What Democracy Looks Like: A New Critical Realism for a Post-Seattle World

by Cecelia Tichi

The convergence of activists in Seattle during the World Trade Organization meetings captured the headlines in 1999. These demonstrations marked the first major expression on U.S. soil of worldwide opposition to inequality, privatization, and political and intellectual repression. This turning point in world politics coincided with an ongoing quandary in academia-particularly in the humanities where the so-called "death of theory" has left the field on tenuous footing. In What Democracy Looks Like , the editors and twenty-seven contributors argue that these crises-in the world and the academy-are not unrelated. The essays insist that, in the wake of "Seattle," teachers and scholars of American literature and culture are faced with the challenge of addressing new points of intersection between American studies and literary studies. The narrative, the poem, the essay, and the drama need to be reexamined in ways that are relevant to the urgent social and political issues of our time. Collectively urging scholars and educators to pay fresh attention to the material conditions out of which literature arises, this path-breaking book inaugurates a new critical realism in American literary studies. It provides a crucial link in the growing need to merge theory and practice with the goal of reconnecting the ivory tower elite to the activists on the street.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published February 25, 2006

About the author

A fresh start for every new book, and author Tichi's zest for America's Gilded Age and its boldface names draws this seasoned writer to a crime fiction series while uncorking the country's cocktail cultures on the printed (and ebook) page. Tichi digs deep into the Vanderbilt University research library to mine the late 1800-1900s history and customs of Society's "Four Hundred," its drinks, and the ways high-stakes crimes in its midst make for a gripping "Gilded" mystery series that rings true to the tumultuous era. The decades of America's industrial titans and "Queens" of Society have loomed large in Tichi's books for several years, and the titles track her recent projects:
• Civic Passions: Seven Who Launched Progressive America (and What They Teach Us)
• Jack London: A Writer's Fight for a Better America
• What Would Mrs. Astor Do? A Complete Guide to the Manners and Mores of the Gilded Age
• Gilded Age Cocktails: History, Lore, and Recipes from the Golden Age
• Jazz Age Cocktails: History, Lore, and Recipes from the Roaring Twenties.
• A Gilded Death (crime fiction)
• Murder, Murder, Murder in Gilded Central Park (crime fiction)
• A Fatal Gilded High Note (crime fiction)
Cecelia is at work on a fourth in the series, “A Gilded Free Fall.” She enjoys membership and posting in Facebook’s The Gilded Age Society. You can read more about Cecelia by visiting her Wikipedia page at: https://bit.ly/Tichiwiki or her website: https://cecebooks.com.