The Strategies of Style

2020 ◽  
pp. 115-139
Author(s):  
Richard Lischer
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
First Principle ◽  
The Public ◽  
Speaking Style ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
The Way

This chapter focuses on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speaking style. King’s style did not mirror a mysterious and inaccessible “inner man,” nor what King would have called his “personality.” Instead, it reflected a strategy for the public presentation of a message, which in turn was related to a larger strategy of social change. He did not preach and speak the way he did because “that is the sort of person he was,” but because he had a mission no less calculated or comprehensive than Demosthenes’s appeal to Athens or Lincoln’s to America. His mission was, as he put it simply in a 1963 sermon, “to make America a better nation.” Paradoxically, he pursued his high and serious purpose with a style whose first principle was the achievement of pleasure.

Theorizing White Racial Trauma and its Remedies

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Becky Thompson ◽  
Veronica T. Watson
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Double Consciousness ◽  
Racial Trauma ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
White Consciousness ◽  
Martin Luther King

In this paper we will be drawing upon historical work on race consciousness, contemporary work on trauma, and scholarship on activism and social change to offer a vision of what a critical white double consciousness might look like. We juxtapose this critical white consciousness with what Veronica Watson has termed a “white schizophrenic subjectivity” which has been explored by intellectuals like Du Bois, Charles Chesnutt, James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr. Each of these writers called attention to a whiteness that works to maintain disconnection from people of color and disassociation from their own moral selves, a white schizophrenic subjectivity that prevented white folks from acknowledging or challenging racism while still continuing to think of themselves as moral and upstanding citizens of their communities and nation.

Giving It All Away: Blues Harmonica Education in the Digital Age

2020 ◽  
pp. 227-251
Author(s):  
Adam Gussow
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Trade Secrets ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Mentoring Relationship ◽  
The World ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
The Way

In 2007, the author uploaded his first video to YouTube, a badly-lit and amateurish blues harmonica tutorial. Within a decade, his Dirty-South Blues Harp Channel had accumulated 500 videos, 20 million views, and 70,000 subscribers, and his website, ModernBluesHarmonica.com was enjoying 750,000 annual page views from 192 countries around the world. This chapter seeks to understand the way in which insurgent digital technologies have impacted the pedagogy of blues harmonica, a coterie pursuit whose trade secrets and professional practices had previously been communicated through face-to-face teaching between masters and apprentices. Acknowledging the ethical dilemmas provoked by a white blues musician who makes the harmonica’s esoteric technique available to a global audience, the author also describes the way YouTube’s “comments” section brought him together with Brandon Bailey, a young Black harmonica player from Memphis. The mentoring relationship they formed helped Bailey win a “Star Search” competition and benefited both men’s careers in unanticipated ways, suggesting that contemporary blues culture, although troubled, is also, if unevenly, a transracial brotherhood—an “inescapable network of mutuality,” in Martin Luther King Jr.’s words.

Social Change and Political Modernisation in Burundi

1966 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 401-433
Author(s):  
René Lemarchand
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Public Mind ◽  
The Public ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Way

Too often dismissed as a feudal backwater in a seething continent, the kingdom of Burundi has scarcely received the attention it deserves from social scientists. If not out of indifference, perhaps out of sheer consternation in the face of the contradictory policies followed by its successive governments, most outside observers have prudently avoided speculating on future developments in this part of Central Africa. This neglect is unfortunate on several counts, not the least being the sense of dismay of certain Burundi élites upon discovering that so few westerners are even aware of the existence of Burundi on the map of Africa. Nor is their rancour in any way assuaged when they realise that the term Watutsi conjures up in the public mind a form of exertion more akin to St Vitus' dance than to the realities of their national culture; and though it is plain that Burundi politics often tend to exhibit signs of disorderly convulsions, policy-makers here and abroad obviously need more in the way of explanation. Quite aside from policy considerations, however, the fact is that Burundi offers one of the most fascinating laboratories for the study of social change, as well as a unique opportunity to observe and analyse the forces which transform traditional orders into modern ones, or, perhaps more appropriately, which impede this transformation.

scholarly journals Toward a Liberated Learning Spirit

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura May Pipe ◽  
Jennifer T Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Approaches To Learning ◽  
Political Environments ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
Common Misconceptions

Despite the popularity of social justice frameworks, today’s polarized socio-political environments call for a justice-forward approach where educators blend equity and culturally-responsive pedagogies with experiential approaches to learning. The TALLS (Toward a Liberated Learning Spirit) model for developing critical consciousness infuses established equity practices with indigenous approaches to learning and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Six Steps for Nonviolent Social Change. By re-engaging curiosities, TALLS guides learners from academic detachment through an unlearning process toward embodied liberation. Readers will be invited to disrupt common misconceptions that reproduce postcolonial paradigms to foster learner development of critical consciousness.

Rawlsian Public Reason and the Theological Framework of Martin Luther King's “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Buckley Dyer ◽  
Kevin E. Stuart
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
Proper Role ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
The Ideal

AbstractThe ideal of public reason, made prominent by John Rawls, has become a mainstay of discussions about the proper role of religious arguments in a politically liberal society. In particular, Rawls's theory of public reason requires citizens and public officials to refrain from appealing to comprehensive religious and philosophical doctrines in public deliberation on matters of basic justice and constitutional essentials. In this essay, we review the ways in which the public life of Martin Luther King, Jr. — with its frequent appeals to a comprehensive doctrine to justify disobedience to the law — represents a challenge to the ideal of public reason, and we consider several Rawlsian rejoinders. What is missing from the existing body of scholarship on public reason is a thorough analysis of King's philosophical and theological arguments, including the examples of legal injustice he offered in his celebrated “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” As we note, King's specific examples of unjust laws rely on a theological framework that bedevils the attempt to reconcile his Letter with the constructivist underpinnings of Rawls's theory of public reason. Indeed, Rawls is in something of a bind: either King's argument is not acceptable under the terms of public reason or public reason simply cannot limit contemporary public discourse in the way Rawls has in mind. We consider several possible Rawlsian arguments for the accommodation of King's theological rhetoric, but conclude that the Rawlsian idea of public reason remains deeply problematic.

The Fierce Urgency of Now: Honoring the Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. in and Out of the Classroom

1988 ◽  
Vol 170 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis E. Kazemek
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The World ◽  
Martin Luther King

The author explores how educators can best honor Martin Luther King, Jr.'s memory by using his life and works as a catalyst for getting their students and themselves to act upon school and society in a way that fosters social change. He discusses the importance of focusing on King's life and work in the classroom; presents issues which will help students and teachers not only understand King's life and work but will also help them become engaged with the ideas and problems that are vital to the world in which they live; and, finally, offers suggestions for using the study of King as a bridge to the study of other important topics.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document