Desire to Serve
Desire to Serve

Author: Cheryl Wattley

Publisher: University of North Texas Press

Published: 2024-07-15

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 1574419595

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Desire to Serve is the autobiography of Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (1934–2023), a thirty-year member of the United States House of Representatives, in her words as told to Cheryl Brown Wattley. It chronicles Johnson growing up in segregated Waco, Texas; attending St. Mary’s nursing school in South Bend, Indiana; working at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Dallas, Texas, as a chief psychiatric nurse; serving in the Texas House; being appointed as the regional director for Health, Education and Welfare; being elected as a Texas state senator; and serving thirty years as a congressional representative from North Texas. For each of these positions, she was either the first African American or first African American woman to hold the position. Johnson’s narrative of the duties and responsibilities of elected officials gives an insider’s view of the way government works—or doesn’t work. Highlights of Johnson’s political career include her support of NAFTA and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act; the failure of the Health Security Act; her support of the Patient Recovery and Affordable Care Act, as well as the CHIPS-Science Act; her service as the chairwoman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology; and her membership on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. “Eddie Bernice Johnson has demonstrated exemplary service in the US Congress representing the people of Texas’s 30th Congressional District. I’ve been proud to work with Congresswoman Johnson to grow the economy through investments in transportation, science, innovation, technology, and trade.”—Former president Barack Obama, 2023

States of Memory
States of Memory

Author: Jeffrey K. Olick

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2003-07-21

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 082238468X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

States of Memory illuminates the construction of national memory from a comparative perspective. The essays collected here emphasize that memory itself has a history: not only do particular meanings change, but the very faculty of memory—its place in social relations and the forms it takes—varies over time. Integrating theories of memory and nationalism with case studies, these essays stake a vital middle ground between particular and universal approaches to social memory studies. The contributors—including historians and social scientists—describe societies’ struggles to produce and then use ideas of what a “normal” past should look like. They examine claims about the genuineness of revolution (in fascist Italy and communist Russia), of inclusiveness (in the United States and Australia), of innocence (in Germany), and of inevitability (in Israel). Essayists explore the reputation of Confucius among Maoist leaders during China’s Cultural Revolution; commemorations of Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States Congress; the “end” of the postwar era in Japan; and how national calendars—in signifying what to remember, celebrate, and mourn—structure national identification. Above all, these essays reveal that memory is never unitary, no matter how hard various powers strive to make it so. States of Memory will appeal to those scholars-in sociology, history, political science, cultural studies, anthropology, and art history-who are interested in collective memory, commemoration, nationalism, and state formation. Contributors. Paloma Aguilar, Frederick C. Corney, Carol Gluck, Matt K. Matsuda, Jeffrey K. Olick, Francesca Polletta, Uri Ram, Barry Schwartz, Lyn Spillman, Charles Tilly, Simonetta Falasca Zamponi, Eviatar Zerubavel, Tong Zhang

We are what We Celebrate
We are what We Celebrate

Author: Amitai Etzioni

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2004-12

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 0814722261

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How did Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday become a national holiday? Why do we exchange presents on Christmas and Chanukah? What do bunnies have to do with Easter? How did Earth Day become a global holiday? These questions and more are answered in this fascinating exploration into the history and meaning of holidays and rituals. Edited by Amitai Etzioni, one of the most influential social and political thinkers of our time, this collection provides a compelling overview of the impact that holidays and rituals have on our family and communal life. From community solidarity to ethnic relations to religious traditions, We Are What We Celebrate argues that holidays such as Halloween, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, New Year's Eve, and Valentine's Day play an important role in reinforcing, and sometimes redefining, our values as a society. The collection brings together classic and original essays that, for the first time, offer a comprehensive overview and analysis of the important role such celebrations play in maintaining a moral order as well as in cementing family bonds, building community relations and creating national identity. The essays cover such topics as the creation of Thanksgiving as a national holiday; the importance of holidays for children; the mainstreaming of Kwanzaa; and the controversy over Columbus Day celebrations. Compelling and often surprising, this look at holidays and rituals brings new meaning to not just the ways we celebrate but to what those celebrations tell us about ourselves and our communities. Contributors: Theodore Caplow, Gary Cross, Matthew Dennis, Amitai Etzioni, John R. Gillis, Ellen M. Litwicki, Diana Muir, Francesca Polletta, Elizabeth H. Pleck, David E. Proctor, Mary F. Whiteside, and Anna Day Wilde.

It Was Like a Fever
It Was Like a Fever

Author: Francesca Polletta

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-01-14

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0226673774

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Activists and politicians have long recognized the power of a good story to move people to action. In early 1960 four black college students sat down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave. Within a month sit-ins spread to thirty cities in seven states. Student participants told stories of impulsive, spontaneous action—this despite all the planning that had gone into the sit-ins. “It was like a fever,” they said. Francesca Polletta’s It Was Like a Fever sets out to account for the power of storytelling in mobilizing political and social movements. Drawing on cases ranging from sixteenth-century tax revolts to contemporary debates about the future of the World Trade Center site, Polletta argues that stories are politically effective not when they have clear moral messages, but when they have complex, often ambiguous ones. The openness of stories to interpretation has allowed disadvantaged groups, in particular, to gain a hearing for new needs and to forge surprising political alliances. But popular beliefs in America about storytelling as a genre have also hurt those challenging the status quo. A rich analysis of storytelling in courtrooms, newsrooms, public forums, and the United States Congress, It Was Like a Fever offers provocative new insights into the dynamics of culture and contention.