Counter-Narrative: How Progressive Academics Can Challenge Extremists and Promote Social Justice

by H.L. Goodall Jr

Overview

Goodall portrays a world caught up in the middle of a narrative arms race, where the message of the political right has outflanked the message of the political left. It is a world where narratives used by the far right inch ever closer to those employed by right-wing extremists in the Muslim world. Rather than dismiss the use of political narratives as a shallow tactic of the opposition, Goodall promotes their usefulness and outlines a number of ways that liberal academics can retake the public discourse from the extremist opposition. This is an essential text for the aspiring public intellectual and will appeal to students and scholars of qualitative methods, communications and media, and political science alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781598745634
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/15/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	207
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

Table of Contents

Preface 7

Introduction: Before We Begin… 19

Chapter 1 The Battle of Narratives 27

Chapter 2 Binary Opposites and Narrative IEDs 45

Our War of Ideas Is a War Fought with Words and Humor

Chapter 3 Birthers, Social Justice & the Texas Textbook Massacre 67

The Nature of Paranoid Style, Conspiracies, and the Ruse Narrative in Extremist Discourse

Chapter 4 Left at the War 89

The Battle of Narratives on Two Fronts: the Global War on Terror and the Right-Wing War on Obama's America

Chapter 5 The Academic Dilemma 117

Higher Education as a Battleground in the War of Ideas

Chapter 6 Learning from Obama and Learning from Our Enemies 137

Steps toward a Progressive Core Narrative and Communication for the Common Good

Chapter 7 The Core Counter-Narrative 157

Notes 171

References 185

Index 194

About the Author 207

Editorial Reviews

"Counter-Narrative is the book the critical, social justice interpretive community has been waiting for.  It is  impassioned. It is  incisive.  It cuts to the bone. It challenges the extremists — the birthers, the tea-party activists — those who would derail the progressive agenda. It offers a core narrative for the common good; a narrative that makes a difference, opens paths for critique, clears a space for resistance, nurtures the utopian imagination.  A critical narrative inquiry that matters."

- Norman K. Denzin, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

"In this thought-provoking book, Goodall shows how language and rhetoric have been used to fuel a conservative, libertarian, and right-wing ideological narrative about the world in which we live and the threats to U.S. society. More important than his careful analysis of the structure of the narrative and how it has been put together is his call to respond—to cut through the Right-Wing fog by constructing counter-narratives that are based on critical thinking, clearly phrased arguments, and relevant empirical evidence. The time to do this is now."

- Thomas C. Patterson, University of California, Riverside

"A rhetorical tour de force that offers academics and the public alike a persuasive counterstatement against far right political views, and, even more important, a compelling core narrative and viable strategies for intervening into societal discourse to reclaim the original intention of U.S. democracy—to promote the common good."

- Lawrence R. Frey, University of Colorado at Boulder

From the Publisher