Direct Democracy

Collective Power, the Swarm, and the Literatures of the Americas

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Central & South American, Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Cultural Studies, African-American Studies
Cover of the book Direct Democracy by Scott Henkel, University Press of Mississippi
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Author: Scott Henkel ISBN: 9781496812261
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi Publication: May 25, 2017
Imprint: University Press of Mississippi Language: English
Author: Scott Henkel
ISBN: 9781496812261
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Publication: May 25, 2017
Imprint: University Press of Mississippi
Language: English

Winner of a 2018 C. L. R. James Award for a Published Book for Academic or General Audiences from the Working-Class Studies Association

Beginning with the Haitian Revolution, Scott Henkel lays out a literary history of direct democracy in the Americas. Much research considers direct democracy as a form of organization fit for worker cooperatives or political movements. Henkel reinterprets it as a type of collective power, based on the massive slave revolt in Haiti. In the representations of slaves, women, and workers, Henkel traces a history of power through the literatures of the Americas during the long nineteenth century.

Thinking about democracy as a type of power presents a challenge to common, often bureaucratic and limited interpretations of the term and opens an alternative archive, which Henkel argues includes C. L. R. James's The Black Jacobins, Walt Whitman's Democratic Vistas, Lucy Parsons's speeches advocating for the eight-hour workday, B. Traven's novels of the Mexican Revolution, and Marie Vieux Chauvet's novella about Haitian dictatorship.

Henkel asserts that each writer recognized this power and represented its physical manifestation as a swarm. This metaphor bears a complicated history, often describing a group, a movement, or a community. Indeed it conveys multiplicity and complexity, a collective power. This metaphor's many uses illustrate Henkel's main concerns, the problems of democracy, slavery, and labor, the dynamics of racial repression and resistance, and the issues of power which run throughout the Americas.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Winner of a 2018 C. L. R. James Award for a Published Book for Academic or General Audiences from the Working-Class Studies Association

Beginning with the Haitian Revolution, Scott Henkel lays out a literary history of direct democracy in the Americas. Much research considers direct democracy as a form of organization fit for worker cooperatives or political movements. Henkel reinterprets it as a type of collective power, based on the massive slave revolt in Haiti. In the representations of slaves, women, and workers, Henkel traces a history of power through the literatures of the Americas during the long nineteenth century.

Thinking about democracy as a type of power presents a challenge to common, often bureaucratic and limited interpretations of the term and opens an alternative archive, which Henkel argues includes C. L. R. James's The Black Jacobins, Walt Whitman's Democratic Vistas, Lucy Parsons's speeches advocating for the eight-hour workday, B. Traven's novels of the Mexican Revolution, and Marie Vieux Chauvet's novella about Haitian dictatorship.

Henkel asserts that each writer recognized this power and represented its physical manifestation as a swarm. This metaphor bears a complicated history, often describing a group, a movement, or a community. Indeed it conveys multiplicity and complexity, a collective power. This metaphor's many uses illustrate Henkel's main concerns, the problems of democracy, slavery, and labor, the dynamics of racial repression and resistance, and the issues of power which run throughout the Americas.

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