The Democratic Arts of Mourning reflects on the variety of ways in which mourning affects political and social life. In recent decades, political theorists have increasingly examined and explored the themes of loss, grief, and mourning. With an introduction that contextualizes the turn to mourning in previous scholarship on the politics of tragedy, this book includes twelve chapters that clarify the intertwinement between politics and mourning. The chapters are organized into five thematic sections that each shed light on how democratic societies relate to loss, grief, suffering, and death. Collectively, the chapters explore the concept of mourning and its relationship to civic rituals, memorials, taboos, social movements, and popular music. Chapters examine how social groups defend their members against experiences of grief or mourning, or how poetic expressions-such as ancient Greek tragedy-can address the catastrophes of human life. Other chapters explore the politics of symbols and bodies, and how they can become fraught objects that stand in for a society's undigested-unmourned-losses and absences. The book concludes with an interview with Bonnie Honig, whose own work on mourning has been deeply influential in contemporary political theory.

Globalizing the field of political theory is the obvious strength of the volume. A thematic focus allows for a much greater dialogue, comparison, and contrapuntal reading/engagement. Edited by first-rate editors and features scholars working at the cutting edge of non-Western political thought. There does not yet exist, as far as we know, a textbook on either comparative political theory or global political theory geared toward the undergraduate and for use in political theory classes more generally. While there are other political science and political theory textbooks that deal with some individual topics covered by our textbook, there are none that deal with these topics together in one textbook and with the overall project of situating what are often treated as universal and abstract terms in specific historical, geographical. discursive and ideological contexts. The book is versatile since it can be used It can both be used as the primary textbook for an introductory class in political theory or as a supplement to a more traditional political theory class that is structured around the western canon. For those instructors who assign primary sources, this book provides a deep engagement with and reference to primary sources, block quotes and detailed textual exegesis, and summaries of the primary sources themselves. In each chapter, the authors will model close reading of the primary texts so students will learn how to "do" the work of political theory and retain the focus on source material that is so important to us as instructors and scholars. Students will have access to a selection of primary sources in political thought not available in English. Provides a resource not just to students, but also to instructors wishing to globalize their syllabi. Instructors across the field are looking to broaden their syllabi and include a diversity of perspectives and are often reluctant to do so because they lack expertise and training outside of the traditional western perspective.

Globalizing the field of political theory is the obvious strength of the volume. A thematic focus allows for a much greater dialogue, comparison, and contrapuntal reading/engagement. Edited by first-rate editors and features scholars working at the cutting edge of non-Western political thought. There does not yet exist, as far as we know, a textbook on either comparative political theory or global political theory geared toward the undergraduate and for use in political theory classes more generally. While there are other political science and political theory textbooks that deal with some individual topics covered by our textbook, there are none that deal with these topics together in one textbook and with the overall project of situating what are often treated as universal and abstract terms in specific historical, geographical. discursive and ideological contexts. The book is versatile since it can be used It can both be used as the primary textbook for an introductory class in political theory or as a supplement to a more traditional political theory class that is structured around the western canon. For those instructors who assign primary sources, this book provides a deep engagement with and reference to primary sources, block quotes and detailed textual exegesis, and summaries of the primary sources themselves. In each chapter, the authors will model close reading of the primary texts so students will learn how to "do" the work of political theory and retain the focus on source material that is so important to us as instructors and scholars. Students will have access to a selection of primary sources in political thought not available in English. Provides a resource not just to students, but also to instructors wishing to globalize their syllabi. Instructors across the field are looking to broaden their syllabi and include a diversity of perspectives and are often reluctant to do so because they lack expertise and training outside of the traditional western perspective.

The Democratic Arts of Mourning reflects on the variety of ways in which mourning affects political and social life. In recent decades, political theorists have increasingly examined and explored the themes of loss, grief, and mourning. With an introduction that contextualizes the turn to mourning in previous scholarship on the politics of tragedy, this book includes twelve chapters that clarify the intertwinement between politics and mourning. The chapters are organized into five thematic sections that each shed light on how democratic societies relate to loss, grief, suffering, and death. Collectively, the chapters explore the concept of mourning and its relationship to civic rituals, memorials, taboos, social movements, and popular music. Chapters examine how social groups defend their members against experiences of grief or mourning, or how poetic expressions—such as ancient Greek tragedy—can address the catastrophes of human life. Other chapters explore the politics of symbols and bodies, and how they can become fraught objects that stand in for a society’s undigested—unmourned—losses and absences. The book concludes with an interview with Bonnie Honig, whose own work on mourning has been deeply influential in contemporary political theory.