Guys and Guns Amok

Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism

Douglas Kellner

Critical overview of the entirety of Marcuse's work and discusses his enduring importance. Kellner had extensive interviews with Marcuse and provides hitherto unknown information about his road to Marxism, his relations with Heidegger and Existentialism, his involvement with the Frankfurt School, and his reasons for appropriating Freud in the 1950s. In addition Kellner provides a novel interpretation of the genesis and structure of Marcuse's theory of one-dimensional society, of the development of his political theory, and of the role of aesthetics in his critical theory.

Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy

Terrorism, War, and Election Battles

Douglas Kellner

Douglas Kellner's Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy: 9/11, the War on Iraq, and Election 2004 investigates the role of the media in the momentous political events of the past four years. Beginning with the role of the media in contested election of 2000, Kellner examines how corporate media ownership and concentration, linked with a rightward shift of establishment media, have disadvantaged the Democrats and benefited George W. Bush and the Republicans. Exploring the role of media spectacle in the 9/11 attacks and subsequent Terror War in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kellner documents the centrality of media politics in advancing foreign policy agendas and militarism. Building on his analysis in Media Spectacle (Routledge 2003), Kellner demonstrates in detail how conflicting political forces ranging from Al Qaeda to the Bush administration construct media spectacles to advance their politics. Two chapters critically engage the role of the media in the buildup to the Iraq war and the media-centric nature of Bush's Iraq invasion and occupation. Final chapters delineate the role of the media in the highly contested and significant 2004 election campaign that many believe to be one of the key political struggles of the contemporary era. Criticizing Bush's unilateralism, Kellner argues for a multilateral and cosmopolitan globalization and the need for democratic media to help overcome the current crisis of democracy in the United States.

Cultural Studies, Education, and Youth

Beyond Schools

Benjamin Frymer, John Broughton, Matthew Carlin

Cultural Studies, Education, and Youth: Beyond Schools, edited by Benjamin Frymer, Matthew Carlin, and John Broughton, brings interdisciplinary lenses to the study of education beyond the classroom in order to critically attend to the increased influence of media and popular culture in the education and lives of youth. The chapters collectively advocate the importance of exploring the multiple cultural contexts where education occurs. Cultural Studies, Education, and Youth raises significant questions and offers important insights for teachers, youth, scholars, and practitioners, alike.

The Postmodern Adventure

Science Technology and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium

Steven Best, Douglas Kellner

This compelling book explores the challenges to theory, politics, and human identity that we face on the threshold of the third millennium. It follows on the successor of Best and Kellner's two previous books, Postmodern Theory, acclaimed as the best critical introduction to the field - and The Postmodern Turn, which provides a powerful mapping of postmodern developments developments in the arts, politics, science, and theory. In The Postmodern Adventure, Best and Kellner analyze a broad array of literary, cultural, and political phenomena from fiction, film, science, and the Internet, to globalization and the rise of a transnational image culture.

The Persian Gulf TV War

Douglas Kellner

Douglas Kellner's Persian Gulf TV War attacks the myths, disinformation, and propaganda disseminated during the Gulf war. At once a work of social theory, media criticism, and political history, this book demonstrates how television served as a conduit for George Bush's war policies while silencing anti-war voices and foregoing spirited discussion of the complex issues involved. In so doing, the medium failed to assume its democratic responsibilities of adequately informing the American public and debating issues of common concern. Kellner analyzes the dominant frames through which television presented the war and focuses on the propaganda that sold the war to the public–one of the great media spectacles and public relations campaigns of the post-World War II era. In the spirit of Orwell and Marcuse, Kellner studies the language surrounding the Gulf war and the cynical politics of distortion and disinformation that shaped the mainstream media version of the war, how the Bush administration and Pentagon manipulated the media, and why a majority of the American public accepted the war as just and moral.

From 9/11 to Terror War

The Dangers of the Bush Legacy

Douglas Kellner

The book shows how September 11 provided an opportunity for the Bush administration to push through hard-right domestic and foreign policies, many of which were being contested and blocked in Congress pre-September 11. Visit our website for sample chapters!

The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947

John Lewis Gaddis

This book moves beyond the focus on economic considerations that was central to the work of New Left historians, examining the many other forces--domestic politics, bureaucratic inertia, quirks of personality, and perceptions of Soviet intentions--that influenced key decision makers in Washington.

Plato: Laws 10

Translated with an Introduction and Commentary

Plato

Book 10 of the Laws sets out Plato's last thoughts on the gods, piety, and religion. Robert Mayhew presents a new English translation of this important text with a detailed commentary that highlights its philosophical, political, and religious significance.

Does Peacekeeping Work?

Shaping Belligerents' Choices After Civil War

Virginia Page Fortna

"Fortna demonstrates that peacekeeping is an extremely effective policy tool, dramatically reducing the risk that war will resume. Moreover, she explains that relatively small and militarily weak consent-based peacekeeping operations are often just as effective as larger, more robust enforcement missions. Fortna examines the causal mechanisms of peacekeeping, paying particular attention to the perspective of the peacekept--the belligerents themselves--on whose decisions the stability of peace depends."--publisher website.

American Sphinx

The Character of Thomas Jefferson

Joseph J. Ellis

Offers a reassessment of the life, image, and career of Thomas Jefferson, examining his complex personality, controversies about the man and his beliefs, and his accomplishments.

The Headless State

Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, & Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia

David Sneath

"Sneath argues that aristocratic power and statelike processes of administration were the true organizers of life on the steppe. Rethinking the traditional dichotomy between state and nonstate societies, Sneath conceives of a "headless state" in which a configuration of statelike power was formed by the horizontal relations among power holders and was reproduced with or without an overarching ruler or central "head." In other words, almost all of the operations of state power existed at the local level, virtually independent of central bureaucratic authority.".

Holy Warriors

The Abolitionists and American Slavery

James Brewer Stewart

Revised to include important new scholarship, James Brewer Stewart's eloquent survey of the abolitionist movement is also a superb analysis of how the antislavery movement reinforced and transformed the dominant features of pre-Civil War America. Revealing the wisdom and na veté of the crusaders' convictions and examining the social bases for their actions, Stewart demonstrates why, despite the ambiguity of its ultimate victory, abolition has left a profound imprint on our national memory.

There is a Gunman on Campus

Tragedy and Terror at Virginia Tech

Ben Agger, Timothy W. Luke

On April 16, 2007, a Virginia Tech student killed 32 of his classmates and professors and then turned the gun on himself. The media focused their power and our attention on the campus, the students and faculty of Virginia Tech, and the gunman and his victims. But we have yet t...

Tragedy in Aurora

The Culture of Mass Shootings in America

Tom Diaz

Tragedy in Aurora is about the 2012 murder of budding sports journalist Jessica (Jessi) Redfield Ghawi in a public mass shooting, and the widening circle of pain it inflicted on her family, friends, police, medical first responders, and others. The book is at the same time a deep examination of the causes and potential cures of the quintessential 21st century American sickness—public mass shootings. At the heart of that examination is an unpacking of America’s deep polarization and political gridlock. It addresses head on the question of why? Why is American gun violence so different from other countries? Why does nothing seem to change? The “Parkland kids” inspired hope of change. But the ultimate questions stubbornly remain—what should, what can, and what will Americans do to reduce gun violence? Tragedy in Aurora argues that the answer lies in a conscious cultural redefinition of American civic order. Over recent decades, America has defined a cultural “new normal” about guns and gun violence. Americans express formalistic dismay after every public mass shooting. But many accept gun violence as an inevitable, even necessary, and to some laudable part of what it means to be “American.” Although Americans claim to be shocked with each new outrage, so far they have failed to coalesce around an effective way to reduce gun death and injury. The debate is bogged down in polarized and profoundly ideological political and cultural argument. Meanwhile, America continues to lead the globe in its pandemic levels of gun deaths and injuries. Combined with the cynical “learned helplessness” of its politicians, the result is gridlock and a growing roll of victims of carnage. Is there a path out of this cultural and political gridlock? Tragedy in Aurora argues that if America is to reduce gun violence it must expand the debate and confront the fundamental question of “who are we?” Tom Diaz gives a new understanding of American culture and the potential for change offered by the growing number and ongoing organization of victims and survivors of gun violence. Without conscious cultural change, the book argues, there is little prospect of effective laws or public policy to reduce gun violence in general and public mass shootings in particular.

Media/cultural Studies

Critical Approaches

Rhonda Hammer, Douglas Kellner

This anthology is designed to assist teachers and students in learning how to better understand and interpret our common culture and everyday life. With a focus on contemporary media, consumer, and digital culture, this book combines classic and original writings by both leading and rising scholars in the field. The chapters present key theories, concepts, and methodologies of critical cultural and media studies, as well as cutting-edge research into new media. Sections on teaching media/cultural studies and concrete case studies provide practical examples that illuminate contemporary culture, ranging from new forms of digital media and consumer culture to artifacts from TV and film, including Barbie and Big Macs, soap operas, Talk TV, Facebook, and YouTube. The lively articles show that media/cultural studies is an exciting and relevant arena, and this text should enable students and citizens to become informed readers and critics of their culture and society.

After Gun Violence

Deliberation and Memory in an Age of Political Gridlock

Craig Rood

Mass shootings have become the “new normal” in American life. The same can be said for the public debate that follows a shooting: blame is cast, political postures are assumed, but no meaningful policy changes are enacted. In After Gun Violence, Craig Rood argues that this cycle is the result of a communication problem. Without advocating for specific policies, Rood examines how Americans talk about gun violence and suggests how we might discuss the issues more productively and move beyond our current, tragic impasse. Exploring the ways advocacy groups, community leaders, politicians, and everyday citizens talk about gun violence, Rood reveals how the gun debate is about far more than just guns. He details the role of public memory in shaping the discourse, showing how memories of the victims of gun violence, the Second Amendment, and race relations influence how gun policy is discussed. In doing so, Rood argues that forgetting and misremembering this history leads interest groups and public officials to entrenched positions and political failure and drives the public further apart. Timely and innovative, After Gun Violence advances our understanding of public discourse in an age of gridlock by illustrating how public deliberation and public memory shape and misshape one another. It is a search to understand why public discourse fails and how we can do better.

Gun Violence and Public Life

Ben Agger, Timothy W. Luke

Schools, theatres and malls used to be safe havens. Marathons were triumphal, not tragic. Today, public life is risky. Citizens are on edge, either calling for gun control or purchasing personal weapons of self-defense. In this timely book, prominent US and international authors examine gun violence in public life. They offer the latest data and analysis on topics such as comparative gun homicide rates, the efficacy of gun control, risks associated with gun ownership, concealed-carry data and policy, media and gaming violence, gender and guns, and school shootings. New insights are developed from a comparative case study of Canada, a country in which gun ownership is common but with a much lower rate of gun violence. Neither demonising nor mythologising guns, the contributors provide evidence-based analyses that shed light on policy directions and personal conduct.

The Possibility/Impossibility of a New Critical Language in Education

Unknown author

The critique of Critical Pedagogy—in its current various trends and paths teaches me not only the shortcomings of various versions of Critical Pedagogy. No less important, it offers an invitation to a reflection on the limitations, costs, and open horizons of “critique” itself. It is an invitation to transcend “critique” as such. But what alternative do we have, and from where or with what ears might we listen to the music of the new call? What is it that awaits us outside the critical tradition that in an unproblematic manner we could use, internalize, or surrender ourselves to? Such questions reintroduce us to Utopia. They reintroduce us to the Utopia of the possibility of happiness of the kind that is neither made possible nor advocated by self-abandonment and enslavement/destruction of the otherness of the Other and the “I”. This book manifests a refusal to abandon Critical Theory’s telos; it offers no “solutions”, “victories of the oppressed”, and “emancipation”, neither does it promise “peace” and unproblematic “consensus”. On the contrary: all the eternal open, Diasporic individual can hope for is worthy Diasporic Love of Life, creativity, mature forms of togetherness, and eternal nomadism as a manifestation of co-poiesis.