Table Of ContentMAKING SPACE
FOR JUSTICE
MAKING SPACE
FOR JUSTICE
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS,
COLLECTIVE
IMAGINATION, AND
POLITICAL HOPE
MICHELE
MOODY- ADAMS
Columbia University Press New York
publication supported by a grant from
The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven
as part of the Urban Haven Project
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup . columbia. edu
Copyright © 2022 Columbia University Press
Antonio Machado, excerpt from “Proverbs and Songs” #29, from Border of a
Dream: Selected Poems, translated by Willis Barnstone. Copyright © 2004 the
heirs of Antonio Machado. English translation copyright © 2004 Willis
Barnstone. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company,
LLC on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org. Seamus
Heaney, The Cure at Troy, excerpt reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber
Limited and Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Excerpt from “Anthem.” Words and
music by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 1992 Sony Music Publishing LLC and
Stranger Music Inc. All rights administered by Sony Music Publishing LLC,
424 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN 37219. International copyright
secured. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Moody-Adams, Michele M., author.
Title: Making space for justice : social movements, collective imagination,
and political hope / Michele Moody-Adams.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021048822 (print) | LCCN 2021048823 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780231201360 (hardback) | ISBN 9780231201377 (trade paperback) |
ISBN 9780231554060 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Social movements—Philosophy. | Social justice—Philosophy. |
Social change—Philosophy.
Classification: LCC HM881 .M666 2022 (print) | LCC HM881 (ebook) |
DDC 303.48/4—dc23/eng/20220120
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021048822
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021048823
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid- free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover image: Aaron Douglas, Harriet Tubman, 1931.
© 2022 heirs of Aaron Douglas / licensed by VAGA at
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Cover design: Julia Kushnirsky
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
I UNDERSTANDING
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
1 What Is a Social Movement? 13
2 Social Movements and the Task of Democracy 47
3 Social Movements and the Moral Life 79
II SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND
THE POWER OF
COLLECTIVE IMAGINATION
4 Taking Imagination Seriously 117
5 Language Matters 155
6 Justice and the Narrative Imagination 187
vi (cid:89) Contents
III THE IMPORTANCE OF
POLITICAL HOPE
7 The Empire of Affect and the Challenge
of Collective Hope 225
8 Hope and History 255
Notes 275
Bibliography 309
Index 329
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
M aking Space for Justice builds on my long- standing
interest in moral progress, by which I mean prog-
ress toward producing a more just social world.
My work on the topic began with my paper “The Idea of Moral
Progress” (1999), defending the idea against various skeptical
challenges. In a series of public talks and exchanges, many of
which led to further publications, I then turned to consider how
we produce moral progress. I first explored the role of social
movements in “Moral Progress and Human Agency,” for a con-
ference organized in 2015 by Bert Musschenga at Vrije Uni-
versität in Amsterdam. I reflected on the emergence of social
movements in “Democracy, Identity and Politics” for a confer-
ence organized by Colleen McCluskey and sponsored by Res
Philosophica at St. Louis University in 2017. In spring 2019 I
joined Myisha Cherry for an episode of her philosophy podcast,
UnMute, to discuss monuments, memorials, and the social
activism that was challenging monuments to colonialism and
the Confederacy. Later in 2019 I spoke on the role of imagina-
tion in social movements at a conference on “Imagination and
Social Change” organized by Amy Kind at Claremont- McKenna
College. I am grateful to the philosophers who invited me to
viii (cid:89) Acknowledgments
take part in these projects. Professor Kind also provided helpful
commentary on this manuscript.
My colleagues in the Columbia Department of Philosophy
offered a supportive environment in which to develop central ele-
ments of this project. Philip Kitcher encouraged my interest in
John Dewey. Bob Gooding- Williams and Carol Rovane were
generous interlocutors on a range of topics concerning democ-
racy and ideology. David Albert, Fred Neuhouser, and Chris
Peacocke offered helpful comments on my work on “Civic Art
of Remembrance and the Democratic Imagination.” As Making
Space for Justice unfolded, Jenann Ismael and Wolfgang Mann
provided incisive comments on significant portions of the
manuscript.
Philosophers and political theorists from many other depart-
ments helped me refine central arguments for the book. In 2018
Jeremy Waldron and Samuel Scheffler invited me to talk about
Confederate monuments and political aesthetics for the NYU
Colloquium in Legal, Political, and Social Philosophy, which
they were then coleading. In addition to in- depth discussions
with them, I profited from conversation with Samuel Freeman,
Ekow Yankow, and Daniel Viehoff. I also presented portions of
the argument to philosophy departments at MIT, Harvard,
Amherst, Cal State Bakersfield, and Brooklyn College thanks
to Sally Haslanger, Rachel Goodyer, Rafeeq Hasan, Michael
Burroughs, and Serene Khader. This led to many productive
exchanges about how art, imagination, history, and hope might
help to drive progress. In 2020, at the invitation of Robbie Kub-
ala and Elizabeth Scarborough, I was challenged to clarify con-
nections between justice and political aesthetics in “Why Mon-
uments Matter” for a session at a meeting of the American
Society of Aesthetics.
Acknowledgments (cid:90) ix
Participating in law school workshops at UCLA in 2018 and
the University of Virginia in 2019 challenged me to think more
deeply about the legal implications of my views. Mark Green-
berg, Barbara Herman, and Seana Shiffrin provided collegiality
and stimulating conversation during my UCLA visit, as did
Micah Schwartzman and Gregg Strauss during my visit to Char-
lottesville. While in Charlottesville I made an unexpectedly
quiet but remarkably instructive visit to the park that, at the time,
still contained the statue of Robert E. Lee that had generated
controversy and violence in August 2017.
At a pivotal moment in my thinking about social move-
ments, Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry invited me to con-
tribute to their edited volume, To Shape a New World (2018),
on Martin Luther King Jr.’s political thought. Working on
“The Path of Conscientious Citizenship” for that volume trans-
formed my understanding of the power of collective action.
This led me to develop a seminar on “Dissent, Protest and
Disobedience” that required the study of social movements in
several national contexts and increased my comprehension of
what social movements do.
I am deeply indebted to those who encouraged my work dur-
ing the difficult days and months of the COVID- 19 pandemic
and lockdown. My husband, James Eli Adams, is a brilliant
interlocutor and a demanding reader who consistently challenged
me to write in a way that might speak to a broad audience. He
was an unflagging source of intellectual sustenance and emo-
tional strength. Our daughter, Katherine Adams, helped to
make me a more nuanced observer of the links between art,
memory, and political life. She was also an inspiring example of
resilience and determination in a time of great uncertainty. I
thank Wendy Lochner, my editor at Columbia University Press,
