At its core, the field of conflict resolution is about relationships and ways of approaching methods for problem solving. These relationships and approaches vary greatly depending on the individual, society, and historical background. Cultural perspective is thus fundamental to any dispute intervention. ""Re-Centering Culture and Knowledge in Conflict Resolution Practice"" is a collection of essays by scholars and practitioners of conflict resolution and grassroots members of communities whose contributions are not commonly recognized.The volume offers a sampling of the cultural voices essential to effective practice yet often considered marginal in the discourse of conflict resolution. The authors explore the role of culture, race, and oppression in resolving disputes. Drawing on firsthand experience and sound research, the authors address such issues as culturally sensitive mediation practices, the diversity of perspectives in conflict resolution literature, and power dynamics. The first anthology of its kind, this book combines personal narratives with formal scholarship. By melding these varied approaches, the authors seek to inspire activism for social justice in today's multicultural society.

Black Heart is a provocative and polemical critique of African American literary studies at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Through a series of sharp and insightful essays on a wide range of critical thinkers, Phillip M. Richards traces what he sees as an erosion of moral reflection in African American literary culture - a process that has left contemporary black academic criticism socially, politically, and culturally hollow. Exploring the work of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Michael Dyson, Karla Holloway and others, Black Heart sets forth the rhetorical strategies of present day African American critical writing, and probes the ethical dimensions of its institutional life in the academy, the media, and the public sphere. Richards under takes to recover the procedures by which cultural and moral value may be recovered for black literary culture and to establish the possibilities for a new humanism in African American writing and literary culture.