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"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. "
"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. "
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
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.
"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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