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Discussing the major theories of political leadership with a focus on contemporary challenges that political leaders face worldwide, this research companion provides a comprehensive and up-to-date resource for an international readership. The editors combine empirical and normative approaches to emphasize the centrality of political culture, as well as the limits of culture and the universal demands of innovative adaptation. The volume examines: ¢
We live in an age where one person's judicial "activist" legislating from the bench is another's impartial arbiter fairly interpreting the law. After the Supreme Court ended the 2000 Presidential election with its decision in Bush v. Gore, many critics claimed that the justices had simply voted their political preferences. But Justice Clarence Thomas, among many others, disagreed and insisted that the Court had acted according to legal principle, stating: "I plead with you, that, whatever you do, don't try to apply the rules of the political world to this institution; they do not apply." The legitimacy of our courts rests on their capacity to give broadly acceptable answers to controversial ...
“A careful, in-depth account of Ambassador Faith Whittlesey’s time both in and outside of Washington . . . a pioneer for women in politics” (American Swiss Foundation). “Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did,” so the saying goes, “but she did it backwards and in high heels.” Faith Whittlesey popularized this quotation during the 1980s, and many attribute the line to her. In this book, the life and career of Faith Whittlesey gives concrete meaning to the quotation. Raised in western New York State by highly motivated Irish-American parents of limited means, she worked to reach an eminent position as Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to Switzerland—twice—and to serve ...
Age of Anxiety: Meaning, Identity, and Politics in 21st Century Film and Literature analyzes literature and films that speak to our age of anxiety resulting from the decline of narratives that provided individuals with a meaningful human life. The authors argue that the twentieth-century sought to free individuals from the constraints of authoritative cultural traditions and institutions, liberating the autonomous self. Yet this has given rise to anxiety rather than liberation. Instead of deriving one’s sense of purpose from one’s role and place within a community, the consumer has been deceived into thinking that their identity can be purchased through the meaning represented by the con...
As the publishing sensation of the last half-century, Harry Potter dominates early education in politics. Children, tweens, teens, and adults love it; and most students come to college knowing at least some of it. This dark fantasy analyzes politics in strikingly practical and institutional ways. Like ancient Sophists, modern Machiavellians, and postmodern Nietzscheans, the Potter books treat politics as dark arts and our defenses against them. The Potter saga overflows with drama, humor, and insight into ours as dark times of terrible troubles. These reach from racism, sexism, and specism to fascism, terrorism, autocracy, and worse. Harry and his friends respond with detailed, entertaining ...
This collection, the first of its kind, brings together specially commissioned academic essays to mark fifty years since the death of John Kennedy Toole.
Sometimes called the “literature of ideas,” science fiction is a natural medium for normative political philosophy. Science fiction’s focus on technology, space and time travel, non-human lifeforms, and parallel universes cannot help but invoke the perennial questions of political life, including the nature of a just social order and who should rule; freedom, free will, and autonomy; and the advantages and disadvantages of progress. Rather than offering a reading of a work inspired by a particular thinker or tradition, each chapter presents a careful reading of a classic or contemporary work in the genre (a novel, short story, film, or television series) to illustrate and explore the themes and concepts of political philosophy.
In Between Science and Society: Charting the Space of Science Fiction, Douglas A. Van Belle uses interviews with 24 science fiction authors to analyze the conceptual space that science fiction occupies between science and society. Using these interviews, Van Belle studies the similarities and differences between the academic and professional understandings of the genre. Between Science and Society arguesthat, for authors, all of the aspects of the genre that are emphasized by academics, such as science communication and depictions of scientists, are secondary to the artistic effort to entertain through storytelling. Through his interviews, Van Belle explores both the genre’s place in relation to science and society and key elements to surviving as a professional science fiction author. Van Belle creates a definition of science fiction based on the creative ideals expressed by these authors and compared to those that arise from the academic perspective, showing that academics are struggling to engage one of the two central ideals of the genre.
This book links the questions people ask about why things exist, why the world is the way it is, and whether and how it is possible to change their society or world with the societal myths they develop and teach to answer those questions and organize and bring order to their communal lives. It also is about the need for change in western societies’ current organizing concept, classical (Lockean) liberalism. Despite the attempts of numerous insightful political thinkers, the myth of classical liberalism has developed so many cracks that it cannot be put back together again. If not entirely failed, it is at this point unsalvageable in its present form. Never the thought of just one person, t...
Lights, Camera, Execution!: Cinematic Portrayals of Capital Punishment fills a prominent void in the existing film studies and death penalty literature. Each chapter focuses on a particular cinematic portrayal of the death penalty in the United States. Some of the analyzed films are well-known Hollywood blockbusters, such as Dead Man Walking (1995); others are more obscure, such as the made-for-television movie Murder in Coweta County (1983). By contrasting different portrayals where appropriate and identifying themes common to many of the studied films – such as the concept of dignity and the role of race (and racial discrimination) – the volume strengthens the reader’s ability to engage in comparative analysis of topics, stories, and cinematic techniques.Written by three professors with extensive experience teaching, and writing about the death penalty, film studies, and criminal justice, Lights, Camera, Execution! is deliberately designed for both classroom use and general readership.