Description
Book SynopsisEvery century has witnessed the birth of a few world-transcending intellectuals as well as talented emerging scholars. Noam Chomsky and Pierre W. Orelus are no exception. Using dialogues exchanged over the course of nine years, combined with heartfelt critical essays, Chomsky and Orelus analytically examine social justice issues, such as unbalanced relationships between dominant and subjugated languages, democratic schooling, neoliberalism, colonization, and the harmful effect of Western globalization on developing countries, particularly on the poor living in those countries.
On Language, Democracy, and Social Justice offers a unique perspective on these issues. Educators and scholar-activists interested in challenging the long-standing status quo to inspire transformative social, educational, and political change must read this book.
Trade Review«
On Language, Democracy, and Social Justice provides a forum for Noam Chomsky to articulate crucial insights, while offering an uplifting narrative describing a concerned individual’s personal correspondence, and then interaction, with Chomsky himself. As such, it’s a useful book that addresses contemporary issues, most notably regarding Haiti, but it’s also a behind-the-scenes description, one of a multitude, of how Chomsky relates to people concerned with making a difference in the world, and what they (and in turn we) can learn from such intellectual, and personal, encounters.» (Robert Barsky, Professor, Vanderbilt University)
«
On Language, Democracy, and Social Justice is a thoughtful and transformative book that raises crucial questions about the death of democracy and the rise of a unique form of authoritarianism in the United States. Reclaiming the connection between education and social change, it offers its readers an accessible, provocative, and insightful analysis of a number of issues that extend to social justice and the promise of a democracy to come to the savage ideologies, practices, and policies of neoliberalism. Moving lucidly between a language of critique and a discourse of possibility, the book offers a stinging critique of American-style casino capitalism and its attack on those vital public values, ideologies, and institutions that give meaning to any viable democratic society while also providing a number of suggestions about the promise of collective struggle, organized resistance, and the possibilities for a more just future.» (Henry Giroux, Global Television Network Chair in English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University)
«Critical educators such as Pierre W. Orelus have consistently challenged the colonial matrix of power in an attempt to redress the crisis within the geoculture of the modern/ colonial world, and in doing so have challenged epistemologies of power and the social relations of production in which these epistemologies are forged. Professor Orelus is from Haiti, and his interest in learning more about the colonization of his homeland is what first led him to become interested in Noam Chomsky’s work.» (from the foreword by Peter McLaren)
« … what is facilitative rather than debilitating about this new book is that it doesn’t only offer a language of critique, it simultaneously creates and encourages a collective praxis to make change in the world.» (from the afterword by Pepi Leistyna)
«
On Language, Democracy, and Social Justice provides a forum for Noam Chomsky to articulate crucial insights, while offering an uplifting narrative describing a concerned individual’s personal correspondence, and then interaction, with Chomsky himself. As such, it’s a useful book that addresses contemporary issues, most notably regarding Haiti, but it’s also a behind-the-scenes description, one of a multitude, of how Chomsky relates to people concerned with making a difference in the world, and what they (and in turn we) can learn from such intellectual, and personal, encounters.» (Robert Barsky, Professor, Vanderbilt University)
«
On Language, Democracy, and Social Justice is a thoughtful and transformative book that raises crucial questions about the death of democracy and the rise of a unique form of authoritarianism in the United States. Reclaiming the connection between education and social change, it offers its readers an accessible, provocative, and insightful analysis of a number of issues that extend to social justice and the promise of a democracy to come to the savage ideologies, practices, and policies of neoliberalism. Moving lucidly between a language of critique and a discourse of possibility, the book offers a stinging critique of American-style casino capitalism and its attack on those vital public values, ideologies, and institutions that give meaning to any viable democratic society while also providing a number of suggestions about the promise of collective struggle, organized resistance, and the possibilities for a more just future.» (Henry Giroux, Global Television Network Chair in English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University)
«Critical educators such as Pierre W. Orelus have consistently challenged the colonial matrix of power in an attempt to redress the crisis within the geoculture of the modern/ colonial world, and in doing so have challenged epistemologies of power and the social relations of production in which these epistemologies are forged. Professor Orelus is from Haiti, and his interest in learning more about the colonization of his homeland is what first led him to become interested in Noam Chomsky’s work.» (from the foreword by Peter McLaren)
« … what is facilitative rather than debilitating about this new book is that it doesn’t only offer a language of critique, it simultaneously creates and encourages a collective praxis to make change in the world.» (from the afterword by Pepi Leistyna)
Table of ContentsContents: Professional and Personal Encounters With Noam Chomsky: A Critical Self-Reflection – Noam Chomsky and the Linguistic, Political, and Activist World: A Critical Analysis – Democracy, Schooling, and U.S. Foreign Policy - Noam Chomsky and Pierre Orelus in Dialogue – Democracy and Language Rights of Minority Groups – Neoliberalism: The Rich Over the Poor - Noam Chomsky and Pierre Orelus in Dialogue – Market Democracy in a Neoliberal Order: Doctrines and Reality – Third World Countries Under Western Siege - Noam Chomsky and Pierre Orelus in Dialogue – Re-Envisioning Social Justice - Noam Chomsky and Pierre Orelus in Dialogue – What Should Be the Role of Intellectuals in the Twenty-First Century?
