Full Description
Demonstrates how activists and others use art and popular culture to strive for a more democratic future.
Doing Democracy examines the potential of the arts and popular culture to extend and deepen the experience of democracy. Its contributors address the use of photography, cartooning, memorials, monuments, poetry, literature, music, theater, festivals, and parades to open political spaces, awaken critical consciousness, engage marginalized groups in political activism, and create new, more democratic societies. This volume demonstrates how ordinary people use the creative and visionary capacity of the arts and popular culture to shape alternative futures. It is unique in its insistence that democratic theorists and activists should acknowledge and employ affective as well as rational faculties in the ongoing struggle for democracy.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Part I. Introduction
1. Introduction: Art, Culture, Democracy
Nancy S. Love and Mark Mattern
Part II. Photography and Cartoons
2. Photo-Activism in the Digital Age: Visions from Rio de Janeiro
Frank Möller
3. Framing the Obama Political Cartoons: Injury or Democracy?
Sushmita Chatterjee
Part III. Monuments and Memorials
4. The Moral Economy: "Doing Democracy" via Public Day of the Dead Rituals
Regina Marchi
5. The National D-Day Memorial: An American Military Monument as "Doing Democracy"
Timothy W. Luke
Part IV. Literature and Poetry
6. The Message in the Medium: Poetry Slam as Democratic Practice
Mark Mattern
7. Tragedy and Democracy: The Fate of Liberal Democratic Values in a Violent World
Wairimu Njoya
Part V. Music
8. "You're an American rapper, so what do you know?": The Political Uses of British and U.S. Popular Culture by First-Time Voters in the United Kingdom
Sanna Inthorn and John Street
9. Playing with Hate: White Power Music and the Undoing of Democracy
Nancy S. Love
Part VI. Theater
10. Betrayed by Democracy: Verbatim Theater as Prefigurative Politics
Mark Chou and Roland Bleiker
11. Political Actors: Performance as Democratic Protest in Anti-Apartheid Theater
Emily Beausoleil
Part VII. Festival and Spectacle
12. Art in the House: Cultural Democracy in a Neighborhood
Bruce Baum
13. Democracy despite Government: African American Parading and Democratic Theory
Peter G. Stillman and Adelaide H. Villmoare
Part VIII. Conclusion
14. Conclusion: Activist Arts, Community Development, and Democracy
Mark Mattern and Nancy S. Love
Contributors
Index



