Plotting Justice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Harford Vargas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
School Of The Americas

This chapter explores how the novel can plot out fantasies of justice, using Héctor Tobar’s novel The Tattooed Soldier to demonstrate how the novel can challenge mass impunity in the Americas. The novel’s protagonist takes advantage of the chaos of the Rodney King uprisings in Los Angles to shoot and kill the Guatemalan military soldier who murdered his wife and son and who received counterinsurgency training at the United States’ School of the Americas. These diverse acts of rage against institutionalized impunity are comparatively illuminated in the novel via intersecting plot lines, rotating points of view, disruptive flashbacks, iterative events, and shifting geographies. The chapter further unpacks the political and formal valences of plot, arguing that the novel’s structure is at odds with the two main protagonists’ narrative desires. Though the novel’s revenge plot is resolved, the novel does not resolve the larger plot for justice; the chapter ends by considering alternative means of generating social transformation and attaining justice.

scholarly journals Ethical Consciousness under Totalitarianism —Review on George Orwell’s 1984

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 731 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuan Qin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ethical Dilemma ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Public Concern ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Big Brother ◽  
Making Friends

Since the new president of the United States Trump wield power people began to doubt the political situation, which thus led to the novel 1984 jump to the top in the list of the best seller. Public concern is that whether George Orwell’s allegorical purpose will be realized. Definitely 1984 is known as an anti-totalitarian novel describing the ethical disorder, the revolting principles, the absurd disciplines and ideological deformation of the “Big Ocean” country under the domination of “Big Brother”. People living there are forced to fall into ethical dilemma. They have changed their rational thoughts into irrational ones. Besides, they give up their identity of blood relatives and principles of making friends and empower irrationality to control humanity. This article intends to analyze the trauma made by the totalitarian government from the aspects of ethical consciousness.

scholarly journals Regrounding Critical Theory: Lenin on Imperialism, Nationalism, and Strategy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Pahnke
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
Political Right

Abstract We live at a time of heightened nationalism on the political right and left, from the mobilization of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States and Europe, to promoting Palestinian liberation. This article, focusing on Lenin's work concerning imperialism, shows the importance, yet shortcomings of foregrounding the nation in calling for social transformation. The piece reads Lenin's contributions on imperialism, highlighting his understanding of strategy and the dual nature of nationalism, in light of debates within Critical Theory more generally. As I argue, Lenin offers insights for Critical Theorists, particularly on the place of nationalism within transformative political projects, as well as on the dynamics of capitalist accumulation and territorial acquisition. Lenin's work on imperialism draws our attention to the idea that only by mobilizing beyond the state/society binary—which many Critical Theorists and activists reify, sometimes unintentionally—can we explore the nature of emancipatory political action.

scholarly journals Nabokov's Dystopia: Bend Sinister, America and Mass Culture

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILL NORMAN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Theodor Adorno ◽  
American Citizenship ◽  
Archive Material

“I am as American as April in Arizona,” Nabokov claimed in a 1966 interview. Although he repeatedly emphasized his American citizenship and the affection he held for his adopted nation, my argument is that his 1947 novel, Bend Sinister, offers us an opportunity to interrogate the received narrative of Nabokov's unproblematic arrival and assimilation into the United States. In examining the engagement with mass culture in this dystopian novel, my intention is to restore some of the political valence denied the novel by both Nabokov and his readers, and to suggest how it functions as a critique of American culture which reveals the author's profound ambivalence about his adopted nation in the early to mid-1940s. Drawing on unpublished archive material, as well as theoretical work by Theodor Adorno, this paper opens up a new approach to Nabokov's American work and demands a reassessment of his avowed apoliticism.

Having Their Say, Leaving Their Mark

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-153
Author(s):  
Adolphus G. Belk ◽  
Robert C. Smith ◽  
Sherri L. Wallace
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Adverse Conditions ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Independent Organization

In general, the founders of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists were “movement people.” Powerful agents of socialization such as the uprisings of the 1960s molded them into scholars with tremendous resolve to tackle systemic inequalities in the political science discipline. In forming NCOBPS as an independent organization, many sought to develop a Black perspective in political science to push the boundaries of knowledge and to use that scholarship to ameliorate the adverse conditions confronting Black people in the United States and around the globe. This paper utilizes historical documents, speeches, interviews, and other scholarly works to detail the lasting contributions of the founders and Black political scientists to the discipline, paying particular attention to their scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and civic engagement. It finds that while political science is much improved as a result of their efforts, there is still work to do if their goals are to be achieved.

“Christians Love the Jews!” The Development of American Philo-Semitism, 1790-1860

1996 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert K. Whalen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Literature ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
Early National Period ◽  
Early National ◽  
Social Views ◽  
British Research

Philo-Semitism is America's enduring contribution to the long, troubled, often murderous dealings of Christians with Jews. Its origins are English, and it drew continuously on two centuries of British research into biblical prophecy from the seventeenth Century onward. Philo-Semitism was, however, soon “domesticated” and adapted to the political and theological climate of America after independence. As a result, it changed as America changed. In the early national period, religious literature abounded that foresaw the conversion of the Jews and the restoration of Israel as the ordained task of the millennial nation—the United States. This scenario was, allowing for exceptions, socially and theologically optimistic and politically liberal, as befit the ethos of a revolutionary era. By the eve of Civil War, however, countless evangelicals cleaved to a darker vision of Christ's return in blood and upheaval. They disparaged liberal social views and remained loyal to an Augustinian theology that others modified or abandoned.

Menelaah Lebih Dekat “Post Factual/Post Truth Politics, Studi Kasus Brexit” (Analsis Resensi Media)

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eko Wahyono ◽  
Rizka Amalia ◽  
Ikma Citra Ranteallo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Way

This research further examines the video entitled “what is the truth about post-factual politics?” about the case in the United States related to Trump and in the UK related to Brexit. The phenomenon of Post truth/post factual also occurs in Indonesia as seen in the political struggle experienced by Ahok in the governor election (DKI Jakarta). Through Michel Foucault's approach to post truth with assertive logic, the mass media is constructed for the interested parties and ignores the real reality. The conclusion of this study indicates that new media was able to spread various discourses ranging from influencing the way of thoughts, behavior of society to the ideology adopted by a society.Keywords: Post factual, post truth, new media

Congress and the Political Expansion of the United States District Courts

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M.P. de Figueiredo ◽  
Gerald S. Gryski ◽  
Emerson H. Tiller ◽  
Gary Zuk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
District Courts

Winning the Argument and Moving the Fight: The Legacy of a Grassroots Humanitarian

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Mary Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Winning Strategy ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Trade Offs

The author of this article argues that the two-decades-long litigation struggle was necessary to push the political actors in Mississippi into a more virtuous than vicious legal/political negotiation. The second and related argument, however, is that neither the 1992 United States Supreme Court decision in Fordice nor the negotiation provided an adequate riposte to plaintiffs’ claims. The author shows that their chief counsel for the first phase of the litigation wanted equality of opportunity for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), as did the plaintiffs. In the course of explicating the role of a legal grass-roots humanitarian, Coleman suggests lessons learned and trade-offs from that case/negotiation, describing the tradeoffs as part of the political vestiges of legal racism in black public higher education and the need to move HBCUs to a higher level of opportunity at a critical juncture in the life of tuition-dependent colleges and universities in the United States. Throughout the essay the following questions pose themselves: In thinking about the Road to Fordice and to political settlement, would the Justice Department lawyers and the plaintiffs’ lawyers connect at the point of their shared strength? Would the timing of the settlement benefit the plaintiffs and/or the State? Could plaintiffs’ lawyers hold together for the length of the case and move each piece of the case forward in a winning strategy? Who were plaintiffs’ opponents and what was their strategy? With these questions in mind, the author offers an analysis of how the campaign— political/legal arguments and political/legal remedies to remove the vestiges of de jure segregation in higher education—unfolded in Mississippi, with special emphasis on the initiating lawyer in Ayers v. Waller and Fordice, Isaiah Madison

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document