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Meena Krishnamurthy's
The Emotions of Nonviolence offers a novel interpretation of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s beloved "Letter from Birmingham Jail." She argues that it is not merely a discussion of civil disobedience, but an essay on political motivation. Seen this way, the Letter seeks to answer a central question in democratic theory: namely, how can and ought we motivate the racially oppressed to engage in what King called nonviolent direct action? King's answer is to appeal to and encourage the political emotions, both positive and negative. Fear, courage, faith, dignity, indignation, and love can together motivate nonviolent action and can reciprocally motivate and sustain these same emotions.
List of contents
- Introduction: The Letter and Its Motivation
- 1: Desegregation
- 2: Self-Reliance
- 3: Sensible Sermon
- 4: Fear and Fearlessness
- 5: Dignity and Indignation
- 6: Love
- 7: Nonviolence
- 8: Transformation
About the author
Meena Krishnamurthy is an Associate Professor at Queen's University in Canada. She is a political philosopher interested in race, democracy, social movements, and political psychology. Her current research centers around the role that political emotions play in both self and structural transformation. She explores how civil rights activists - especially Martin Luther King, Jr. - used protest, images, letters, and oratory to engage these emotions and to motivate transformative political action. Her scholarly work has appeared in
Political Theory,
The Monist, the
Canadian Journal of Philosophy, and
Social Theory and Practice. She has also written for the
Boston Review and the
New Statesman.
