Resisting Dialogue

A bold new critique of dialogue as a method of eliminating dissent Is dialogue always the productive political and communicative tool it is widely conceived to be? Resisting Dialogue reassesses our assumptions about dialogue and, in so doing, about what a politically healthy society should look like. Juan Meneses argues that, far from an unalloyed good, dialogue often serves as a subtle tool of domination, perpetuating the underlying inequalities it is intended to address. Meneses investigates how “illusory dialogue” (a particular dialogic encounter designed to secure consensus) is employed as an instrument that forestalls—instead of fostering—articulations of dissent that lead to political change. He does so through close readings of novels from the English-speaking world written in the past hundred years—from E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion to Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People and more. Resisting Dialogue demonstrates how these novels are rhetorical exercises with real political clout capable of restoring the radical potential of dialogue in today’s globalized world. Expanding the boundaries of postpolitical theory, Meneses reveals how these works offer ways to practice disagreement against this regulatory use of dialogue and expose the pitfalls of certain other dialogic interventions in relation to some of the most prominent questions of modern history: cosmopolitanism at the end of empire, the dangers of rewriting the historical record, the affective dimension of neoliberalism, the racial and nationalist underpinnings of the “war on terror,” and the visibility of environmental violence in the Anthropocene. Ultimately, Resisting Dialogue is a complex, provocative critique that, melding political and literary theory, reveals how fiction can help confront the deployment of dialogue to preempt the emergence of dissent and, thus, revitalize the practice of emancipatory politics.

The United Nations Security Council has primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. In discharging its powers it must act in accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the UN, and observe the rules governing voting and procedure established in the Organisation’s Charter. The Council adopts mandatory resolutions that may establish obligations for members and non-members, and such obligations trump conflicting obligations originating from any other international agreement. Member States must cooperate with the Organisation and among themselves, in the implementation of any action prescribed by the Council against States whose behaviour the Council considers an act of aggression, or a threat to, or breach of, international peace and security. This book analyses resistance to Security Council resolutions and puts forward a theory of lawful resistance. Sufyan Droubi takes a positivist approach to the UN Charter regarding it as a constitution. Special emphasis is placed on the construction of the Charter’s meaning through the practice of both organs and Members of the UN and on the need to enhance the effectiveness of the Organization with due respect to the rule of law. The book proposes that nonviolent resistance to a mandatory resolution of the Security Council, on grounds that the latter is incompatible with the Charter or jus cogens norms, may be considered lawful under the Charter if some elements are present. In exploring a number of case studies of individual and collective State resistance to mandatory Council resolutions, the book proposes that resistance may function as a rudimentary instrument of accountability and protection of the Charter and jus cogens, in the absence of more mature mechanisms of judicial review. The book will be of excellent use and interest to scholars and students of constitutional international law and international relations.

What would it mean to invite disability into dialogue? Disability in Dialogue attunes us to the dialogues of and about disability. In the pages of this book, we ask readers to consider the dialogic constitution of disability and to imagine its reformulation. We find the voices, bodies, social norms, visceral experiences, discourses, and acts of resistance that materialize disability in all its dialogic and enfleshed complexity: tensions, contradictions, provocations, frustrations and desires. This volume makes a unique contribution, bringing together authors from disciplines as diverse as communication, dialogue studies, psychology, sociology, design, rhetoric and activism. Because we take dialogue seriously, this book is designed to be brave as we examine the ways of being in the world that dialogic practices engender and allow, as well as beckon to continue. By way of a variety of frameworks, such as discourse analysis, dialogue studies, narrative analysis, and critical approaches to discourse, the chapters of this book take us through a polylogue of and about disability, demanding that we consider our own roles in bringing forth disabled ways of being and how we might, instead, choose ways that enable our common existence.

This collection of original essays comprises an international who's who of women theologians writing on a topic that impacts the lives of women everywhere. In December 1994, forty-five outstanding feminist theologians from around the world met in Costa Rica to discuss the impact of violence against women. For a full week these theologians dialogued on the many forms of violence: economic, military, cultural, ecological, domestic, and physical violence. From this multivoice dialogue, 'Women Resisting Violence' offers a truly global, truly cutting-edge resource on the implications of violence against women.

Helga Druxes' study of the female protagonists in novels by German writer Monika Maron, British writers Margaret Drabble and Jean Rhys, and French writer Marguerite Duras brings together the work of four prominent contemporary women authors. In discussing the position of women in urban spaces from the point of view of feminist and cultural theory, Druxes combines anthropology and recent literary theory within the framework of cultural studies. She addresses such concerns as the objectification/commodification of women in late capitalist society, the possibilities for resistant or subversive female agency under these conditions, and the role of specifically urban arrangements of space in both effecting this objectification and creating the sites where it might be resisted or disrupted by women. Resisting Bodies is an important contribution to literary criticism and feminist theory.

As societies live with diversity and yet struggle with both social fragmentation and increasing economic inequalities, populism is once again rising. Populist ethno-nationalist discourse seeks to ignite fear and hate, promote marginalization and exclusion of those who are regarded as not belonging to "the people". What is the role and responsibility of theology and the churches in the midst of these developments? Church leaders and teaching theologians from eighteen different countries offer analyses, trace emerging global trends and outline some country-specific developing situations. Examples are given of how churches take up the challenge to resist exclusion and advocate for strengthening participatory processes and people's agency. Widerstand gegen Ausgrenzung. Globale theologische Antworten auf den Populismus In Zeiten, in denen Gesellschaften mit der Vielfalt leben und dennoch mit sozialer Fragmentierung und zunehmenden wirtschaftlichen Ungleichheiten zu kämpfen haben, nimmt der Populismus wieder zu. Der populistische ethno-nationalistische Diskurs zielt darauf ab, Angst und Hass zu schüren und die Marginalisierung und Ausgrenzung derjenigen zu fördern, die als nicht zum "Volk" gehörend betrachtet werden. Welche Rolle und Verantwortung haben die Theologie und die Kirchen angesichts dieser Entwicklungen? Kirchenleitende und Theologen aus achtzehn verschiedenen Ländern erstellen Analysen, verfolgen neue globale Tendenzen und beschreiben einige länderspezifische Entwicklungssituationen. Anhand von Beispielen wird gezeigt, wie Kirchen die Herausforderung annehmen, der Ausgrenzung zu widerstehen und sich für die Stärkung von partizipativen Prozessen und der Handlungskompetenz der Menschen einzusetzen.

In this book, Susan Mandala offers a series of in-depth investigations into how the dialogue of four modern plays 'works' with respect to the pragmatic and discoursal norms postulated for ordinary conversation. After an account of the often-heated debates between linguists and critics concerning the analysis of drama dialogue as talk, four plays are considered: Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, Arnold Wesker's Roots, Terence Rattigan's In Praise of Love, and Alan Ayckbourn's Just Between Ourselves. For readers unfamiliar with linguistic approaches to talk, a chapter outlining the major frameworks used in the analysis of the plays is also included. By considering both linguistic and literary perspectives, this book extends the boundaries of traditional criticism and shows how the linguistic study of conversation can contribute to our understanding of dramatic dialogue.

At a time when we have never known more about our globe or shared more information, we live—paradoxically—in a driven, disconnected world. In science, in economics, our communications industry, and even in the public sphere, the human person tends to disappear from consideration or evaporate into an abstraction. The new political theology tries to break the spell of this cultural amnesia. These essays and interviews invite readers to consider the future by asking Where are we headed and what do we stand for. Johann Baptist Metz’s theology emerged as an attempt to understand shifting borders and threatening situations. It does not prescribe a political agenda or policies, but it does ask where we might stand if we are to shape a meaningful future together rather than in isolated or in ideological camps. Beginning with the spiritualty of his popular Poverty of Spirit, Metz developed a new method of theological inquiry for our anxious times. These essays represent the mature clarification of his earlier work.