Lehigh Valley Vanguard Collections Volume ELEVEN: Writing Humanity by Omar Swartz

In social movements, what propels us? This is a fundamental consideration when undertaking direct action. The authors in this collection show us the depth of political commitments for individuals and societies. Political commitments should begin with ethical considerations, hopefully, cultivating love. To begin, Omar Swartz problematizes everyday assumptions about our humanity in "Cultivating Our Moral Imagination, Moral Intelligence, and Love." Then Shayda Kafai takes us through the good/bad dichotomy of suicide and despair by analyzing the impact of Dese’Rae L. Stage's project Live Through This, a counter story-telling archive. Lindsay Miller wonders what makes a life "good" as she reflects on her time volunteering at the Positive Psychology Lab. Karen Henninger discusses the inadequacy of our mainstream narratives describing subaltern conditions in "A State of Vast Humiliation." Amanda Funk continues in that vein as she draws from indigenous traditions in "'The Truth About Stories is That’s All That We Are': Interpreting Indianness Across the Years." Alexis Bleam builds on these ideas as she looks at textual hegemony, calling in Jurgen Habermas and Raymond Williams to question the idea of public space. Focusing on female agency, Ketaki Deshpande excavates Bollywood's history of policing private spaces while hypocritically profiting off of public ones. Using the film Dirty Harry, Mark Blasini deals directly with rhetorical authority in popular culture. These authors hope to get at an understanding of how our humanity, or more deeply, our capacity for love and freedom, moves us to evolve for the good of all. In order to do this, we must look at the barriers to our evolution and how they may be overcome.