American Political Culture, Prophetic Narration, and Toni Morrison's Beloved
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6352255 |
|---|---|
| Authors | George Shulman (0000-0002-9571-4908, New York University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1996 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 295-314 |
| Publication date | 1996-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0090591796024002006 |
| OpenAlex | W2044819773 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
HUMAN BEINGS TELL STORIES; we may call them narratives. They are crucial to human life and fruitful to study because they mediate past and present, social condition and interior experience, inherited circumstance and agency, and collective and personal identity. As collective artifacts internalized as part of identity, stories also foster the reflection that infuses them with new meanings. For a political theorist, then, narratives visible the cultural dimensions in politics. In American political culture, the prophetic story of captivity, deliverance, and founding legacy, thus of decline from origins and redemption, has been especially important. In this essay, I investigate how differently situated Americans have retold this story to authorize claims about rights, inequality, membership, history, and their meaning. I trace this narrative first in AngloAmerican men defending liberal nationalism; next, in the oppositional political of those they have excluded; then in current culture; and last, in Toni Morrison's Beloved. Focusing on the resources, limits, and dangers of the prophetic narrative clarifies two issues. One is hegemony. How are we to assess the power of governing narratives in political life and the limits and possibilities in retelling them? The other is redemption, an idea at the core of the prophetic story and American political culture. How are we to assess the dream of fixing the crimes and suffering that flaw our nation and past to make good an original but unfulfilled promise of freedom
Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Art · Hegemony · Identity (music · Literature · Narrative · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Social science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Rhetoric and Communication Studies
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,21 |
| Citation span | 1998 - 2026 (29) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |