Elke Zuern
Biographic Data
| ID | 89166 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elke Zuern |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elke |
| FAMILY NAME | Zuern |
| SIGNATURE | ZUERN E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Sarah Lawrence College |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 69 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
We Admire Heroes
Opening with a discussion of eulogies for John McCain, this chapter presents heroes as part of a typology of primary characters including heroes, villains, victims, and minions. Strong, good, and active, heroes are the players who must set things right and protect others. Heroes struggle, which is why they are admirable—and also why they need others’ cooperation, votes, or financial support. The combination of good and strong leads to bravery, ac…
The Art of the Word
Words are the main tool with which we construct characters, especially in literary narratives. Opening with Shakespeare’s King John, this chapter looks at narrative theory, epidictic rhetoric, public relations, and theater to show how characters are constructed in literary and other genres. Traditional characters are often considered “flat,” but even those stereotyped portrayals have many uses. They have faded somewhat in literature but are still…
We Pity Victims
This chapter presents victims as part of a typology of primary characters including heroes, villains, victims and minions. The same attributes that make heroes appear strong also make victims—who lack them—appear weak: a soft or feeble physique, small size, a lack of experience, intelligence, wisdom, wealth, offices, or special skills. Victims cannot protect themselves or maneuver in the political realm or other strategic arenas. They must be goo…
Sights and Sounds of Characters
Images are a key tool in the creation of public characters. The bulging biceps of a hero’s sculpture, a line that makes a villain squint slightly in a political poster, the high-pitched squeak of a minion: a few tiny visual or aural details can suggest a character in the blink of an eye. Florence launched civic humanism and republican ideology with an extensive program of public sculpture in the new squares it built in the fifteenth century, usin…
Sources for Figures
If not otherwise credited, photos are by James M. Jasper.
The Psychology of Creating Persons
Starting from the hero Jon Snow, in Game of Thrones, this chapter turns to several traditions of psychology to show the cognitive processes by which people put together small pieces of information in order to see others as “persons.” Public characters are a prominent special case of this process. According to affect control theory, strength, morality, and activity represent three basic dimensions along which people judge others—and build them int…
Arenas of Character Work
This chapter examines how institutional environments elicit and shape character work. Their reputed characters help or hinder players in a range of strategic arenas. This chapter explores the founding of nations, mobilization for war, corporate public relations, protest movements, elections, and legal proceedings for the nuances of character work in each of them. The media and politics often intersect, especially to stoke outrage through the iden…
Unsettling Humor
In a world where everything is ridiculous, nothing can be ridiculed. You cannot unmask a mask.—G. K. Chesterton One of the funniest movies ever made, Galax
We Fear Villains
This chapter presents villains as part of a typology of primary characters including heroes, villains, victims, and minions. Within this framework, villains are bad and powerful. They can be cruel, arrogant, greedy, hypocritical, sacrilegious. They are also secretive. This heightens people’s sense of urgency in stopping them, generates collective identities forged against the evil outsiders, and places god-fearing citizens in the role of protecti…
Ridicule and Contempt for Minions
This chapter presents minions as part of a typology of primary characters including heroes, villains, victims, and minions. Character work tends to portray the weakness of victims—paradigmatically women and children—as the lack of physical power, whereas the weakness of minions lies more in their ineptitude and in an overexcitability that undermines effective action. Inept characters cannot be too threatening and thus need not be punished or repr…
From Victims to Heroes
This chapter looks at an important transformation, when victims manage to become heroes, addressing several ways that groups can jump the boundary from victim to hero. It discusses the intentional suffering of martyrs and saints. They are heroes by example, as their pointed sacrifice becomes a form of power for those who have no other. The chapter also looks at heroes of endurance and resistance. Their resistance, by surviving rather than dying, …
Dedication
Copyright Page
Conclusion: The Politics of Blame
The conclusion looks at how public characters offer lesson to understand culture more generally. It includes a critique from Robert Zussman and a response to that critique. Zussman challenges the claim that social and political life inevitably involves character work. And when it does, he strongly doubts it is a good thing. The simplifications of characters do not contribute to rich and reasoned political debates, they short-circuit them. He find…
Beyond Characters?
This chapter addresses a number of ways that traditional public characters have evolved to correspond with the way that moderns picture blame and causality. It looks at the decline of heroes and villains in this supposed post-heroic era. It turns to the ways that the essentialism of character work is challenged, through various attitudes that range from medicalization and skepticism through cynicism and irony. It discusses the ridicule of flat ch…
Heroes and Victims in Divided Nationalism: The Case of Namibia
Heroes play a role in every nation's founding narrative, embodying a group's strength and courage, its dedication to protecting all within its fold, and its most important traditions and promises. Yet hero images and tropes have not received the attention they deserve in the social science literature on nations and nationalism. Recent theories of character work – the rhetorical construction of heroes, villains, victims, and minions – reveal the c…
Public Characters: The Politics of Reputation and Blame
Admirable heroes, threatening villains, innocent victims, and ridiculous minions have long been central to politics and related strategic arenas. These public characters populate the dramas through which people understand those around them, and they are important because of the emotions felt toward them. Public Characters shows the work that goes into these reputations, through words, images, and sounds. Whether it is Garibaldi’s role in Italian …
Character work in social movements
South Africa at a Turning Point
South Africa is at a crossroads. The state has not adequately addressed dire human development needs, often failing to provide the services it constitutionally guarantees. As a result, citizens are expressing their frustrations in a variety of ways, at times including violence. These serious challenges are most readily apparent in poverty, inequality and unemployment statistics, but also in electricity provision, billing and affordability as well…
Why Protests Are Growing in South Africa
While the ANC retains a firm grip on power, factionalism within the party, corruption, and an increasing distance from ordinary people undermine its ability to deliver on its promises
Memorial politics: Challenging the dominant party's narrative in Namibia
Greater international attention to human rights, particularly genocide, has offered activists opportunities to draw on transnational networks and norms. Many examples have been documented of the varying successes of domestic movement organisations employing international support. Much less attention has been paid to cases lacking significant organisations, but small groups and even individuals can draw attention to their demands if they effective…
Democratization as liberation: Competing African perspectives on democracy
Do Africans tend to view democracy in more procedural or more substantive terms? This article argues that African endorsements of liberal and procedural understandings are not as pervasive as much of the literature on democratization suggests. Drawing upon Afrobarometer survey results as well as extensive fieldwork and interviews conducted over the past decade in South Africa, it demonstrates both the historical development and significance of th…
La pauvreté en débat: Marginalité et démocratie constitutionnelle en Afrique du Sud
Depuis la fin des années 1990, l'Afrique du Sud connaît la résurgence de mouvements sociaux qui entendent défendre les intérêts des communautés les plus marginalisées en employant des méthodes institutionnelles comme des méthodes extra-institutionnelles. Ces mouvements sont rarement pris en compte dans les discussions sur le développement de la démocratie à cause de leurs méthodes et du caractère très matériel de leurs revendications. En mobilisa…
South Africa's Brittle Peace: The Problem of Post-Settlement Violence
Fighting for Democracy: Popular Organizations and Postapartheid Government in South Africa
Public Characters: The Politics of Reputation and Blame
Admirable heroes, threatening villains, innocent victims, and ridiculous minions have long been central to politics and related strategic arenas. These public characters populate the dramas through which people understand those around them, and they are important because of the emotions felt toward them. Public Characters shows the work that goes into these reputations, through words, images, and sounds. Whether it is Garibaldi’s role in Italian …
Character work in social movements
Memorial politics: Challenging the dominant party's narrative in Namibia
Greater international attention to human rights, particularly genocide, has offered activists opportunities to draw on transnational networks and norms. Many examples have been documented of the varying successes of domestic movement organisations employing international support. Much less attention has been paid to cases lacking significant organisations, but small groups and even individuals can draw attention to their demands if they effective…
Fighting for Democracy: Popular Organizations and Postapartheid Government in South Africa
Democratization as liberation: Competing African perspectives on democracy
Do Africans tend to view democracy in more procedural or more substantive terms? This article argues that African endorsements of liberal and procedural understandings are not as pervasive as much of the literature on democratization suggests. Drawing upon Afrobarometer survey results as well as extensive fieldwork and interviews conducted over the past decade in South Africa, it demonstrates both the historical development and significance of th…
South Africa's civics in transition: Agents of change or structures of constraint
Nelson Mandela's May 1994 inauguration represented a clear victory for South Africa's formal transition to non-racial democracy, but, as this article demonstrates, a formal, national level transition does not simply lead to local level change. Change within South Africa's townships has been much more minimal and difficult than an elite perspective suggests. This is explained not only by the specific context of political tension and violence in ma…
Heroes and Victims in Divided Nationalism: The Case of Namibia
Heroes play a role in every nation's founding narrative, embodying a group's strength and courage, its dedication to protecting all within its fold, and its most important traditions and promises. Yet hero images and tropes have not received the attention they deserve in the social science literature on nations and nationalism. Recent theories of character work – the rhetorical construction of heroes, villains, victims, and minions – reveal the c…
South Africa at a Turning Point
South Africa is at a crossroads. The state has not adequately addressed dire human development needs, often failing to provide the services it constitutionally guarantees. As a result, citizens are expressing their frustrations in a variety of ways, at times including violence. These serious challenges are most readily apparent in poverty, inequality and unemployment statistics, but also in electricity provision, billing and affordability as well…
La pauvreté en débat: Marginalité et démocratie constitutionnelle en Afrique du Sud
Depuis la fin des années 1990, l'Afrique du Sud connaît la résurgence de mouvements sociaux qui entendent défendre les intérêts des communautés les plus marginalisées en employant des méthodes institutionnelles comme des méthodes extra-institutionnelles. Ces mouvements sont rarement pris en compte dans les discussions sur le développement de la démocratie à cause de leurs méthodes et du caractère très matériel de leurs revendications. En mobilisa…
South Africa's civics in transition: Agents of change or structures of constraint
Nelson Mandela's May 1994 inauguration represented a clear victory for South Africa's formal transition to non-racial democracy, but, as this article demonstrates, a formal, national level transition does not simply lead to local level change. Change within South Africa's townships has been much more minimal and difficult than an elite perspective suggests. This is explained not only by the specific context of political tension and violence in ma…
Fighting for Democracy: Popular Organizations and Postapartheid Government in South Africa
South Africa's Brittle Peace: The Problem of Post-Settlement Violence
La pauvreté en débat: Marginalité et démocratie constitutionnelle en Afrique du Sud
Depuis la fin des années 1990, l'Afrique du Sud connaît la résurgence de mouvements sociaux qui entendent défendre les intérêts des communautés les plus marginalisées en employant des méthodes institutionnelles comme des méthodes extra-institutionnelles. Ces mouvements sont rarement pris en compte dans les discussions sur le développement de la démocratie à cause de leurs méthodes et du caractère très matériel de leurs revendications. En mobilisa…
Democratization as liberation: Competing African perspectives on democracy
Do Africans tend to view democracy in more procedural or more substantive terms? This article argues that African endorsements of liberal and procedural understandings are not as pervasive as much of the literature on democratization suggests. Drawing upon Afrobarometer survey results as well as extensive fieldwork and interviews conducted over the past decade in South Africa, it demonstrates both the historical development and significance of th…
Memorial politics: Challenging the dominant party's narrative in Namibia
Greater international attention to human rights, particularly genocide, has offered activists opportunities to draw on transnational networks and norms. Many examples have been documented of the varying successes of domestic movement organisations employing international support. Much less attention has been paid to cases lacking significant organisations, but small groups and even individuals can draw attention to their demands if they effective…
Why Protests Are Growing in South Africa
While the ANC retains a firm grip on power, factionalism within the party, corruption, and an increasing distance from ordinary people undermine its ability to deliver on its promises
South Africa at a Turning Point
South Africa is at a crossroads. The state has not adequately addressed dire human development needs, often failing to provide the services it constitutionally guarantees. As a result, citizens are expressing their frustrations in a variety of ways, at times including violence. These serious challenges are most readily apparent in poverty, inequality and unemployment statistics, but also in electricity provision, billing and affordability as well…
Character work in social movements
We Admire Heroes
Opening with a discussion of eulogies for John McCain, this chapter presents heroes as part of a typology of primary characters including heroes, villains, victims, and minions. Strong, good, and active, heroes are the players who must set things right and protect others. Heroes struggle, which is why they are admirable—and also why they need others’ cooperation, votes, or financial support. The combination of good and strong leads to bravery, ac…
The Art of the Word
Words are the main tool with which we construct characters, especially in literary narratives. Opening with Shakespeare’s King John, this chapter looks at narrative theory, epidictic rhetoric, public relations, and theater to show how characters are constructed in literary and other genres. Traditional characters are often considered “flat,” but even those stereotyped portrayals have many uses. They have faded somewhat in literature but are still…
We Pity Victims
This chapter presents victims as part of a typology of primary characters including heroes, villains, victims and minions. The same attributes that make heroes appear strong also make victims—who lack them—appear weak: a soft or feeble physique, small size, a lack of experience, intelligence, wisdom, wealth, offices, or special skills. Victims cannot protect themselves or maneuver in the political realm or other strategic arenas. They must be goo…
Sights and Sounds of Characters
Images are a key tool in the creation of public characters. The bulging biceps of a hero’s sculpture, a line that makes a villain squint slightly in a political poster, the high-pitched squeak of a minion: a few tiny visual or aural details can suggest a character in the blink of an eye. Florence launched civic humanism and republican ideology with an extensive program of public sculpture in the new squares it built in the fifteenth century, usin…
Sources for Figures
If not otherwise credited, photos are by James M. Jasper.
The Psychology of Creating Persons
Starting from the hero Jon Snow, in Game of Thrones, this chapter turns to several traditions of psychology to show the cognitive processes by which people put together small pieces of information in order to see others as “persons.” Public characters are a prominent special case of this process. According to affect control theory, strength, morality, and activity represent three basic dimensions along which people judge others—and build them int…
Arenas of Character Work
This chapter examines how institutional environments elicit and shape character work. Their reputed characters help or hinder players in a range of strategic arenas. This chapter explores the founding of nations, mobilization for war, corporate public relations, protest movements, elections, and legal proceedings for the nuances of character work in each of them. The media and politics often intersect, especially to stoke outrage through the iden…
Unsettling Humor
In a world where everything is ridiculous, nothing can be ridiculed. You cannot unmask a mask.—G. K. Chesterton One of the funniest movies ever made, Galax
We Fear Villains
This chapter presents villains as part of a typology of primary characters including heroes, villains, victims, and minions. Within this framework, villains are bad and powerful. They can be cruel, arrogant, greedy, hypocritical, sacrilegious. They are also secretive. This heightens people’s sense of urgency in stopping them, generates collective identities forged against the evil outsiders, and places god-fearing citizens in the role of protecti…
Ridicule and Contempt for Minions
This chapter presents minions as part of a typology of primary characters including heroes, villains, victims, and minions. Character work tends to portray the weakness of victims—paradigmatically women and children—as the lack of physical power, whereas the weakness of minions lies more in their ineptitude and in an overexcitability that undermines effective action. Inept characters cannot be too threatening and thus need not be punished or repr…
From Victims to Heroes
This chapter looks at an important transformation, when victims manage to become heroes, addressing several ways that groups can jump the boundary from victim to hero. It discusses the intentional suffering of martyrs and saints. They are heroes by example, as their pointed sacrifice becomes a form of power for those who have no other. The chapter also looks at heroes of endurance and resistance. Their resistance, by surviving rather than dying, …
Dedication
Copyright Page
Conclusion: The Politics of Blame
The conclusion looks at how public characters offer lesson to understand culture more generally. It includes a critique from Robert Zussman and a response to that critique. Zussman challenges the claim that social and political life inevitably involves character work. And when it does, he strongly doubts it is a good thing. The simplifications of characters do not contribute to rich and reasoned political debates, they short-circuit them. He find…
Beyond Characters?
This chapter addresses a number of ways that traditional public characters have evolved to correspond with the way that moderns picture blame and causality. It looks at the decline of heroes and villains in this supposed post-heroic era. It turns to the ways that the essentialism of character work is challenged, through various attitudes that range from medicalization and skepticism through cynicism and irony. It discusses the ridicule of flat ch…
Heroes and Victims in Divided Nationalism: The Case of Namibia
Heroes play a role in every nation's founding narrative, embodying a group's strength and courage, its dedication to protecting all within its fold, and its most important traditions and promises. Yet hero images and tropes have not received the attention they deserve in the social science literature on nations and nationalism. Recent theories of character work – the rhetorical construction of heroes, villains, victims, and minions – reveal the c…
Political science (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Law (6 works) · Political economy (6 works) · Art (5 works) · History (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Law (4 works)