The Time Is Always Now
Black Thought and the Transformation of US Democracy
Published on 27. April 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
202 pages
978-0-19-064084-2 (ISBN)
Description
"Why," asks Nick Bromell, "should the political thought of white Americans remain the only theory to which Americans of all ethnicities turn when constructing and reconstructing their understanding of democracy? Must Americans remain locked in an apartheid of experience and perception even after whites have become a minority population in this nation? Hasn't the 2012 presidential election made clear that the time has come to build not just on the votes of citizens of color, but on the varieties of democratic thought their experience has engendered?"
In his answers to these questions, Bromell brings to light an underappreciated stream of democratic reflection by black writers and activists from David Walker to Malcolm X. Bromell argues that these thinkers urge Americans to fundamentally re-imagine the nature of their democracy and recognize that indignation can be a powerful and productive democratic emotion; that dignity is just as important to democracy as equality and liberty; that national citizenship can be infused with a sense of responsibility to the world; and that faith can actually promote rather than threaten democratic pluralism.
A literary critic and intellectual historian, Bromell draws on a wide range of fiction, essays, speeches, and oral histories, deftly synthesizing recent work in U.S. history, literary and cultural studies, and political theory. Like the figures he discusses, he puts this thought to work in the present moment, this "now." Black democratic insights, he shows, are strikingly relevant to the challenges facing US democracy today, and they provide the basis for a new, post-liberal public philosophy with which to turn back the rise of radical conservatism.
Historian Robin D.G. Kelley writes: "In this work of enormous breadth, depth, and imagination, Nick Bromell makes what may be the most original contribution to political theory in the past decade. In this age of alleged color blindness, Bromell has the vision and the chutzpah to turn to African American thought-ideas born of struggle, anchored in questions of dignity, human relationships, and faith-in order to revitalize American democracy. "
In his answers to these questions, Bromell brings to light an underappreciated stream of democratic reflection by black writers and activists from David Walker to Malcolm X. Bromell argues that these thinkers urge Americans to fundamentally re-imagine the nature of their democracy and recognize that indignation can be a powerful and productive democratic emotion; that dignity is just as important to democracy as equality and liberty; that national citizenship can be infused with a sense of responsibility to the world; and that faith can actually promote rather than threaten democratic pluralism.
A literary critic and intellectual historian, Bromell draws on a wide range of fiction, essays, speeches, and oral histories, deftly synthesizing recent work in U.S. history, literary and cultural studies, and political theory. Like the figures he discusses, he puts this thought to work in the present moment, this "now." Black democratic insights, he shows, are strikingly relevant to the challenges facing US democracy today, and they provide the basis for a new, post-liberal public philosophy with which to turn back the rise of radical conservatism.
Historian Robin D.G. Kelley writes: "In this work of enormous breadth, depth, and imagination, Nick Bromell makes what may be the most original contribution to political theory in the past decade. In this age of alleged color blindness, Bromell has the vision and the chutzpah to turn to African American thought-ideas born of struggle, anchored in questions of dignity, human relationships, and faith-in order to revitalize American democracy. "
Reviews / Votes
In this fine book, Nick Bromell's aim is to think through the ontological, epistemological, ethical and political registers of racial inequality, prejudice, and domination and to unleash the powers of imagination and vision on behalf of a new, more just social order and a transformed public philosophy. In the process, he enacts the 'now' on behalf of which he writes, with empathic and imaginative readings of major texts of political theory and literature, oriented by the worlds of African American letters and critical race theory. Synthetic and innovative, political, historical and literary, The Time Is Always Now^ will interest anyone who cares about US racial politics, 19th- and 20th-century American literature, democratic theory and black political thought. * Bonnie Honig, Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Modern Culture and Media, and Political Science, Brown University* "The Time is Always Now is a remarkable book. Deftly interweaving political theory and literary studies, Nick Bromell probes the challenges to United States democracy, the dissolution of Americans' shared understanding of it, and the political language and philosophy that African American thinkers, ranging from James McCune Smith to Barack Obama, have developed to address these crises. * Gene Andrew Jarrett, Professor and Chair of English at Boston University
* Nick Bromell's The Time is Always Now raises questions that will have a profound impact on political theory, literary studies, African American studies, and American Studies. Mining the words of African American thinkers, activists, and artists from David Walker to Barack Obama, Bromell offers a unique account of a body of political thought defined by both indignation and care. A body of thought, in other words, that is both critical and reconstructive. Bromell's approach, synthetic and thematically organized rather than figure-centered, and his sensitivity to the entanglement of philosophy and artistic form, open up new avenues for democratic thinking. * Lawrie Balfour, Professor of Politics, University of Virginia
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More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
353 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-064084-2 (9780190640842)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Nicholas Bromell
The Time is Always Now
Black Political Thought and the Transformation of US Democracy
Book
10/2013
Oxford University Press Inc
€64.80
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Nick Bromell is the author of By the Sweat of the Brow: Labor and Literature in Antebellum American Culture and Tomorrow Never Knows: Rock and Psychedelics in the Sixties, both published by the University of Chicago Press. His articles and essays on African-American literature and political thought have appeared in American Literature, American Literary History, Political Theory, Raritan, and The Sewanee Review. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and he blogs at thetimeisalwaysnow.org.
Content
Introduction: "'Black and More than Black'"
Chapter One: "The Tension Perpetually Sustained"
Democratic Indignation and the Dynamics of Black Philosophy
Chapter Two: "An Almost Contemptuous Fairness"
Styles of Democratic Indignation
Chapter Three: "This Is Personal"
Human Relationships and the Production of Democratic Dignity
Chapter Four: "The Network of Complex Relationships Which Bind Us Together"
Chesnutt, Larsen, and Baldwin on Seeing and Knowing Others
Chapter Five: "The Full Understanding of My Relationship to America"
Black Imaginings of Patriotic Cosmopolitanism
Chapter Six: "The Moral Force of the Universe"
Faith and Pluralism in the Black Democratic Imagination
Chapter Seven: "The Moment We're In"
The Democratic Imagination of Barack Obama
Chapter One: "The Tension Perpetually Sustained"
Democratic Indignation and the Dynamics of Black Philosophy
Chapter Two: "An Almost Contemptuous Fairness"
Styles of Democratic Indignation
Chapter Three: "This Is Personal"
Human Relationships and the Production of Democratic Dignity
Chapter Four: "The Network of Complex Relationships Which Bind Us Together"
Chesnutt, Larsen, and Baldwin on Seeing and Knowing Others
Chapter Five: "The Full Understanding of My Relationship to America"
Black Imaginings of Patriotic Cosmopolitanism
Chapter Six: "The Moral Force of the Universe"
Faith and Pluralism in the Black Democratic Imagination
Chapter Seven: "The Moment We're In"
The Democratic Imagination of Barack Obama