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6 books match the query 'Refusal'
A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal
Andrew Culp
University of Minnesota Press, 2022
A field guide to a nonfascist life at the end of the world as we know it
A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal is an unexpected approach to philosophy from a guerrilla-logic point of view. Harnessing critical theory to creatively reimagine counterinsurgency, guerrilla warfare, and interventions beyond the political mainstream, it takes us on a journey through anarchist infowar, queer outlaws, and black insurgency—through a subterranean network of communiques, military documents, contemporary art, political slogans, adversarial blogs, and captive media. In doing so, it provides powerful new insight into contemporary political movements that pose no demands, refuse labels, and offer no solutions.
Written to both inspire and provoke, A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal urges us to think through the refusal to participate in politics as usual. Author Andrew Culp demonstrates how evasion can combatively deny the existing order its power. Focusing on punk cinema, anarchist pamphlets, feminist art projects, hacker manifestos, and guerrilla manuals, he foregrounds invisibility as a novel force of disruption. He draws on concepts of criminality, fugitivity, and anonymity to bring a more nuanced understanding of how power makes things—and people—visible.
The book’s unique format is that of a theoretical manual, comprising freestanding segments instead of blueprints. Poised to reach beyond the academy into activist circles, this potent theory-in-action intervention forces us to reconsider the terrain upon which our struggles against patriarchy, anti-Blackness, capitalism, and the state operate.
Indigenous Activism in the Midwest
Refusal, Resurgence, and Resisting Settler ColonialismMargret McCue-Enser
Michigan State University Press, 2025
On Withdrawal—Scenes of Refusal, Disappearance, and Resilience in Art and Cultural Practices
Edited by Sebastián Eduardo Dávila, Rebecca Hanna John, Ulrike Jordan, Thorsten Schneider, Judith Sieber, and Nele Wulff
Diaphanes, 2023
What forms does withdrawal—meaning either that which withdraws itself or which is being withdrawn—take in artistic and cultural practices? What movements does it create or follow in specific contexts, and with what theoretical, material, and political consequences? The contributors to this book address these questions in a variety of writing practices, each focusing on specific scenes.
Through interviews, artistic and literary texts, visual contributions, and academic texts, On Withdrawal explores various modalities of withdrawal, ranging from a silencing of critical voices to a political and aesthetic strategy of refusal.
Contributors: Arnika Ahldag, Sofia Bempeza, Lauren Berlant, Kathrin Busch, Helen Cammock, Knut Ebeling, Sebastián Eduardo Dávila, Mutlu Ergün-Hamaz, Stefanie Graefe, Rebecca Hanna John, Ulrike Jordan, Pinar Ögrenci, Pallavi Paul, Thorsten Schneider, Judith Sieber, Diana Taylor, Deniz Utlu, Marivi Véliz, Nele Wulff, and Akram Zaatari
Querying Consent
Beyond Permission and RefusalJordana Greenblatt, Keja Valens
Rutgers University Press, 2018
Resentment's Virtue
Jean Amery and the Refusal to ForgiveThomas Brudholm, Foreword by Jeffrie Murphy
Temple University Press, 2010
Most current talk of forgiveness and reconciliation in the aftermath of collective violence proceeds from an assumption that forgiveness is always superior to resentment and refusal to forgive. Victims who demonstrate a willingness to forgive are often celebrated as virtuous moral models, while those who refuse to forgive are frequently seen as suffering from a pathology. Resentment is viewed as a negative state, held by victims who are not "ready" or "capable" of forgiving and healing.
Resentment's Virtue offers a new, more nuanced view. Building on the writings of Holocaust survivor Jean Améry and the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Thomas Brudholm argues that the preservation of resentment can be the reflex of a moral protest that might be as permissible, humane or honorable as the willingness to forgive. Taking into account the experiences of victims, the findings of truth commissions, and studies of mass atrocities, Brudholm seeks to enrich the philosophical understanding of resentment.
Rhetorics of Refusal
Medical Dissent and the US-Somali DiasporaKari Campeau
The Ohio State University Press, 2025
Rhetorics of Refusal focuses on a recent public health crisis—Minnesota’s 2017 measles outbreak—to recast vaccine refusals less as products of poor health literacy or disinformation and more as strategic and generative acts of noncompliance. The outbreak, which primarily affected unvaccinated Somali children, occurred at the nexus of declining vaccination rates, spiking autism concerns, antivaccination predation, and a fraying public health infrastructure. However, during a year-long ethnographic study at a Somali health center, Kari Campeau found that personal stories from parents offered a much different picture of vaccine refusal than the one painted by news media. Tracking refusals across four sites, Campeau argues for the importance of approaching refusals as rhetorical and participatory strategies that hold institutions accountable, press for change, and practice care within emergent biosocial communities. Moreover, she views refusal as necessary and potentially transformative in situations where refusers have little access to power or platform. By contextualizing refusals in longer cultural and political histories, Campeau unsettles traditional narratives of medical dissent while offering new entry points into discussions on racialized biopolitics, care, disability, and public health.