Political Mourning

Identity and Responsibility in the Wake of Tragedy

Heather Pool

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781439918937
  9781439918920
• eBook ISBN:
  9781439918944
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

What leads us to respond politically to the deaths of some citizens and not others? This is one of the critical questions Heather Pool asks in Political Mourning. Born out of her personal experiences with the trauma of 9/11, Pool's astute book looks at how death becomes political, and how it can mobilize everyday citizens to argue for political change. 

Pool examines four tragedies in American history—the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the lynching of Emmett Till, the September 11 attacks, and the Black Lives Matter movement—that offered opportunities to tilt toward justice and democratic inclusion. Some of these opportunities were taken, some were not. However, these watershed moments show, historically, how political identity and political responsibility intersect and how racial identity shapes who is mourned. Political Mourning helps explain why Americans recognize the names of Trayvon Martin and Sandra Bland; activists took those cases public while many similar victims have been ignored by the news media. 

Concluding with an afterword on the coronavirus, Pool emphasizes the importance of collective responsibility for justice and why we ought to respond to tragedy in ways that are more politically inclusive.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Making Mourning Political
• 2. The Triangle Fire: State Responsibility for White Workers
• 3. Mourning Emmett Till: Federal Responsibility for Racial Violence
• 4. September 11: Sovereign Mourning—Rejecting International Responsibility
• 5. The Democratic Deficit of All Lives Matter
• Conclusion
• Afterword: The COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index