Untimely Democracy - The Politics of Progress After Slavery (Hardcover)

From the abolition era to the Civil Rights movement to the age of Obama, the promise of perfectibility and improvement resonates in the story of American democracy. But what exactly does racial "progress" mean, and how do we recognize and achieve it? Untimely Democracy: The Politics of Progress After Slavery uncovers a surprising answer to this question in the writings of American authors and activists, both black and white. Conventional narratives of democracy stretching from Thomas Jefferson's America to our own posit a purposeful break between past and present as the key to the viability of this political form-the only way to ensure its continual development. But for Pauline E. Hopkins, Frederick Douglass, Stephen Crane, W. E. B. Du Bois, Charles W. Chesnutt, Sutton E. Griggs, Callie House, and the other figures examined in this book, the campaign to secure liberty and equality for all citizens proceeds most potently when it refuses the precepts of progressive time. Placing these authors' post-Civil War writings into dialogue with debates about racial optimism and pessimism, tracts on progress, and accounts of ex-slave pension activism, and extending their insights into our contemporary period, Laski recovers late-nineteenth-century literature as a vibrant site for doing political theory. Untimely Democracy ultimately shows how one of the bleakest periods in American racial history provided fertile terrain for a radical reconstruction of our most fundamental assumptions about this political system. Offering resources for moments when the march of progress seems to stutter and even stop, this book invites us to reconsider just what democracy can make possible.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	November 2017
Authors:	Gregory Laski (Assistant Professor of English)
Dimensions:	243 x 164 x 22mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	288
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-064279-2
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political science & theory Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > 19th century Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > From 1900 Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Ethnic studies > Multicultural studies > General Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Human rights > Civil rights & citizenship Books > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history Promotions
LSN:	0-19-064279-3
Barcode:	9780190642792

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