Democracy Dialogue Memory

Arguing that the politics of democracy is inseparable from a notion of dialogue that emerges from conflicting and often traumatic memories, Democracy, Dialogue, Memory examines the importance of dialogue for the achievement of understanding in civil society rather than consensus, so that democratic participation and inclusion can be strengthened. With attention to the importance for marginalized communities of the ability to disclose fundamental ethnic, religious, gendered, racial, or personal and affective characteristics born of trauma, and so cease to represent "otherness," this book brings together studies from Europe, Israel and the United States of literary and visual attempts to expand dialogue with "the other," particularly where democracies are prone to vacillating between the desire to endorse otherness, and political dread of the other. A critique of the practices of forced inclusion and forced consensual negotiation, that seeks to advance dialogue as a crucial safeguard against the twin dangers of exclusion and enforced assimilation, Democracy, Dialogue, Memory will appeal to scholars with interests in political theory, political sociology, collective and contested memory and civil society at the same time as allowing scholars from the humanities and the arts to examine seminal chapters that pivot on psychoanalytical approaches to literature, film and philosophy at the borderline of political thinking.

It is widely accepted that the machinery of multicultural societies and liberal democratic systems is dependent upon various forms of dialogue - dialogue between political parties, between different social groups, between the ruling and the ruled. But what are the conditions of a democratic dialogue and how does the philosophical dialogic approach apply to practice? Recently, facing challenges from mass protest movements across the globe, liberal democracy has found itself in urgent need of a solution to the problem of translating mass activity into dialogue, as well as that of designing borders of dialogue. Exploring the multifaceted nature of the concepts of dialogue and democracy, and critically examining materializations of dialogue in social life, this book offers a variety of perspectives on the theoretical and empirical interface between democracy and dialogue. Bringing together the latest work from scholars across Europe, Democracy in Dialogue, Dialogue in Democracy offers fresh theorizations of the role of dialogue in democratic thought and practice and will appeal to scholars of sociology, political science and social and political theory.

This collection brings into dialogue authors from a range of disciplines and perspectives to address the thorny question of how to balance the demands of «democratic dialogue» with the reality of a world in which each voice does not carry equal weight. Should rules be in place, for example, that correct for such imbalances by privileging some voices or muting others? Should separate spaces be created for traditionally disadvantaged groups to speak only among themselves? Is democratic dialogue in an inclusive sense even a possibility in a world divided by multiple dimensions of power and privilege? Leading theorists from several countries share a concern for social justice and present radically different interpretations of what democracy means for educational practice. In a format unusual for such collections, the essays speak directly to each other about significant moral, philosophical, and practical differences regarding how to effectively engage students as critical participants in classrooms fraught with power and difference. The authors draw from philosophy, critical race theory, sociology, feminist, and poststructural studies to address topics including hate speech, freedom of expression, speech codes, the meanings of silence, conceptions of voice and agency, and «political correctness». They explore honestly and self-critically the troubling and disturbing dimensions of speech and silence that situate the classroom as a volatile microcosm of contemporary political contradictions.

It is widely accepted that the machinery of multicultural societies and liberal democratic systems is dependent upon various forms of dialogue - dialogue between political parties, between different social groups, between the ruling and the ruled. But what are the conditions of a democratic dialogue and how does the philosophical dialogic approach apply to practice? Exploring the multifaceted nature of the concepts of dialogue and democracy, and critically examining materializations of dialogue in social life, this book offers a variety of perspectives on the theoretical and empirical interface between democracy and dialogue.

Offers an examination of ancient, modern, and contemporary political theories and practices in order to develop a more expansive way of conceptualizing memory, how political power influences the presence of the past, and memory'songoing impact on democratic horizons.

This book offers an original contribution to the debate on contemporary democratic ethics. It argues that public culture provides the mediating spaces required for processes of encounter, but should be supplemented with an open dialogue on history, memory, and identity. Since democratic modernity is consolidating its new phase characterized by the multiplicity of perspectives, the mediation of conflict, identity, and memory are required to continue fostering mutual understanding and the identification of issues of common concern. The historical emergence of a public culture is a democratic gain. Recognizing this offers opportunities for ethical transformation that respects diversity but also addresses the realities of conflict under conditions of postmodernity.

On November 3, 1979, five protest marchers in Greensboro, North Carolina, were shot and killed by the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party. There were no police present, but television crews captured the shootings on video. Despite two criminal trials, none of the killers ever served time for their crimes, exposing what many believed to be the inadequacy of judicial, political, and economic systems in the United States. Twenty-five years later, in 2004, Greensboro residents, inspired by post-apartheid South Africa, initiated a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to take public testimony and examine the causes, sequence of events, and consequences of the massacre. The TRC was to be a process and a tool by which citizens could feel confident about the truth of the city's history in order to reconcile divergent understandings of past and current city values, and it became the foundation for the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the United States. Spoma Jovanovic, who worked alongside other community members to document the grassroots effort to convene the first TRC in the United States, provides a resource and case study of how citizens in one community used their TRC as a way to understand the past and conceive the future. This book preserves the historical significance of a people's effort to seek truth and work for reconciliation, shows a variety of discourse models for other communities to use in seeking to redress past harms, and demonstrates the power of community action to promote participatory democracy.