The Voice of Violence - Performative Violence as Protest in the Vietnam Era

The tide of 1960s political upheaval, while mistaken at the time by some as a unified assault against America carried out by revolutionaries at home and abroad, was actually hundreds of locally constructed expressions of political discourse, reflecting the influences of race, class, gender, and local conditions on each unique group of practitioners. This is a comparative study of how radicals at the local level staged, displayed, and ultimately narrated symbolic acts of performative violence against the symbols of the American system. The term performative violence refers to a method of public protest whereby participants create the conditions in which their violent actions become a political text, a powerful symbol with a strong historical precedent.

Recognizing the textuality of history, this interdisciplinary examination deconstructs the performative violence within its historically specific and socially constructed contexts using four representative case histories of late 1960s and early 1970s activism. These are the African-American rioters in Kansas City, the Black Panther Party in Detroit, campus radicals at Kansas State University, and activists at the University of Kansas. Rather than focusing on the major clashes of the Vietnam era, this book contributes to recent scholarship on the 1960s which has attempted to offer a more textured analysis of the era's activism, particularly its political violence, based on more local studies.

List of contents

Introduction
It Finally Happened Here: The 1968 Riot in Kansas City, Missouri
Short-haired Kids with Gasoline Cans: Kansas State University
Happiness in a Warm Gun: The University of Kansas
Revolutionary Commitment?: The Detroit Black Panthers
Women and Performative Violence
Conclusion
Bibliography

About the author

Joel P. Rhodes, PhD, is professor of history at Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, MO.

Product details

• Authors: Joel P. Rhodes, Rhodes Joel P.
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Languages: English
• Age Recommendation: ages 7 to 17
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.04.2001
• EAN: 9780275970550
• ISBN: 978-0-275-97055-0
• No. of pages: 240
• Weight: 851 g
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; USA, Vietnam, American History, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Political Advocacy, HISTORY / Military / General, HISTORY / United States / 20th Century, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Asian, HISTORY / Military / United States, c 1960 to c 1970, Later 20th century c 1950 to c 1999, United States of America, USA, Pressure groups, protest movements and non-violent action, History of the Americas, c 1960 to c 1969, Modern warfare, Demonstrations & protest movements, Military history: post-WW2 conflicts, Vietnam War, HISTORY / Wars & Conflicts / General