Radical Relevance

Toward a Scholarship of the Whole Left

Edited by Laura Gray-Rosendale & Steven Rosendale

Subjects: Cultural Studies, Composition And Rhetoric Studies
Paperback : 9780791462744, 296 pages, January 2005
Hardcover : 9780791462737, 296 pages, January 2005

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Table of contents

Introduction

Toward a Scholarship of the "Whole Left"
Steven Rosendale

I. Legacies of Marxism

1. Black Nationalist Identity and Internationalist Class Unity: The Political and Cultural Legacy of Marxism
Alan Wald

2. Race, Class, and Communism: The Young Ralph Ellison and the "Whole Left"
Barbara Foley

3. Toward a Political Economy of Rhetoric (or a Rhetoric of Political Economy)
Victor Villanueva

II. Left Coalitions Beyond the Triad

4. The Left Side of the Circle: American Indians and Progressive Politics
Scott Richard Lyons

5. Reconciling Red and Green
Michael Bennett

6. A Monstrous Emerge-agency: Cripping the "Whole Left"
Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Wendy L. Chrisman, Marian E. Lupo

7. What the Left Left Out
Derek Owens

III. The Academic Left, Critical Theory, and the Global Context

8. Globalizing Dissent and Radicalizing Democracy: Politics, Pedagogy, and the Responsibility of Critical Intellectuals
Henry A. Giroux

9. Toward a Contemporary Philosophy of Praxis
Noah De Lissovoy, Peter McLaren

10. Global/Local Labor Politics and the Promise of Service Learning
Wendy S. Hesford

11. Between School and Work: Classroom and Class
Evan Watkins

12. Another World Is Possible
Mark Wood

13. Feminism(s) and the Left: A Discussion with Linda Martín Alcoff
Laura Gray-Rosendale

Contributors

Index

Exemplifies the struggles of scholars to work toward a more shared agenda for social change.

Description

In an effort to rethink the left, this interdisciplinary collection weaves together some of today's most powerful voices in contemporary left critical thought as they examine the fragmentation of American movements for social change, evaluate what critical scholarship might contribute to the task of renewing (or creating) a more unified and efficacious left, and explore the left's possibly inadequate dealings with many marginalized groups. Representing a diverse range of theoretical perspectives within several "textual" disciplines, the essays assess historical, practical, or speculative models for a "whole left"—a left constituted by a broad range of complexly interwoven interests, including issues of class, environment, gender, sexuality, disability, race, and ethnicity. The book exemplifies the struggles of scholars to work toward a more shared agenda for social change.

At Northern Arizona University, Laura Gray-Rosendale and Steven Rosendale are Associate Professors of English. Gray-Rosendale is the coeditor (with Gil Harootunian) of Fractured Feminisms: Rhetoric, Context, and Contestation and the coeditor (with Sibylle Gruber) of Alternative Rhetorics: Challenges to the Rhetorical Tradition, both also published by SUNY Press. Rosendale is the editor of The Greening of Literary Scholarship: Literature, Theory, and the Environment.