity for jazz, hearing the music as a model for writing. Michael Jarrett examines their work and the work of others who have brought jazz into language, pushing "interpretation" into the realm of "invention."

Blends vivid personal accounts and sophisticated theoretical analysis to make a compelling book about one teacher's experience teaching on an Athabascan Indian Reservation in Alaska.Winner of the 2001 W. Ross Winterowd Award Best book in composition theory presented by JAC and the Association of Teachers of Advanced Composition Using the author's intensely personal, reflective, provocative account of his time teaching on an Athabascan Indian Reservation in Alaska, Words in the Wilderness uniquely draws together individual experience and difficult abstract theory to make an educational, inspiring, and thought-provoking work.

Narratively explores how the changes in South Africa's social and political structure are changing the white population's identity and sense of self.Winner of the 2002 Outstanding Book Award presented by the International and Intercultural Communication Division of the National Communication Association The election of 1994, which heralded the demise of Apartheid as a legally enforced institutionalization of "whiteness," disconnected the prior moorings of social identity for most South Africans, whatever their political persuasion. In one of the most profound collective psychological experiences of the contemporary world, South Africans are renegotiating the meaning of their social positionalities. In this book, Melissa Steyn, herself a white South African, grapples with what it means to be white, reflecting on events in her past that still resonate with her today. Her research includes discourse with more than fifty white South Africans who are faced with reinterpreting their old selves in the light of new knowledge and possibilities. Framed within current debates of postcolonialism and postmodernism, "Whiteness Just Isn't What It Used To Be" explores how the changes in South Africa's social and political structure are changing the white population's identity and sense of self.

Narratively explores how the changes in South Africa's social and political structure are changing the white population's identity and sense of self.Winner of the 2002 Outstanding Book Award presented by the International and Intercultural Communication Division of the National Communication Association The election of 1994, which heralded the demise of Apartheid as a legally enforced institutionalization of "whiteness," disconnected the prior moorings of social identity for most South Africans, whatever their political persuasion. In one of the most profound collective psychological experiences of the contemporary world, South Africans are renegotiating the meaning of their social positionalities. In this book, Melissa Steyn, herself a white South African, grapples with what it means to be white, reflecting on events in her past that still resonate with her today. Her research includes discourse with more than fifty white South Africans who are faced with reinterpreting their old selves in the light of new knowledge and possibilities. Framed within current debates of postcolonialism and postmodernism, "Whiteness Just Isn't What It Used To Be" explores how the changes in South Africa's social and political structure are changing the white population's identity and sense of self.

Embraces the leading edge in critical race theory.What is whiteness? What is gained by claiming it as a critical perspective in anti-racism work? How do whiteness studies both redeem and assert the white subject? Working through Whiteness explores these questions through essays by Canadian, American, British, and Australian scholars, reflecting the broad array of academic inquiry into whiteness in the areas of law, ethics, education, feminism, politics, psychology, sociology, criminology, and social geography. Rarely has knowledge of whiteness as the practice of social domination been drawn from this far and wide. By embracing the leading edge in critical theory, this book is a crucial addition to the growing literature on whiteness.

Embraces the leading edge in critical race theory.What is whiteness? What is gained by claiming it as a critical perspective in anti-racism work? How do whiteness studies both redeem and assert the white subject? Working through Whiteness explores these questions through essays by Canadian, American, British, and Australian scholars, reflecting the broad array of academic inquiry into whiteness in the areas of law, ethics, education, feminism, politics, psychology, sociology, criminology, and social geography. Rarely has knowledge of whiteness as the practice of social domination been drawn from this far and wide. By embracing the leading edge in critical theory, this book is a crucial addition to the growing literature on whiteness.

A survey of contemporary Chinese intellectuals.Zhidong Hao's fascinating book, Intellectuals at a Crossroads, examines groups of contemporary Chinese intellectuals, their successes, failures, identity contradictions, and ethical dilemmas. Three categories of intellectuals are studied: organic intellectuals who serve specific interests, from government and business to working class movements; critical intellectuals who defy authority with continued social criticism; and "unattached" intellectuals who are fast being professionalized. Using a historical-comparative approach enhanced with demographic and rare interview data, the book bridges the traditional with the modern and the Chinese with the foreign by exploring how these intellectuals are adapting to their roles and influencing political, economic, and social change in the "new" China.