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Introduction

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

in Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book considers the history of state efforts to define and shape forms of religiosity that are understood to be conducive ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book considers the history of state efforts to define and shape forms of religiosity that are understood to be conducive to particular regimes of governance. It offers a focused discussion that brings together several questions and concerns that have not been considered together before to develop three related arguments about these political projects and the fields in which they are deployed. First, it shows how particular constructs of religious freedom, religious tolerance, and the rights of religious minorities are being packaged into political projects and delivered around the world by states and others. Second, it contributes to the literature on religion and international relations by historicizing and politicizing the attempt over the past two decades to incorporate a concern for religion into the study and practice of global politics. Third, the book embeds the study of religion and politics in a series of broader social and interpretive fields by exploring the relation between these international projects and the social, religious, and political contexts in which they are deployed.Less

An Ineffective Controversy

Stephen J. Collier

in Post-Soviet Social: Neoliberalism, Social Modernity, Biopolitics

This epilogue presents three strategies for making a critical discussion of neoliberalism more effective, some of which have been taken up by other scholars in recent years. The first is simply to ... More

This epilogue presents three strategies for making a critical discussion of neoliberalism more effective, some of which have been taken up by other scholars in recent years. The first is simply to develop greater critical consciousness about dominant narratives of neoliberalism—where they come from, and what their effects are likely to be. The second strategy, related to the first, is to turn greater attention to the flexibility of many elements of neoliberal reforms, and to the relationships they may have to diverse political projects. The third and final strategy is simply to take more seriously the question of what makes a particular tradition “neoliberal”; to ask in what, precisely, its neoliberalism consists.Less

Neoliberal Resilience and the Crafting of Social Blocs

Aldo Madariaga

in Neoliberal Resilience: Lessons in Democracy and Development from Latin America and Eastern Europe

This chapter shows how the policy preferences of major actors developed into concrete government coalitions and social blocs that supported neoliberalism as a long-term political project. It examines ... More

This chapter shows how the policy preferences of major actors developed into concrete government coalitions and social blocs that supported neoliberalism as a long-term political project. It examines how business actors pursued their policy preferences and gained political influence in different historical settings. It also discusses initial coalitions that transformed into durable social blocs and defended neoliberalism as a political project. The chapter highlights the importance of actors supporting neoliberalism, as well as the experience and fate of actors who supported alternative development projects. It confirms that the strength of the financial, competitive, and noncompetitive economic sectors was crucial to explaining the resilience of neoliberalism.Less

Conclusion: Sociology, Architecture and the Politics of Building

in The Sociology of Architecture: Constructing Identities

This concluding chapter summarizes the ways in which architecture has been mobilized in the context of state and political projects. It then discusses how architectural designs are utilized to ... More

This concluding chapter summarizes the ways in which architecture has been mobilized in the context of state and political projects. It then discusses how architectural designs are utilized to materialize national identities. The chapter also examines the symbolic element of architectural form and the broader social production of architecture.Less

It’s a Family Affair: Intergenerational Mobilization in the Spring 2006 Protests

Irene Bloemraad and Christine Trost

in Rallying for Immigrant Rights: The Fight for Inclusion in 21st Century America

From March 10 to May 1, 2006, between 3.5 and 5 million people across the United States participated in immigrant rights rallies. Many of the faces in the crowd were those of children and ... More

From March 10 to May 1, 2006, between 3.5 and 5 million people across the United States participated in immigrant rights rallies. Many of the faces in the crowd were those of children and adolescents. This chapter discusses youth engagement and family political socialization during the spring 2006 immigrant rights protests. It builds on an emerging empirical and theoretical literature that shows how children influence parents’ political attitudes and activities, particularly in immigrant families. Drawing on early findings from the Immigrant Families’ Political Socialization Project, which conducted in-depth multigenerational interviews of Mexican-origin families in Richmond and Oakland, California, this chapter shows that the protests of spring 2006 mobilized large segments of the Mexican-origin population, both adults and youth. Thus, the protests were a family affair. Youth played an active and independent role in these mass mobilizations. This chapter focuses on intergenerational mobilization: the processes by which people acquired information, were spurred to participate, and joined in the protests because of family interactions.Less

The politics of deploying community

Janet Newman and John Clarke

in "Politics, power and community development"

This chapter offers an analysis of the very different political projects that mobilise ideas and practices of community development. However, it argues, such projects do not exist in any pure form ... More

This chapter offers an analysis of the very different political projects that mobilise ideas and practices of community development. However, it argues, such projects do not exist in any pure form but are subject to two crucial political processes. The chapter shows how ideas and practices of community development move across national and/or institutional boundaries, and are interpreted by mediating actors – including, but not only, community workers themselves (the politics of translation). It goes on to trace how some of the many possible meanings of ‘community’ and ‘development’ are selectively mobilised and articulated with other political concepts in ways that shape their meaning and that open – or close – political possibilities (the politics of articulation). Processes of articulation are never closed and complete, and the chapter shows how actors ’work the spaces’ of hegemonic projects to pursue alternative goals of development and democratization.Less

History with Biography

Evgeny Dobrenko

in Stalinist Cinema and the Production of History: Museum of the Revolution

This chapter highlights the central role of biographical films in Stalinist cinema. It investigates why Soviet historical films invariably turned into biography, and how they came to occupy the ... More

This chapter highlights the central role of biographical films in Stalinist cinema. It investigates why Soviet historical films invariably turned into biography, and how they came to occupy the leading place among the genres of historical narrative. The chapter describes the nature and function of biography in the Stalinist political-aesthetic project and reviews some of the successful series of biographical films in Soviet cinema, including Alexander Nevsky, Suvorov and The Ships Storm the Bastions.Less

Introduction: History Degree Zero

Evgeny Dobrenko

in Stalinist Cinema and the Production of History: Museum of the Revolution

This book examines the role of Stalinist cinema in the production of history, and in legitimising Stalinism and producing a new identity of the people of the Soviet Union. It is about how Stalinist ... More

This book examines the role of Stalinist cinema in the production of history, and in legitimising Stalinism and producing a new identity of the people of the Soviet Union. It is about how Stalinist art works with time, the past and memory, and it is also about Stalinist art per se, understood not so much as a style, but as a grandiose political-aesthetic project that completes the revolutionary project. The book furthermore investigates the role of Stalinist cinema in the conversion of the present and experience into history.Less

The Popular Front in the American Century: Life Magazine, Margaret Bourke-White, and Partisan Objectivity

Vials Chris

in Realism for the Masses: Aesthetics, Popular Front Pluralism, and U.S. Culture, 1935-1947

This chapter describes Henry Luce’s call for American leadership. This involved a constantly shifting vision of American global citizenship that did not stop at U.S. borders. The parameters of this ... More

This chapter describes Henry Luce’s call for American leadership. This involved a constantly shifting vision of American global citizenship that did not stop at U.S. borders. The parameters of this political project within Time Inc. is outlined here by focusing on Life, from its founding up until the entrance of the U.S. into the Second World War. The magazine’s practically uncontested status as a source of visual news in its early days, its innovative uses of photography, and its massive diffusion within the upper and middle classes, placed it in a unique position to transform modes of vision within the more privileged sectors of the United States. The representational strategies by which this mass magazine tried to forge the class, national, and consumer consciousness of its “people” is investigated here, as well as the explicit politics it yoked to its new way of seeing.Less

Introduction

Jacques Lezra

in On the Nature of Marx's Things: Translation as Necrophilology

This introductory chapter argues that what has come to be called the Marxian tradition takes shape around a long series of disavowals of Karl Marx's critical-political project. It takes Marx and his ... More

This introductory chapter argues that what has come to be called the Marxian tradition takes shape around a long series of disavowals of Karl Marx's critical-political project. It takes Marx and his closest readers to have had their critical-political project in all its radicality in mind: as an account of wild mediation with every bit of edge ground into it. Because it does not sit well with mechanisms of capture, of value-production, of universal translation, of disciplinarization; with mechanisms that link, however dialectically, the “world” with the “local;” this project has remained a peripheral, contested, mostly unrecognized aspect of the Marxian tradition.Less

The Public Discourse of Architecture: Socializing Identities

in The Sociology of Architecture: Constructing Identities

This chapter discusses the role of architects' public discourses in positioning their buildings relative to political projects and social values. The contention between discourse and form is ... More

This chapter discusses the role of architects' public discourses in positioning their buildings relative to political projects and social values. The contention between discourse and form is illustrated through the analysis of the case of Daniel Libeskind's extension to the Jewish Museum in Berlin.Less

Oprah Winfrey: Cultural Icon of Mainstream (White) America

Janice Peck

in The Colorblind Screen: Television in Post-Racial America

This chapter analyzes iconic figures in American popular culture to highlight the ways in which race is read and utilized by audiences, fans, and television programming. It specifically examines the ... More

This chapter analyzes iconic figures in American popular culture to highlight the ways in which race is read and utilized by audiences, fans, and television programming. It specifically examines the career of Oprah Winfrey and her thirteen episode series “Racism in 1992” by discussing Winfrey's claim that she “transcends race.” This inquiry highlights the interconnection between the rise of the neoliberal political-economic project over the last quarter century and the emergence of a post-civil rights racial ideology of colorblindness that is part of the fundamental reformulation of thinking about the problem of race in American society. The ability to evoke a “para-social relationship” and “intimacy at a distance” with a majority white audience reflects Winfrey's skill at simultaneously embracing her black heritage while keeping at arm's length aspects of the black historical experience that might alienate white fans; this fits perfectly within the colorblind ideology of post-racial America.Less

Uncountable Matters

Jacques Lezra

in On the Nature of Marx's Things: Translation as Necrophilology

This chapter seeks to show how the most consequential contemporary critiques of mediation—found in the work of Quentin Meillassoux and Alain Badiou—reinstall a form of species-humanism under cover of ... More

This chapter seeks to show how the most consequential contemporary critiques of mediation—found in the work of Quentin Meillassoux and Alain Badiou—reinstall a form of species-humanism under cover of a procedure of mathematical abstraction that Marx (and Melville) have already put in question. Here—and returning to the distinctive imbrication of things with the matter of poetic expression and with the expression of what comes to be called subjectivity that so captivates Marx about Lucretius's poem—it is John Donne, Pablo Neruda, and again Freud who provide us with a contemporary account of de-theologized fetishism on which to build a critico-political project in the wake of Marx's writing.Less