ABSTRACT
This book examines politics through the lens of art and literature. Through discussion on great works of visual art, literature, and cultural representations of political thought in the medieval, early modern, and American eras, it explores the relevance of the nation-state to human freedom and flourishing, as well as the concept of citizenship and statesmanship that it implies, in contrast to that of the ‘global community’. The essays in this volume focus on shifting notions of various core political concepts like citizenship, republicanism, and nationalism from antiquity to the present-day to provide a systematic understanding of their evolving histories through Western Art and literature. It highlights works such as the Bayeux Tapestry, Shakespeare’s Henry V, Henry VI, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twain’s Joan of Arc and Hermann’s Nichts als Gespenster, among several other canonical works of political interest. Further, it questions if we should now look beyond the nation-state to some form of tans-national, global community to pursue the human freedom desired by progressives, or look at smaller forms of community resembling the polis to pursue the friendship and nobility valued by the ancients.
The volume will be invaluable to students and teachers of political science, especially political theory and philosophy, visual arts, and world literature.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |8 pages
Introduction
part I|62 pages
Political foundation, citizen virtue, and nation in visual art
chapter 2|26 pages
Justice, peace, and the common good in Trecento Siena
part II|87 pages
Republicanism, statesmanship, and nation-building in the plays of William Shakespeare
chapter 6|15 pages
What is a nation?
part III|43 pages
The early modern and contemporary critique of liberalism and globalism
chapter 9|13 pages
Judith Hermann's Nichts als Gespenster
part IV|15 pages
Reflections on nationalism in the American political novel