The Radical Writings Of Jack Nusan Porter

Jack Nusan Porter’s writings date back to 1966, during the height of the Vietnam War. He describes the anguished struggle against war, racism, and poverty, as well as the radical groups and individuals involved—Jewish socialists, radical Zionists, radical Jews, Rabbi Meir Kahane and the Jewish Defense League, the counterculture, liberals, and conservatives alike. In addition, his writings vividly recount the anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and revolutionary terrorism of the times. Here, Porter draws from the past in an effort to explain the present, walking the precarious bridge between allegiance to Israel and the Jewish people and the universal rights of all people. This collection of older and newer essays combines theory, sociology, film studies, literary criticism, post-modern thought, and politics.

Told through essays, memoirs, and other musings, this is the story of a radical Jew, academic, and educator from his birth in Ukraine during the Holocaust through the radical 60s and 70s, to the present day as he fights anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, xenophobia, and hate. Internationally known in Holocaust, genocide, and Jewish studies, Jack Nusan Porter was born in Maniewicz, Ukraine to Jewish Partisans in the 1940s. Through this engaging and thoughtful memoir, we follow Porter as he recounts his personal journey from a DP camp in Linz, Austria to an idyllic childhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he attended Hebrew day school under Reb Twersk. Porter masterfully details his radicalism in the politically and sociologically turbulent 1960s which would later influence his academic work on genocide, Holocaust studies, and international human rights. Constantly re-inventing himself, readers are treated to engaging anecdotes as they navigate through Porter's highs, lows, and in-betweens.

Message to the Reader p. vii Preface p. ix Introduction: The Death of Sociology? Toward a New Paradigm p. xv I Sociological Theory p. 1 1 Conflict Theory: Classical and Contemporary p. 5 2 Situational Theory p. 15 3 Small Groups: Theory and Methods p. 19 4 Means of Conflict Resolution p. 29 5 The Urban Middleman: A Comparative Analysis p. 47 6 What is Evil? Some New Post-Modern Theories to Explain the Post-9/11 Era p. 69 II Images of Sociology p. 85 7 The Image of Sociology: A Mixed Bag p. 87 8 The Making of a Sociologist p. 93 9 Radical Sociology Textbooks p. 111 10 Confronting the Media: The Impact of Jonestown p. 121 11 The Sociological Imagination of Film p. 125 III Creative Praxis p. 137 12 Talking Police Blues: The Pedagogic Dilemma of the Academic p. 141 13 Corporations that Grant Degrees? p. 149 14 Computer Networks and Metanetworks p. 157 15 Two Newtons or One? One Affluent, One Not! p. 185 16 The Sociological Imagination in Politics p. 193 17 Toward a Sociology and History of Peace p. 197 IV Postscript p. 209 18 Jack Nusan Porter: Thoughts on Internal and External Peace Don Martindale p. 211 Sources p. 231 Index p. 233 About the Author p. 241.

The Genocidal Mind offers unique and under-explored analyses of the Holocaust and the phenomenon of 20th century genocide within a sociological framework. With reference to contemporary scholarly work and using the latest in social structural, psychoanalytical, post-modern, chaos, and uncertainty theory, Dr. Porter attempts to explain why people dehumanize and kill other innocent people. The author also probes the deviant, sexual side of the Nazi party, including the mind of Adolf Hitler.

This is the first book on Naomi Alderman’s literary production, and highlights the writer’s transcultural recasting of British and Jewish traditions. The four novels analysed here prove to be relevant, not only from a literary viewpoint, but also from the fields of ethics, spirituality and politics. The analysis thus focuses on issues such as alterity and respect towards the other in a globalized context. As such, the book will be of interest to literary critics, researchers, and students in the fields of literature, ethics, and social and cultural studies. The reader will find in the text a comprehensive approach to a young writer who undoubtedly deserves attention given her interrogation of varied and socially relevant topics, including gender and sexual orientation in the early twenty-first century, the rewriting of the Sacred Scriptures, and the discourse of feminist posthuman dystopias.

The life and politics of an American Jewish activist who preached radical and violent means to Jewish survival Meir Kahane came of age amid the radical politics of the counterculture, becoming a militant voice of protest against Jewish liberalism. Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League in 1968, declaring that Jews must protect themselves by any means necessary. He immigrated to Israel in 1971, where he founded KACH, an ultranationalist and racist political party. He would die by assassination in 1990. Shaul Magid provides an in-depth look at this controversial figure, showing how the postwar American experience shaped his life and political thought. Magid sheds new light on Kahane’s radical political views, his critique of liberalism, and his use of the “grammar of race” as a tool to promote Jewish pride. He discusses Kahane’s theory of violence as a mechanism to assure Jewish safety, and traces how his Zionism evolved from a fervent support of Israel to a belief that the Zionist project had failed. Magid examines how tradition and classical Jewish texts profoundly influenced Kahane’s thought later in life, and argues that Kahane’s enduring legacy lies not in his Israeli career but in the challenge he posed to the liberalism and assimilatory project of the postwar American Jewish establishment. This incisive book shows how Kahane was a quintessentially American figure, one who adopted the radicalism of the militant Left as a tenet of Jewish survival.

This book studies children’s and young adult literature of genocide since 1945, considering issues of representation and using postcolonial theory to provide both literary analysis and implications for educating the young. Many of the authors visited accurately and authentically portray the genocide about which they write; others perpetuate stereotypes or otherwise distort, demean, or oversimplify. In this focus on young people’s literature of specific genocides, Gangi profiles and critiques works on the Cambodian genocide (1975-1979); the Iraqi Kurds (1988); the Maya of Guatemala (1981-1983); Bosnia, Kosovo, and Srebrenica (1990s); Rwanda (1994); and Darfur (2003-present). In addition to critical analysis, each chapter also provides historical background based on the work of prominent genocide scholars. To conduct research for the book, Gangi traveled to Bosnia, engaged in conversation with young people from Rwanda, and spoke with scholars who had traveled to or lived in Guatemala and Cambodia. This book analyses the ways contemporary children, typically ages ten and up, are engaged in the study of genocide, and addresses the ways in which child survivors who have witnessed genocide are helped by literature that mirrors their experiences.

Radical thoughts and acts are merely a non-conformist attitude; they are usually marginal and are directed against the ruling society. Thereby, these radical thoughts and acts could be classified as politcally left or right, progressive or reactionary. The volume wants to sharpen the term “Jewish Radicalism” and provide different perspectives on the historical phenomenon and its dimensions.