In "A Politics of the Ordinary," Thomas Dumm dramatizes how everyday life in the United States intersects with and is influenced by the power of events, on the one hand, and forces of conformity and normalcy on the other. Combining poststructuralist analysis with a sympathetic reading of a strain of American thought that begins with Emerson and culminates in the work of Stanley Cavell, "A Politics of the Ordinary" investigates incidents from everyday life, political spectacles, and popular culture.

Whether juxtaposing reflections about boredom in rural New Mexico with Emerson's theory of constitutional amendment, Richard Nixon's letter of resignation with Thoreau's writings to overcome quiet desperation, or demonstrating how Disney's "Toy Story" allegorizes the downsizing of the American white-collar work force, Dumm's constant concern is to show how the ordinary is the primary source of the democratic political imagination.

What does it mean to be lonely? Thomas Dumm asks. His inquiry, documented in this book, takes us beyond social circumstances and into the deeper forces that shape our very existence as modern individuals. The modern individual, Dumm suggests, is fundamentally a lonely self. Through reflections on philosophy, political theory, literature, and tragic drama, he proceeds to illuminate a hidden dimension of the human condition. His book shows how loneliness shapes the contemporary division between public and private, our inability to live with each other honestly and in comity, the estranged forms that our intimate relationships assume, and the weakness of our common bonds.

A reading of the relationship between Cordelia and her father in Shakespeare s "King Lear" points to the most basic dynamic of modern loneliness how it is a response to the problem of the missing mother. Dumm goes on to explore the most important dimensions of lonely experience Being, Having, Loving, and Grieving. As the book unfolds, he juxtaposes new interpretations of iconic cultural texts "Moby-Dick," "Death of a Salesman," the film "Paris," "Texas," Emerson s Experience, to name a few with his own experiences of loneliness, as a son, as a father, and as a grieving husband and widower.

Written with deceptive simplicity, "Loneliness as a Way of Life" is something rare an intellectual study that is passionately personal. It challenges us, not to overcome our loneliness, but to learn how to re-inhabit it in a better way. To fail to do so, this book reveals, will only intensify the power that it holds over us.

What is freedom? In this study, Thomas Dumm challenges the conventions that have governed discussions and debates concerning modern freedom by bringing the work of Michel Foucault into dialogue with contemporary liberal thought. While Foucault has been widely understood to have characterized the modern era as being opposed to the realization of freedom, Dumm shows how this characterization conflates FoucaultOs genealogy of discipline with his overall view of the practices of being free. Dumm demonstrates how FoucaultOs critical genealogy does not shrink from understanding the ways in which modern subjects are constrained and shaped by forces greater than themselves, but how it instead works through these constraints to provide, not simply a vision of liberation, but a joyous wisdom concerned with showing us, in his words, that we Oare much freer than we feel.O Both as an introduction to Foucault and as an intervention in liberal theory, Michel Foucault and the Politics of Freedom is bound to change how we think about the limits and possibilities of freedom in late modernity.

Rhetorical Republic brings together some of the most imaginative theorists from the fields of politics and literature to reflect on how practices of representation in popular culture, the news media, and the law have come to constitute the primary instruments of political governance in the United States. The editors argue that today the struggle over the representation of politics is at least as important as the struggle over power as it has been traditionally conceived. Discussing topics as diverse as Ronald Reagan's nose and its role in the Iran/Contra scandal, the impermanence of the trope of national security, and the prospect for a reembodied liberalism, Rhetorical Republic surveys the American scene with creativity and rigor. The result is an unprecedented analysis, critique, and prescriptive study of the United States as a postmodern polity in which attention to representation, in the broadest and most heterodox sense of the term, is fundamental to understanding American governance.

Encounters with Alphonso Lingis is the first extensive study of this American philosopher who is gaining an international reputation to augment his national one. Lingis's books have already been translated into nearly a dozen languages, and writers from many disciplines are finding his works a source for fresh philosophical and scholarly inquiries. The distinguished contributors to this volume reflect on their own encounters with this unique American thinker as they engage his work from their various critical perspectives. They address most of the central themes found in his writings including singularity and otherness, death and eroticism, emotions and rationality, embodiment and the face, excess and the sacred. In the book's first section, the contributors discuss Lingis's significance as a contemporary philosopher, particularly with regard to such renowned figures as Dante, Kant, Nietzsche, Foucault, and the major existential and phenomenological thinkers of the past century. In the second section, they focus on Lingis's ideas as the basis for inquiries into additional fields, such as art, literature, cultural studies, and politics. The book closes with a new essay by Lingis himself."

Encounters with Alphonso Lingis is the first extensive study of this American philosopher who is gaining an international reputation to augment his national one. Lingis's books have already been translated into nearly a dozen languages, and writers from many disciplines are finding his works a source for fresh philosophical and scholarly inquiries. The distinguished contributors to this volume reflect on their own encounters with this unique American thinker as they engage his work from their various critical perspectives. They address most of the central themes found in his writings including singularity and otherness, death and eroticism, emotions and rationality, embodiment and the face, excess and the sacred. In the book's first section, the contributors discuss Lingis's significance as a contemporary philosopher, particularly with regard to such renowned figures as Dante, Kant, Nietzsche, Foucault, and the major existential and phenomenological thinkers of the past century. In the second section, they focus on Lingis's ideas as the basis for inquiries into additional fields, such as art, literature, cultural studies, and politics. The book closes with a new essay by Lingis himself."

In "A Politics of the Ordinary," Thomas Dumm dramatizes how everyday life in the United States intersects with and is influenced by the power of events, on the one hand, and forces of conformity and normalcy on the other. Combining poststructuralist analysis with a sympathetic reading of a strain of American thought that begins with Emerson and culminates in the work of Stanley Cavell, "A Politics of the Ordinary" investigates incidents from everyday life, political spectacles, and popular culture.

Whether juxtaposing reflections about boredom in rural New Mexico with Emerson's theory of constitutional amendment, Richard Nixon's letter of resignation with Thoreau's writings to overcome quiet desperation, or demonstrating how Disney's "Toy Story" allegorizes the downsizing of the American white-collar work force, Dumm's constant concern is to show how the ordinary is the primary source of the democratic political imagination.

From acts of terrorism to war, from arson to capital punishment, from sadism to torture, performances of violence are all around us. Sometimes they grab headlines and rivet our attention, sometimes they are barely noticed, constituting part of our taken-for-granted world. Yet whether dramatic or barely noticed, violence seems everywhere to be on the rise. The essays in this volume explore the relationship between selfhood, agency, and violence, focusing on the psychic life of violence and its expression in the performances of particular individuals. At the same time, they look more closely at the way political contexts and ideologies shape both particular performances of violence and the way they are understood. By drawing on the expertise of scholars in a variety of fields - anthropology, history, political theory, law, and social thought - this book seeks to expose some of the subterranean cross currents of the cultural lives of violence and, in doing, to reveal their connections. In addition to the editors, contributors include criminal justice scholar Mary Welek Atwell, anthropologist Veena Das, historian Ruth Miller, political scientist Anne Norton, political scientist Corey Robin, and historian Paul Steege.