Direct democracy : collective power, the swarm, and the literatures of the Americas / Scott Henkel.

• "There are 2,000 leaders" : the swarm metaphor and a logic of collective action in C.L.R. James's The Black Jacobins -- Carlyle, Whitman, Parsons : three perspectives on direct democracy -- Nearly one hundred Nat Turners : collective power in the 1831 Southampton Slave Rebellion -- The emergence of the swarm in B. Traven's Mahogany novels -- Repression and cooperation in Marie Vieux Chauvet's Love.

• "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."-- 

Ämnesord

Demokrati i litteraturen  (sao)

Sociala rörelser  (sao)

Democracy in literature.  (LCSH)

Democracy  -- America. (LCSH)

Democracy and the arts  -- America. (LCSH)

Social movements  -- America -- History -- 19th century. (LCSH)

Democracy.  (fast)

Democracy and the arts.  (fast)

Democracy in literature.  (fast)

Literature.  (fast)

Social movements.  (fast)

Aufstand  (gnd)

Direkte Demokratie  (gnd)

Haitianische Revolution  (gnd)

Literatur  (gnd)

Philosophie  (gnd)

Revolution  (gnd)

LITERARY CRITICISM  -- Caribbean & Latin American. (bisacsh)

SOCIAL SCIENCE  -- Ethnic Studies -- African American Studies. (bisacsh)

SOCIAL SCIENCE  -- Black Studies (Global) (bisacsh)

Demokrati  -- i konsten (sao)

Social movements  (LCSH)

Democracy in literature  (LCSH)

Förenta staterna  (sao)

America  -- Literatures -- History and criticism. (LCSH)

America.  (fast)

1800-talet  (sao)

1800-1899  (fast)

Genre

Analys och tolkning  (saogf)

Criticism, interpretation, etc.  (fast)

History.  (fast)

Personnamn

Carlyle, Thomas, 1795-1881

Chauvet, Marie, 1916-1973

Traven, B., 1882-1969

Turner, Nat, 1800-1831

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892

Institutionsnamn

University of South Alabama

Klassifikation

PN846 (LCC)

809.897 (DDC)