Noelle McAfee, Emory University, author of Democracy and the Political Unconscious:
When racked by trauma and loss, political communities often get caught up in fantasies of angels and demons. At such times, what they need most is a way to get beyond ha1f-truths and misrecognitions, to work through grief and ambivalence, and to achieve a more mature understanding of ambiguity and complexity. David W. Mclvor's groundbreaking book offers a way toward such an end.
Bonnie Honig, Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Modern Culture and Media (MCM) and Political ScienceBrown University, author of Antigone, Interrupted:
This is an incredible book by an author with a sure theoretical voice and a powerful moral perspective on the politics of conflict. The interventions in theoretical literatures on mourning, truth and reconciliation commissions, justice and democratic life are fair and well-argued: new readings of Antigone, Pericles, Orestes, Baldwin, and more make these figures fresh again. Drawing on Melanie Klein and D. W. Winnicott, David W. McIvor argues that working through a trauma, rupture, or a wrong 'requires public work—democratic labors of recognition and repair.' Throughout this well-written book, McIvor exemplifies some of the best traits of the agonism he argues against.
Simon Stow, College of William and Mary, author of American Mourning: Tragedy, Democracy, and the Politics of Public Loss:
In the face of suggestions that the politics of mourning all too easily becomes the mourning of politics, David McIvor delivers a compelling argument for mourning as a valuable resource for democratic politics. Drawing on his deep knowledge of psychoanalytic and political theory, McIvor engages America's most pressing question— race—to show how mourning might serve as both a source of insight and a tool of political construction. This is an impressive and important book.
George Shulman, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University, author of American Prophecy: Race and Redemption in American Political Culture:
Mourning in America is a brilliant, multilayered, and beautifully written exploration of mourning, politics, and political theory. It makes an original and important contribution to political theory, and its orientation by way of American racial politics also makes this book timely, urgent, and of even greater interest.
M. R. Michelson, Menlo College:
McIvor weaves together Greek tragedies, ancient and modern political theory, and stories of truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) in South Africa and Greensboro, North Carolina, to argue for the importance of such commissions to American democracy.... The afterword links the democratic work of mourning to the fairly new Black Lives Matter movement, as well as to recent books by Claudia Rankine and Ta-Nehisi Coates, and would serve well as a stand-alone reading assignment on race and racism. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students through faculty.
