The work of William Sewell and Marshall Sahlins has led to a growing interest in recent years in events as a category of analysis and their role in the transformation of social structures. I argue that tying events solely to instances of significant structural transformation entails problematic theoretical assumptions about stability and change and produces a circumscribed field of events, undercutting the goal of developing an "eventful" account of social life. Social continuity is a state that is achieved just as (...) much as are structural transformations, and events may be constitutive of processes of reproduction as well as change. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Should educators encourage students to learn moral outrage in teaching about social (in)justice? If moral outrage is a catalyst for social change, to what extent can educators nurture this moral and political emotion in the classroom? These questions are at the heart of this essay. The aim is not to take sides for or against using moral outrage in education to motivate students towards change for the better, but rather to engage in an analysis and sorting through of various (...) discourses about moral outrage as a moral and political emotion, and to figure out how those discourses operate to create particular meanings for moral outrage that are circulated through educational research and practice. The author argues for a broader theorization of the relationship between moral outrage, political emotion, and education, tentatively suggesting a renewed attention to the productive possibilities as well as risks of encouraging moral outrage in education. (shrink)

Building on the storytelling, political storytelling, and religious storytelling literatures, I examined the role religious stories play in the formation of revolutionary convictions. This study’s primary sources of data are volumes I, II, and III of The Gospel in Solentiname, a historical record of religious discussions that took place in an isolated campesino community at a seminary-like setting under a growing national revolutionary scenario in 1970s Nicaragua. My analysis of these discussions reveals that religious discourse based on stories of prophecy, (...) Christian virtue, miracles, and social challenges to revolutionary action allowed story-users to assert, explore, and promote models of action and moral orientation consistent with the making of revolution. (shrink)