Awards

• Short-listed for Christian Gauss Award 2024 (United States)
• Short-listed for Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize 2024 (United States)

Overview

Full Product Details

9780674248656

Table of Contents

Reviews

Political Disappointment is an abundant text, overflowing with Sara Marcus's considerable gifts. She is adept at presenting history and narrative with equal clarity; her writing is urgent but also optimistic. This is a book that is sometimes painful but never sacrifices hope or beauty.--Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Little Devil in America Disappointment haunts the American left. In this tour de force, Sara Marcus stares it down and discovers the generative possibilities that emerge from defeat. Whether it's an Audre Lorde poem, a David Wojnarowicz drawing, or the 'sonic burrs' in a Leadbelly song, Marcus reveals the solidarities generated by defeat and how they animated the freedom dreams of some of the twentieth century's most enduring artists and activists. A stunning and timely cultural history.--Alice Echols, author of Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975 Sara Marcus beautifully and convincingly argues that the embrace of loss is the political technique of disappointment, while the possibility for dawn's break in concert with our kindred--chosen or inherited, living or dead--is its gift. Political Disappointment is an incredible contribution, a needed tool, and a skillful act of caretaking.--Shana L. Redmond, author of Everything Man: The Form and Function of Paul Robeson

Political Disappointment is an abundant text, overflowing with Sara Marcus's considerable gifts. She is adept at presenting history and narrative with equal clarity; her writing is urgent but also optimistic. This is a book that is sometimes painful but never sacrifices hope or beauty. -- Hanif Abdurraqib, author of <i>A Little Devil in America</i> Sara Marcus captures a polyphonic chorus of disappointed voices from American radical history in order to illuminate the transformations that such disappointment made possible. In a time of frustrated grief, her work offers grounds for the kind of optimism we need now-one based in a rigorous examination of failure. -- Sarah Jaffe, author of <i>Necessary Trouble</i> and <i>Work Won't Love You Back</i> In an elegant but earned reversal of conventional wisdom, Sara Marcus presents a new reading of American political culture in which disappointment, not hope, assumes its pride of place. Striking chords much deeper than most contemporary critiques of 'toxic optimism,' Marcus's musical writing plays the changes on all our political losses, moving us to the wordless place beyond them. -- Tavia Nyong'o, author of <i>Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life</i> Sara Marcus beautifully and convincingly argues that the embrace of loss is the political technique of disappointment, while the possibility for dawn's break in concert with our kindred-chosen or inherited, living or dead-is its gift. Political Disappointment is an incredible contribution, a needed tool, and a skillful act of caretaking. -- Shana L. Redmond, author of <i>Everything Man: The Form and Function of Paul Robeson</i> Disappointment haunts the American left. In this tour de force, Sara Marcus stares it down and discovers the generative possibilities that emerge from defeat. Whether it's an Audre Lorde poem, a David Wojnarowicz drawing, or the 'sonic burrs' in a Leadbelly song, Marcus reveals the solidarities generated by defeat and how they animated the freedom dreams of some of the twentieth century's most enduring artists and activists. A stunning and timely cultural history. -- Alice Echols, author of <i>Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975</i>

Author Information

Sara Marcus is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame and the author of Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution, a finalist for the National Award for Arts Writing.

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