In today’s context of rapid socio-political changes, with deepening ethnic and religious conflicts on the one hand, and a diminishing feeling of identification with the community on the other, reflection on the idea of “solidarity” is very much necessary. This book provides answers to the following questions: “What is the idea of solidarity today?”; “How can it be defined?”; “How has it evolved over recent decades?”; “How does it manifest itself in social life?”; “How is it reflected in the arts?”; and, above all, “How does it relate to collective memory and identity?” With this outline of topic areas in mind, this volume brings together essays analysing various aspects of the concept of solidarity: namely, philosophical, social, political, cultural, historical, psychological and artistic. The book’s interdisciplinary character is testament to the complexity of perspectives and contexts in which the phenomenon of solidarity can be described today in the social sciences and the humanities. As such, it contains chapters devoted to the history of ideas; international relations and political conflicts in the modern world; national minorities; racism and anti-Semitism; and twentieth-century crimes against humanity, as well as psychological case studies, experimental research on mechanisms of social behaviour, and analyses of works of art. The contributors to this volume represent academic centres from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. They are deeply concerned with fighting against any forms of discrimination, and, as such, their respective chapters mark a contribution to the constant search for the improvement of the fate of societies and individuals in different corners of the globe. Consequently, this book has an ethical dimension, in addition to its cognitive side, inspiring its readers to undertake efforts to help victims of social exclusion, persecution and crime.

We Who Are Dark provides the first extended philosophical defense of black political solidarity. Tommie Shelby argues that we can reject a biological idea of race and agree with many criticisms of identity politics yet still view black political solidarity as a needed emancipatory tool. In developing his defense of black solidarity, he draws on the history of black political thought, focusing on the canonical figures of Martin R. Delany and W. E. B. Du Bois.

This book discusses the active relationship among the mechanics of memory, visual practices, and historical narratives. Reflection on memory and its ties with historical narratives cannot be separated from reflection on the visual and the image as its points of reference which function in time. This volume addresses precisely that temporal aspect of the image, without reducing it to a neutral trace of the past, a mnemotechnical support of memory. As a commemorative device, the image fixes, structures, and crystalizes memory, turning the view of the past into myth. It may, however, also stimulate, transform, and update memory, functioning as a matrix of interpretation and understanding the past. The book questions whether the functioning of the visual matrices of memory can be related to a particular historical and geographical scope, that is, to Central and Eastern Europe, and whether it is possible to find their origin and decide if they are just local and regional or perhaps also Western European and universal. It focuses on the artistic reflection on time and history, in the reconstructions of memory due to change of frontiers and political regimes, as well as endeavours to impose some specific political structure on territories which were complex and mixed in terms of national identity, religion and social composition. The volume is ideal for students and scholars of memory studies, history and visual studies.

Advances normative notion of transnational cosmopolitanism based on Du Bois's writings and practice, and discusses limitations of Kantian cosmopolitanism.

Society and Culture reclaims the classical heritage, provides a clear-eyed assessment of the promise of sociology in the 21st century and asks whether the `cultural turn′ has made the study of society redundant. Sociologists have objected to the rise of cultural studies on the grounds that it produces cultural relativism and lacks a stable research agenda. This book looks at these criticisms and illustrates the relevance of a sociological perspective in the analysis of human practice. The book argues that the classical tradition must be treated as a living tradition, rather than a period piece. It analyzes the fundamental principles of belonging and conflict in society and provides a detailed critical survey of the principal social theories that offer solutions to the challenges of modernism.

This open access book provides a concise introduction to a critical development in memory studies. A global memory formation has emerged since the 1990s, in which memories of traumatic histories in different parts of the world, often articulated in the terms established by Holocaust memory, have become entangled, reconciled, contested, conflicted and negotiated across borders. As historical actors and events across time and space become connected in new ways, new grounds for contest and competition arise; claims to the past that appeared de-territorialized in the global memory formation become re-territorialized – deployed in the service of nationalist projects. This poses challenges to scholarship but also to practice: How can we ensure that shared or comparable memories of past injustice continue to be grounds for solidarity between different memory communities? In chapters focusing on Europe, East Asia and Africa, five scholars respond to these challenges from a range of disciplinary perspectives in the humanities.

"Examines the foundations of human rights, how their political and cultural validation in a global context is posing challenges to nation-state sovereignty, and how they become an integral part of international relations and are institutionalized into domestic legal and political practices"--Provided by publisher.