Allegories of America: Narratives, Metaphysics, Politics

Frederick M. Dolan

Published by Cornell University Press 1995

Allegories of America

Narratives, Metaphysics, Politics

Frederick M. Dolan
Funded by: National Endowment for the Humanities Open Book Program

In the series Contestations

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501726231

Overview
Contents

About this book

Allegories of America offers a bold idea of what, in terms of political theory, it means to be American. Beginning with the question What do we want from a theory of politics? Dolan explores the metaphysics of American-ness and stops along the way to reflect on John Winthrop, the Constitution, 1950s behavioralist social science, James Merrill, and William Burroughs.

The pressing problem, in Dolan's view, is how to find a vocabulary for politics in the absence of European metaphysics. American political thinkers, he suggests, might respond by approaching their own theories as allegories. The postmodern dilemma of the loss of traditional absolutes would thus assume the status of a national mythology—America's perennial identity crisis in the absence of a tradition establishing the legitimacy of its founding.

After examining the mid-Atlantic sermons of John Winthrop, the spiritual founding father, Dolan reflects on the authority of the Constitution and the Federalist. He then takes on questions of representation in Cold War ideology, focusing on the language of David Easton and other liberal political "behaviorists," as well as on cold War cinema and the coverage of international affairs by American journalists. Additional discussions are inspired by Hannah Arendt's recasting of political theory in a narrative framework. here Dolan considers two starkly contrasting postwar literary figures—William S. Burroughs and James Merrill—both of whom have a troubled relationship to politics but nonetheless register an urgent need to articulate its dangers and opportunities. Alongside Merrill's unraveling of the distinction between the serious and the fictive, Dolan assesses the attempt in Arendt's On Revolution to reclaim fictional devices for political reflection.

Author / Editor information

Frederick M. Dolan is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric at the University of California at Berkeley, where he teaches modern political theory.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: Allegories of America Open Access Download PDF	1
1. The Fiction of America Open Access Download PDF	12
2. America's Critique of Reason Open Access Download PDF	31
3. Cold War Metaphysics Open Access Download PDF	60
4. Fiction and the Dilemma of Postmodern Politics Open Access Download PDF	114
5. Practicing Political Theory Otherwise Open Access Download PDF	170
Notes Open Access Download PDF	201
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	219
Index Open Access Download PDF	231

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 248
Keywords: U.S. History; Political Science & Political History

eBook

Published: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 9781501726231