Materializing Democracy: Toward a Revitalized Cultural Politics(New Americanists)

For the most part, democracy is simply presumed to exist in the United States. It is viewed as a completed project rather than as a goal to be achieved. Fifteen leading scholars challenge that stasis in Materializing Democracy. They aim to reinvigorate the idea of democracy by placing it in the midst of a contentious political and cultural fray, which, the volume's editors argue, is exactly where it belongs. Drawing upon literary criticism, cultural studies, history, legal studies, and political theory, the essays assembled here highlight competing definitions and practices of democracy-in politics, society, and, indeed, academia. Covering topics ranging from rights discourse to Native American performance, from identity politics to gay marriage, and from rituals of public mourning to the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, the contributors seek to understand the practices, ideas, and material conditions that enable or foreclose democracy's possibilities. Through readings of subjects as diverse as Will Rogers, Alexis de Tocqueville, slave narratives, interactions along the Texas-Mexico border, and liberal arts education, the essayists also explore ways of making democracy available for analysis. Materializing Democracy suggests that attention to disparate narratives is integral to the development of more complex, vibrant versions of democracy. Contributors. Lauren Berlant, Wendy Brown, Chris Castiglia, Russ Castronovo, Joan Dayan, Wai Chee Dimock, Lisa Duggan, Richard R. Flores, Kevin Gaines, Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, Michael Moon, Dana D. Nelson, Christopher Newfield, Donald E. Pease

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction: Materializing Democracy and Other Political Fantasies / Russ Castronovo and Dana D. Nelson Tocqueville’s Democratic Thing; or, Aristocracy in America / Donald E. Pease Legal Slaves and Civil Bodies / Joan Dayan Mexicans in a Material World: From John Wayne’s The Alamo to Stand-up Democracy on the Border / Richard R. Flores Souls That Matter: Social Death and the Pedagogy of Democratic Citizenship / Russ Castronovo Uncle Sam Needs a Wife: Citizenship and Denegation / Lauren Berlant The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism / Lisa Duggan The Genealogy of a Democratic Crush / Chris Castiglia Representative/Democracy: The Political Work of Countersymbolic Representation / Dana D. Nelson Rethinking Space, Rethinking Rights: Literature, Law, and Science / Wai Chee Dimock A Long Foreground: Re-Materializing the History of Native American Relations to Mass Culture / Michael Moon From Center to Margin: Internationalism and the Origins of Black Feminism / Kevin Gaines Democratic Passions: Reconstructing Individual Agency / Christopher Newfield Anti-Ideology: Education and Politics as Democratic Practices / Jeffrey C. Goldfarb Moralism as Antipolitics / Wendy Brown Works Cited Contributors Index

About the Author :
Russ Castronovo is Jean Wall Bennett Professor of English and American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Necro Citizenship: Death, Eroticism, and the Public Sphere in the Nineteenth-Century United States, published by Duke University Press. Dana D. Nelson is Professor of English and Social Theory at the University of Kentucky and author of National Manhood: Capitalist Citizenship and the Imagined Fraternity of White Men, also published by Duke University Press.

Review :
"The book's introduction does an excellent job of tying together these wide-ranging articles, and the organization of the chapter also enhances the coherence of this work."--Pippa Halloway, The Journal of American History "This collection responds in significant ways to the need for a new cultural politics in the pedagogy, study, and practice of American studies... The value of this volume is its diverse yet coherent criticism of democracy as a historically specific political concept and Utopian alternatives to what has thus far remained our supreme fiction: democratic equality and justice for all."--John Carlos Rowe, American Quarterly Listed in CHE, Cultural Critique, and Critical Inquiry. Reviewed in Choice.