Short Stories and Political Philosophy

Erin A. Dolgoy is assistant professor of political science at Rhodes College.Kimberly Hurd Hale is assistant professor of politics at Coastal Carolina University.Bruce Peabody is professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

• Chapter One: Introduction - Bruce Peabody, Kimberly Hurd Hale, and Erin A. DolgoyChapter Two: Big Data for the Good Life: Ken Liu’s “The Perfect Match” - Erin A. DolgoyChapter Three: Paolo Bacigalupi’s “Pop Squad” and the Examined Life Worth Living - Kimberly Hurd HaleChapter Four: All the World’s a Cage: Franz Kafka, “A Hunger Artist” - Timothy McCranor and Steven MichelsChapter Five: Conflicting Moral Goods: William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” - Mary P. NicholsChapter Six: From the Iron Cage to the “Waters of Babylon:” Rationalization and Renewal in a Weberian World - Bruce PeabodyChapter Seven: The Terrible Justice of Reality: “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” and the Dilemmas of Political Responsibility - Michael Christopher SardoChapter Eight: Kinship, Community, and the Bureaucratic State: A Study of Wendell Berry’s “Fidelity” - Drew Kennedy ThompsonChapter Nine: “The Incarnation of My Native Land:” Clover Adams in Henry James’ “Pandora” - Natalie Fuehrer TaylorChapter Ten: Jumping at Our Reflection: American Dystopia and Reaction in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” - Abram TroskyChapter Eleven: Conclusion - Kimberly Hurd Hale, Bruce Peabody, and Erin A. Dolgoy

This is an excellent addition to the Series. . . All the essays are scholarly analyses based on a close reading of the stories, well written at a level accessible to undergraduates, thoughtful and imaginative in interpreting the stories and relating the questions they raise to the thinking of classical and contemporary philosophers as well as thinkers in other related fields, and accompanied by several pages of endnotes and comprehensive bibliographies. It is, in short, a very well-conceived and edited volume. . . . for anyone with an interest in using literature to investigate philosophical questions this is a book very much worth considering. . . The essays provide enough of food for thought to, ideally, stimulate the interest of undergraduates in both literature and philosophy.