{"id":345,"date":"2016-05-26T07:36:49","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T07:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/?p=345"},"modified":"2017-06-24T03:42:13","modified_gmt":"2017-06-24T03:42:13","slug":"elsewhere-in-america-the-crisis-of-belonging-in-contemporary-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/?p=345","title":{"rendered":"Elsewhere in America: The Crisis of Belonging in Contemporary Culture (Routledge, 2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not always easy living up to one\u2019s ideals, either personally or as a nation. Americans like to think of the United States as a welcoming place where everyone has equal chance. But historical baggage and anxious times can make such generosity difficult.\"0001\"<\/a>Behind the America\u2019s mythic open door, newcomers often find that civic belonging comes with strings attached\u2013\u2013riddled with conditions, limitations, and in some instances, punitive rites of passage. And for those already here, new rationales emerge to challenge civic belonging on the basis of belief, behavior, or heritage. This book uses the term \u201celsewhere\u201d in describing conditions that exile so many citizens to \u201csome other place\u201d through prejudice, competition, or discordant belief. Even as \u201cdiversity\u201d has become the official norm in American society, the country continues to fragment along new lines that pit citizens against their government, each other, and even themselves. \u00a0Yet in another way, \u201celsewhere\u201d evokes an undefined \u201cnot yet\u201d ripe with potential. In the face of daunting challenges, elsewhere can point to optimism, hope, and common purpose.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in America<\/em> uses the concept of \u201cbelonging\u201d to frame a uniquely multidisciplinary exploration of division and marginalization in the U.S.\u2013\u2013in a study encompassing material conditions, discursive contexts, and affective states. Through 12 detailed chapters, Elsewhere in America<\/em> applies critical theory in the humanities and social sciences in examining recurring crises of social inclusion in the U.S.\u00a0 After two centuries of struggle and incremental \u201cprogress\u201d in securing human dignity, today the U.S. finds itself riven apart by new conflicts over reproductive rights, immigration, health care, religious extremism, sexual orientation, mental illness, and fears of terrorists. Why are U.S. ideals of civility and unity so easily hijacked and confused? Is there a way of explaining this recurring tendency of Americans to turn against each other? Elsewhere in America<\/em> engages these questions in charting the ever-changing faces of difference (manifest in contested landscapes of sex and race to such areas as disability and mental health), their spectral and intersectional character (as seen in the new discourses on performativity, normativity, and queer theory), and the grounds on which categories are manifest in ideation and movement politics (seen in theories of metapolitics, cosmopolitanism, dismodernism).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not always easy living up to one\u2019s ideals, either personally or as a nation. Americans like to think of the United States as a welcoming place where everyone has equal chance. But historical baggage and anxious times can make such generosity difficult.Behind the America\u2019s mythic open door, newcomers often find that civic belonging comes … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Elsewhere in America: The Crisis of Belonging in Contemporary Culture (Routledge, 2016)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,23,8,9,11,7,44,12],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-america","tag-clinton","tag-david","tag-elsewhere","tag-routledge","tag-trend","tag-trump","tag-uci"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":394,"href":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions\/394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidtrend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}