Drawing on several years of research with grief support organizations and the families and friends of murdered children, this book examines the emotional experience of families in the aftermath of a homicide. It examines the politics of sorrow, offering a comparative analysis of White and African-American families as they navigate the experience of homicide, shedding light on the ways in which the class location or ethnicity of mourners affects their experience. Analyzing the manner in which police and other authorities differentially extend emotional support to bereaved families, notify them of a homicide, or assign blame, The Politics of Sorrow reveals how 'disenfranchised grief' comes to be an institutionalized outcome of their practice. The book further examines the effects of 'announcement shock' and the importance to the family of the moral career of the deceased, as they seek to manage his or her identity, often dealing with their grief through an active pursuit of justice in court, or through political involvement with a grief support organization, which mobilizes families in pursuit of its political ends. A rigorous study of stigma, identity, and stratified experiences of grief, The Politics of Sorrow will appeal to sociologists interested in interactionist methods, race, class, and emotion.
"There is no greater sorrow on earth than the loss of one's native land." --Euripides The Yugoslav tragedy is a story about crimes committed with extraordinary boldness and deception, propagated by the politicians and by the media from both inside, and outside, the former Yugoslavia. This mixture, at the heart of the conflict, provoked the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in Europe since World War II. Written in memory to a lost homeland, to the people who died, and to the people who survived--especially the refugees, displaced internally or dispersed throughout the world--this book is a powerful commentary on war itself that provides insight into the roles that history, ethnic nationalism, and religious differences can play in modern conflict. "A finely crafted historical dialectics that refuses to give into dualist explanations about 'the crimes' and eventually the death of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, as resulting from either 'bad' primordial ancient hatreds and ethnic nationalism, or from the lack of some civic nationalism in the form of 'good' but artificially constructed communities. The author follows Hannah Arendt in charting the history of a long century of 'statelessness, rightlessness and homelessness' in the region brought on by externally imposed balkanization. Every step of the way we are warned against those who preach the purity of ethnos over demos, or conversely, those who seek the bureaucratic disconnection of ethnos from demos as an ideal solution." --Greg M. Nielsen, Concordia University, author of The Norms of Answerability: Social Theory Between Bakhtin and Habermas "The strength of Ljubisic's work is the seamless way it moves from one level to another, first analyzing events in the former Yugoslavia at the level of state politics, then shifting to a discussion of the international context, and finally, and most importantly, describing the impacts of these events at the individual level. In the process, she provides a comprehensive analysis of these confusing events and a much needed contribution to the literature. This is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the recent history of the Balkan region." --Neil Gerlach, Carelton University, author of The Genetic Imaginary: DNA in the Canadian Criminal Justice System Table of Contents INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE: Theories of the Nation and Nationalism Nationalism and Multiculturalism The Origins of the Nation Primordial Versus Imagined Community Summary CHAPTER TWO: The National Question in Yugoslavia The Yugoslav Idea Viability of Yugoslavia and the Avoidable War Summary CHAPTER THREE: 'Divide and Rule' Politics of External Balkanization The Old World Orders in the Balkans Yugoslavia and the New World Order Summary CHAPTER FOUR: Ethnic Cleansing in Multinational Yugoslavia 'Purification' of Heterogeneous Territories Multiethnic Resistance to the War Summary CHAPTER FIVE: Stateless Peoples Totalitarian Solutions Hundred Years of Statelessness Rebuilding Home in Multicultural Montreal Obstacles to Integration Summary CONCLUSION Bibliography Index DAVORKA LJUBISIC holds a BA from the University of Ljubljana, in Slovenia and an MA from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. She was born in Zagreb, Croatia--at the time one of six constitutive republics of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Unable to live according to the agenda of 'newprimitivism' and a politics of sorrow, in 1995 she immigrated to Canada. 224 pages, 6x9, index, bibliography, maps
“An emotionally resonant debut . . . welcome—and quietly groundbreaking.” —The New York Times Book Review In a fresh and riveting thriller debut, Robyn Gigl introduces Erin McCabe, a New Jersey criminal defense attorney doing her best to live a quiet life in the wake of profound personal change—until a newsworthy case puts both her career and safety in jeopardy . . . Erin McCabe has been referred the biggest case of her career. Four months ago, William E. Townsend, Jr., son of a New Jersey State Senator, was found fatally stabbed in a rundown motel near Atlantic City. Sharise Barnes, a nineteen-year-old transgender prostitute, is in custody, and given the evidence, there seems little doubt of a guilty verdict. As a trans woman herself, Erin knows that defending Sharise will blow her own private life wide open, and doubtless deepen her estrangement from her family. Yet she feels uniquely qualified to help Sharise, and duty-bound to protect her from the possibility of a death sentence. Because Sharise admits she killed the senator’s son—in self-defense. As Erin works with her partner, former FBI agent Duane Swisher, circumstances hint at ties to other brutal murders. Senator Townsend is using the full force of his prestige and connections to publicly discredit everyone involved in defending Sharise. And behind the scenes, his tactics are even more dangerous. For his son had secrets that could destroy the senator’s political aspirations—secrets worth killing for . . . “An intelligent and resourceful protagonist with an unusual backstory. . . . Erin’s ability to navigate the intricacies of the law is just as fascinating as the subsequent perils she encounters.” —Publishers Weekly “Gigl, a transgender lawyer herself, provides provocative insights into the legal system and the challenges of gender identity.” —Booklist
This intimate social history of family life in 1990s Serbia considers how emigration effects the elders left behind. The fall of Yugoslavia in the 1990s led citizens to look for better, more stable lives elsewhere. For the older generations, however, this wasn’t an option. In this powerful work, Ivana Bajic-Hajdukovic reveals the impact that waves of emigration from Serbia had on family relationships and, in particular, on elderly mothers who stayed. With nowhere to go, and any savings given to their children to help establish new lives, these seniors faced a crumbling economy, waves of refugees entered from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, NATO bombings, and the trial and ouster of Slobodan Milosevic. Bajic-Hajdukovic explores the transformations of family relationships and daily life practices in people’s homes, from foodways and childcare to gift exchanges. “Can You Run Away from Sorrow?” illustrates not only the tremendous sacrifice of parents, but also their profound sense of loss—of their families, their country, their stability and dignity, and most importantly, of their own identity and hope for what they thought their future would be.
Hayden Carruth survived isolation, mental health problems, and long struggle with drink and smoke to produce a vision of modern poetry rooted in the New England tradition but entirely his own. Many feel his best poems emerged from the isolation of rural Vermont, and his poems often are concerned with rural images and metaphors reflecting the land and hardscrabble people around him. Together with his second love, jazz, Carruth’s rural experiences infuse his poems with engaging and provocative ideas even as they present sometimes stark topics. This volume collects essays and poems from such notable contributors as Donald Hall, Marilyn Hacker, Adrienne Rich, Philip Booth, Matthew Miller, and Sascha Feinstein, among many others. The book’s sections concern the kinds of writings, and the values expressed in his writings, for which Carruth was most famous, including what editor Shaun T. Griffin calls “social utility,” jazz, his impoverished rural environment, and “innovation” in poetic form.
The way in which a society expresses grief can reveal how it views both intense emotions and public order. In thirteenth-century Italian communes, a conscious effort to change appropriate public reaction to death threw into sharp relief connections among urban politics, gender expectations, and understandings of emotionality. In Passion and Order, Carol Lansing explores a dramatic change in thinking and practice about emotional restraint. This shift was driven by politics and understood in terms of gender. Thirteenth-century court cases reveal that male elites were accustomed to mourning loudly and demonstratively at funerals. As many as a hundred men might gather in a town's streets and squares to weep and cry out, even tear at their beards and clothing. Yet these elites enacted laws against such emotional display and proceeded to pay the fines levied against themselves for violating their own legislation. Political theorists used gender norms to urge men to restrain their passions; histrionic grieving, like lust, was now considered "womanish." Lawmakers drew on a complex of gendered ideas about grief and public order to characterize governance in ways that linked the self and the state. They articulated their beliefs in terms of rules of decorum, how men and women need to behave in order to live together in society. Lansing demonstrates this change through a rich combination of sources: archival records from Orvieto, Bologna, and Perugia; political treatises; literary works, notably Petrarch's letters; and representations of grief in painting and sculpture.
Since World War II, Protestant sermons have been an influential tool for defining American citizenship in the wake of national crises. In the aftermath of national tragedies, Americans often turn to churches for solace. Because even secular citizens attend these services, they are also significant opportunities for the Protestant religious majority to define and redefine national identity and, in the process, to invest the nation-state with divinity. The sermons delivered in the wake of crises become integral to historical and communal memory—it matters greatly who is mourned and who is overlooked. Melissa M. Matthes conceives of these sermons as theo-political texts. In When Sorrow Comes, she explores the continuities and discontinuities they reveal in the balance of state power and divine authority following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassinations of JFK and MLK, the Rodney King verdict, the Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 attacks, the Newtown shootings, and the Black Lives Matter movement. She argues that Protestant preachers use these moments to address questions about Christianity and citizenship and about the responsibilities of the Church and the State to respond to a national crisis. She also shows how post-crisis sermons have codified whiteness in ritual narratives of American history, excluding others from the collective account. These civic liturgies therefore illustrate the evolution of modern American politics and society. Despite perceptions of the decline of religious authority in the twentieth century, the pulpit retains power after national tragedies. Sermons preached in such intense times of mourning and reckoning serve as a form of civic education with consequences for how Americans understand who belongs to the nation and how to imagine its future.
This original book is the first comprehensive integration of political theory to explain indigenous politics. It assesses the ways in which indigenous and liberal political theories interact to consider the practical policy implications of the indigenous right to self-determination. Providing opportunities for indigenous peoples to pursue culturally framed understandings of liberal democratic citizenship, the author reveals indigeneity’s concern for political relationships, agendas and ideas beyond the ethnic minority claim to liberal recognition. The implications for national reconciliation, liberal democracy, citizenship and historical constraints on political authority are explored. He also shows that indigeneity’s local geo-political focus, underpinned by global theoretical developments in law and politics, makes indigeneity a movement of forward looking transformational politics. This innovative, theoretically sophisticated and vibrant work will influence policy and scholarly debates on the politics of indigeneity and indigenous rights and will be of broad international interest to a transcultural, transnational and global phenomenon.
Arrival in Paris -- Life in Paris before the Revolution -- Making a Living -- Understanding the World -- The World Changes -- Days of Glory -- Rumor and Revolution -- Becoming a Radical -- Days of Sorrow.
This volume presents the leading research in child and adolescent grief from a diverse and global perspective, focusing on the systemic, political, and cultural processes that have a direct bearing on the way youth experience loss and grief. Carrie Traher and Lauren J. Breen bring together a global community of academics, practitioners, and social activists to discuss and address the complexity of lived experiences of grief for young people today. Presented in four parts, the contributors begin by providing a theoretical overview of youth, grief, and bereavement, before moving onto other important topics, such as suicide bereavement, the trauma of war, digital grief narratives, child soldiering, and more. Within each chapter, authors address contemporary theoretical frameworks, research findings, and praxis related to both death and non-death losses, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, environmental grief, and grief on the internet and social media. Including contributors from a range of countries and from various disciplines, such as educators, health care professionals, policy makers, and advocates, the themes of coping, resilience, and growth are central and interwoven in each chapter. This handbook is essential for researchers, clinicians, scholars, educators, parents, and activists as to the most pressing societal and global issues that affect youth grief today and to provide context to their personal and professional interactions with youth. Chapter 9 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
