Pericles at Gettysburg and Ground Zero: Tragedy, Patriotism, and Public Mourning

Stow, Simon

doi:10.1017/s0003055407070189

Cited by 32 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…. The object of Socrates' scorn in the Menexenus, romantic public mourning is singular in vision, uncritical, purely comforting, and historically ubiquitous: as evident in Pericles' Funeral Oration as it was in the choice of the Gettysburg Address as a eulogy for New York City's September 11 dead (Stow 2007). in the policies of great states and the enthusiasms of their populations" (313).…”

Section: The Romantic and The Tragicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…. In what Garry Wills (1992, 38) called "one of the most daring open-air sleight of hands ever witnessed by the unsuspecting," Lincoln took the opportunity of the fissure opened by mass death to employ a tragic mode of mourning that-by marking what was gained in liberty by what was lost in blood and juxtaposing national celebration with national critique (Stow 2007)-established the Declaration of Independence at the heart of the Constitution, fundamentally changing the nation and her self-understanding. Frederick Douglass (1991b, 108) was well aware of the eulogy's pedagogical potential.…”

Section: "An Awful Gladness": Tragedy Pluralism and Black Experiencmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Calling Frederick Douglass "Lincoln's alter ego," David Blight(2002, 85; 2001, 15) labels the slave-turned-statesman "the intellectual godfather of the Gettysburg Address." Blight's confusion is, nevertheless, understandable because there are considerable parallels between the tragic mode of Classical mourning employed by Lincoln at Gettysburg(Stow 2007) and the tragic tradition embodied by Douglass in his Decoration Day speeches and eulogies for Lincoln, not least of which is their respective dualisms, ambivalences, and complexity of perspective. Blight's confusion is, nevertheless, understandable because there are considerable parallels between the tragic mode of Classical mourning employed by Lincoln at Gettysburg(Stow 2007) and the tragic tradition embodied by Douglass in his Decoration Day speeches and eulogies for Lincoln, not least of which is their respective dualisms, ambivalences, and complexity of perspective.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Agonistic Homegoing: Frederick Douglass, Joseph Lowery, and the Democratic Value of African American Public Mourning

Stow

2010

Am Polit Sci Rev

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

W hat does the furor over the "politicization" of Coretta Scott King's funeral reveal about contemporary black mourning practices? What does it reveal about black political thought, rhetoric, and practice? Identifying two key modes of mourning and their concomitant conceptions of democracy, this article situates the funeral within a tradition of self-consciously political responses to loss that played a significant role in abolitionism and the struggle for civil rights. Tracing the tradition's origins, and employing the speeches of Frederick Douglass as an exemplar, it considers the approach's democratic value and the consequences of its failure. Arguing that the response to the King funeral indicates that the tradition is in decline, the article locates causes of this decline in significant changes among the black population and in the complex consequences of the tradition's previous successes. It concludes by considering the decline's potentially negative impact, both for African Americans and for the broader political community.

show abstract

Section: The Romantic and The Tragicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: "An Awful Gladness": Tragedy Pluralism and Black Experiencmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Agonistic Homegoing: Frederick Douglass, Joseph Lowery, and the Democratic Value of African American Public Mourning

Stow

2010

Am Polit Sci Rev

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the twentieth century, the two most influential Greek-oriented political theorists writing in America, Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss, had a highly problematic relationship to the question of learning from democracy; on Arendt and Greek democracy see Villa 2000 (essays by Villa, Kateb, and Euben), Markell 2006. On Strauss, see Zuckert and Zuckert 2006;Stow 2007. Moses I. Finley, an American who founded an important school of thought at the University of Cambridge, stands out among twentieth-century ancient historians who have engaged directly with social science. Finley (1985) referred to the success of Athens under the democracy in order to challenge the validity of Robert Michels "Iron Law of Oligarchy" and to counter the arguments of twentieth-century "democratic elitists" (such as Walter Lippman and Joseph Schumpeter).…”

Section: History Of the Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Instrumental Value of Others and Institutional Change: An Athenian Case Study

Ober¹

2010

Valuing Others in Classical Antiquity

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The question of what the ancient Greeks can tell us about democracy can be answered by reference to three fields that have traditionally been pursued with little reference to one another: ancient history, classical political theory, and political science. These fields have been coming into more fruitful contact over the last 20 years, as evidenced by a spate of interdisciplinary work. Historians, political theorists, and political scientists interested in classical Greek democracy are increasingly capable of leveraging results across disciplinary lines. As a result, the classical Greek experience has more to tell us about the origins and definition of democracy, and about the relationship between participatory democracy and formal institutions, rhetoric, civic identity, political values, political criticism, war, economy, culture, and religion.

show abstract

“…3 Booth 2006, Edkins 2003, Johnston 2007, Pool 2012, Stow 2007, Stow 2010 This argument first appears inStow 2008a. See alsoMorris 2011, 18.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

From Upper Canal to Lower Manhattan: Memorialization and the Politics of Loss

Stow¹

2012

Perspect. polit.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The New Orleans Katrina Memorial is located at the upper end of Canal Street, an inexpensive and relatively short trolley car ride from the city's tourist hub in the French Quarter. Despite its ease of access, and close proximity to the more famous cemeteries to which tourists regularly make pilgrimage, the memorial is little visited and largely unknown, even to many of the city's own residents. In this it stands in stark contrast to the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, which drew its millionth visitor less than four months after its opening on September 12, 2011. Recent work in political theory on memory, mourning, and memorialization—as well as Ancient Greek concerns about the same—point to the ways in which the manner of remembrance, grieving, and commemoration employed by a democratic polity help to shape political outcomes. In what follows, I trace the history and design of the New York City and New Orleans memorials to suggest the ways in which they embody and perpetuate national strategies of remembrance and forgetting, in which injustices perpetratedagainstthe polity are prioritized over injustices perpetratedwithinit. Drawing on John Bodnar's distinction between national and vernacular commemoration, I nevertheless conclude with a counter-intuitive suggestion: that while on anationallevel the public's relative ignorance of the Katrina Memorial is indeed indicative of a polity more concerned with injustices perpetrated against it than within it; on alocallevel the erection and subsequent forgetting of the Katrina Memorial is a manifestation of a mode ofvernacularmemory, mourning and commemoration with far more democratically-productive potential than its counterpart in New York City. In particular, I argue that it cultivates, and historicallyhascultivated, a more forward-looking, progressive, and polyphonic response to loss than the type of dominant national narratives embodied by the 9/11 Memorial. Whereas the latter continually replays the loss in ways that rob the polity of its capacity to move beyond its initial response, the former acknowledges and incorporates the loss while steeling the community for the challenges ahead.

show abstract

Pericles at Gettysburg and Ground Zero: Tragedy, Patriotism, and Public Mourning

Cited by 32 publications

References 11 publications

Agonistic Homegoing: Frederick Douglass, Joseph Lowery, and the Democratic Value of African American Public Mourning

Agonistic Homegoing: Frederick Douglass, Joseph Lowery, and the Democratic Value of African American Public Mourning

The Instrumental Value of Others and Institutional Change: An Athenian Case Study

From Upper Canal to Lower Manhattan: Memorialization and the Politics of Loss

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About