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Leading scholars examine antiracism, aesthetics, and contemporary political theory.
This edited collection challenges the prevailing assumption that movements and American political thought have little to say to one another. Scholars from a variety of disciplinary traditions with distinct substantive interests argue that movements are nuanced forms of political expression requiring the same careful readings given to traditional texts. Like political theory texts, movements often inhere multiple, possibly contradictory meanings, and sometimes those meanings escape the author's control, with movements gaining significance in contexts unimagined or unintended by their participants. By bringing movements to bear on American political thought this volume of interdisciplinary scholarship maps a fresh terrain of political possibility at an important juncture of American life. As democracy confronts emergent authoritarianism, the editors marshal America's democratizing movements as resources for revivifying democratic thought and praxis, both as a scholarly contribution and an exercise in civic consciousness. Not merely a vector of political pressure and reform, movements are a canvas upon which Americans have charted the contours of liberal democracy's expansive meaning. A tool for educators and activists, Movements and American Political Thought distills the counter-narratives, critiques, and practices generated by movements to contest the terms of American democracy.
"The essays within Movements and American Political Thought demonstrate how American political thought developed in, with, and through social movements, seeking to realize the promise(s) of American democracy. They also convey how American political thought extends beyond the liberal tradition to republican, socialist, and theological traditions. The contributors challenge readers to rethink American political thought as interdisciplinary, international, and intersectional and to regard social movements as engaged in theoretical as well as practical activities. These are significant contributions to not only political science but also history, philosophy, sociology, and American studies." — Nancy S. Love, author of Musical Democracy
Maxwell G. Burkey is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Kean University in Union, New Jersey. Alex Zamalin is Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. He is the author of Black Utopia: The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism, which was named a 2020 Choice Outstanding Title by the American Library Association, and coeditor (with Alix L. Olson) of The Art of Anti-Racism: Aesthetics, Race, and Contemporary Political Theory, also published by SUNY Press.
Introduction: Movements and American Political Thought
Maxwell G. Burkey and Alex Zamalin
Part I: Reconfiguring Encounters
1. Transnational Indigenous Politics and American Political Thought as a Tradition of Encounter
Arturo Chang
2. Utopia on the Mississippi: Étienne Cabet's American Icaria Between Theory and Practice
Loren Goldman and Francis Russo
3. The Abolitionist Movement and the Politics of Emancipation
Michael Gorup
Part II: Between Reconstruction and Rebellion
4. To Hum as One: A Political Becoming on the Pew
Claire B. Crawford
5. Freedom Faith: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's Apostolic Praxis
Da'Von Anthony Boyd
6. "The Mississippi Runs into the Mekong": SNCC and the Internal Colony's Recursions and Collisions
Erin R. Pineda
7. Bitch, Sisters, Bitch — The Final Revolution: Reconsidering Consciousness Raising through Feminist Abortion Politics
Claire McKinney
8. Passing the 1966 Laboratory Animal Welfare Act: The Animal Welfare Movement in Mid-Twentieth Century America
Rebeca C. Leffler
9. "Always With an Eye to the Great Return": Normalcy, Democracy, and the Anti–Vietnam War Movement
Maxwell G. Burkey
Part III: Transformative Praxis
10. Abolitionist Praxis and Pragmatism: Lessons from Maine
Nazlı Konya and Victoria Scott
11. Public Citizen: Ralph Nader, Social Movements, and the American Civic Republican Tradition
Peter A. LaVenia Jr.
12. Theorizing Border Activism
Chris Zepeda-Millan
13. Toward A Movement for Transborder Justice: Reconceptualizing the Mexico-US Border as a Site of Resistance
Estefanía Castañeda Pérez
List of Contributors
Index