Negotiating Civic LifeLiterature, Film, Politics
£24.99
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About this book
A politically-attuned textual journey through civic life
- Contributes to thinking about civic life both thematically and methodologically
- Features critical interventions into gender, race, sexuality, and clothing
- Emphasises the historiographic contributions of artistic genres
Focused both thematically and methodologically on diverse aspects of civic life, this book elucidates the mentalities and forces involved in the way individuals and collectives negotiate ways of being in common. The chapters feature critical interventions into the civic lives of grief, of things, of Blackness, and of trans identity.
With an emphasis on the historiographic contributions of literature, film, objects and embodied memories of events, Shapiro’s textual analyses treat the way artistic genres supply the critical thinking needed to encourage a more egalitarian and convivial life world.
Reviews
This is a stunning book which proposes a new aesthetico-political theory of civic life. It offers a brilliantly written and hugely imaginative re-posing of the classic political questions of community, belonging, rights and responsibilities. An outstandingly original book by a leading scholar in his field.
Michael Shapiro has long been one of the most significant thinkers of the relation between theory, the international, and politics. Through nuanced readings of film and literature concerning trauma and grief, belonging and exclusion, he reflects on his maxim that “ethical reflection becomes possible when negotiation with difference rather than security is the project” A book that speaks powerfully to our contemporary moment.
Table of contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Exploring Civic Empathy
1. The Civic Lives of Grief
2. Civic Cleansing: Willed Amnesia, Artistic Anamnesis
3. Civic Automobility: Driving White, Driving Black
4. The Civic Lives of Things: Hats and Gloves
5. The Civic Lives of Gender
Epilogue
Index