Research Catalog

Title

Public characters : the politics of reputation and blame / James M. Jasper, Michael P. Young, and Elke Zuern.

Author

Jasper, James M., 1957-

Publication

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Young, Michael P.
• Zuern, Elke, 1968-

Description

xiv, 305 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

Heroes, villains, victims, and minions are more important than ever before in our politics and culture. In the era of television, Twitter, and Facebook, groups and individuals constantly battle over their reputations. One of the best ways to gain power is to persuade others that you are competent, courageous, and benevolent, while your opponents are none of these. Thus, character work consists of more than simple claims of fact; societies build their solidarity and policies out of admiration for heroes but also outrage over villains. 0Recent political analysis has ignored the great characters of the past in favor of frames, heuristics, codes, and identities. In Public Characters, James M. Jasper, Michael P. Young, and Elke Zuern argue that character, reputation, and images matter in politics, and social life more generally, as they help mobilize people and their passions. First, they focus on the political construction of openly constructed and debated public characters to show how we can allocate praise and blame, identify social problems, cement identities and allegiances, develop policies, and articulate our moral intuitions through them. The authors demonstrate the nuances of characters and their interactions across a range of sources-including Shakespeare, Game of Thrones, Renaissance sculpture, modern comic books, Alexander the Great, and Bernie Madoff-all the while showing how public characters are used in political rhetoric. Finally, they complicate these characters by considering their transformations: when victims manage to become heroes and the way traditional moral characters have evolved over time to correspond with what different cultures admire, detest, or pity. 0This rich, detailed, and wide-ranging analysis of personal images and reputation marks a timely and crucial contribution for sociologists and political scientists concerned with the cultural dimensions of political life.

Series Statement

Oxford studies in culture and politics

Uniform Title

Oxford studies in culture & politics.

Subject

• Reputation > Political aspects
• Blame > Political aspects
• Character > Political aspects
• Political sociology

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction: politics as character work -- Part I. How we imagine characters -- The art of the word -- Sights and sounds of characters -- The psychology of creating persons -- Arenas of character work -- Part II. The primary characters -- We fear villains -- Ridicule and contempt for minions -- We admire heroes -- We pity victims -- Part III. Variations and transformations -- From victims to heroes -- Beyond characters? -- Conclusion: the politics of blame -- Appendix: unsettling humor.

Call Number

JFE 20-5146

ISBN

• 0190050047
• 9780190050047

OCLC

1105706715

Author

Jasper, James M., 1957- author.

Title

Public characters : the politics of reputation and blame / James M. Jasper, Michael P. Young, and Elke Zuern.

Publisher

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Oxford studies in culture and politics

Oxford studies in culture & politics.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Added Author

Young, Michael P., author.

Zuern, Elke, 1968- author.

Research Call Number

JFE 20-5146