Lexington Books
Pages: 278
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼
978-1-4985-7365-8 • Hardback • November 2018 • $117.00 • (£90.00)
978-1-4985-7366-5 • eBook • November 2018 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
Erin A. Dolgoy is assistant professor of political science at Rhodes College.
Kimberly Hurd Hale is assistant professor of politics at Coastal Carolina University.
Bruce Peabody is professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Chapter One: Introduction - Bruce Peabody, Kimberly Hurd Hale, and Erin A. Dolgoy
Chapter Two: Big Data for the Good Life: Ken Liu’s “The Perfect Match” - Erin A. Dolgoy
Chapter Three: Paolo Bacigalupi’s “Pop Squad” and the Examined Life Worth Living - Kimberly Hurd Hale
Chapter Four: All the World’s a Cage: Franz Kafka, “A Hunger Artist” - Timothy McCranor and Steven Michels
Chapter Five: Conflicting Moral Goods: William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” - Mary P. Nichols
Chapter Six: From the Iron Cage to the “Waters of Babylon:” Rationalization and Renewal in a Weberian World - Bruce Peabody
Chapter Seven: The Terrible Justice of Reality: “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” and
the Dilemmas of Political Responsibility - Michael Christopher Sardo
Chapter Eight: Kinship, Community, and the Bureaucratic State: A Study of Wendell Berry’s
“Fidelity” - Drew Kennedy Thompson
Chapter Nine: “The Incarnation of My Native Land:” Clover Adams in Henry James’
“Pandora” - Natalie Fuehrer Taylor
Chapter Ten: Jumping at Our Reflection: American Dystopia and Reaction in Shirley Jackson’s
“The Lottery” - Abram Trosky
Chapter Eleven: Conclusion - Kimberly Hurd Hale, Bruce Peabody, and Erin A. Dolgoy
This is an excellent addition to the Series. . . All the essays are scholarly analyses based on a close reading of the stories, well written at a level accessible to undergraduates, thoughtful and imaginative in interpreting the stories and relating the questions they raise to the thinking of classical and contemporary philosophers as well as thinkers in other related fields, and accompanied by several pages of endnotes and comprehensive bibliographies. It is, in short, a very well-conceived and edited volume. . . . for anyone with an interest in using literature to investigate philosophical questions this is a book very much worth considering. . . The essays provide enough of food for thought to, ideally, stimulate the interest of undergraduates in both literature and philosophy.
— VoegelinView
"Short Stories and Political Philosophy reminds us of the age-old truth that stories are foundational in human life. Through stories we come to understand ourselves -- and our political condition. This book is a gem."
— Susan McWilliams Barndt, Pomona College
The use of literature in the discourse of political philosophy has a long and rich tradition. Dolgoy, Hale, and Peabody have added to that tradition in a unique fashion, by putting together and contributing to a remarkable collection of commentaries on short stories by, among others, William Faulkner, Wendell Berry, Ken Liu, and Shirley Jackson. The essays in this collection are wide ranging in thought, superbly related to traditional philosophical texts, and accompanied by excellent pedagogical advice. This volume will send political theorists to the book shelves looking to read the stories and, ultimately, to their classrooms to share what they have discovered.
— Cecil L. Eubanks, Louisiana State University