Description
Book SynopsisPragmatism has been called 'the chief glory of our country's intellectual tradition' by its supporters and 'a dog's dinner' by its detractors. Acknowledging pragmatism's direct ties to American imperialism and expansionism, this title considers the role pragmatism plays, for better or worse, in discussions of nationalism, war, race, and community.
Trade ReviewPragmatism, Nation, and Race is an anthology that is as rare as it is important. Its essays cohere so seamlessly that the work reads more like a transcript of a single conversation than fourteen voices speaking to related themes. . . . This work offers such clear illuminations of fundamental concepts and current problems that it is an essential text for any scholar of pragmatism, critical race theory, post-colonialism, or American politics. . . . No matter your views on pragmatism, foreign policy, or America's status as an empire, a democracy, or both, parts of this work will irk you, others will uplift you, but every part will reward you.February 16, 2010
* Teachers College Record *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: Community in the Age of Empire
Chad Kautzer and Eduardo Mendieta
Part 1. Transformative Communities and Enlarged Loyalties
1. When Philosophy Paints Its Blue on Gray: Irony and the Pragmatist Enlightenment
Robert Brandom
2. The Unexamined Frontier: Dewey, Pragmatism, and America Enlarged
David H. Kim
3. Pragmatism and Solidarity with the Past
Max Pensky
4. Mead on Cosmopolitanism, Sympathy, and War
Mitch Aboulafia
5. Deliberating about the Past: Decentering Deliberative Democracy
James Bohman
Part 2. The Racial Nation
6. Race, Nation, and Nation-State: Tocqueville on (U.S.) American Democracy
Lucius T. Outlaw, Jr.
7. William James on Nation and Race
Harvey Cormier
8. Race, Culture, and Black Self-Determination
Tommie Shelby
9. Prophetic Vision and Trash Talkin': Pragmatism, Feminism, and Racial Privilege
Shannon Sullivan
Part 3. The Tragedy and Comedy of Empire
10. The Unpredictable American Empire
Richard Rorty
11. Transcending the "Gory Cradle of Humanity": War, Loyalty, and Civic Action in Royce and James
Eduardo Mendieta
12. Pragmatism and War
Robert Westbrook
13. Laughter against Hubris: A Preemptive Strike
Cynthia Willett
Interview with Cornel West, Conducted by Eduardo Mendieta
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index
