The American Dream and Dreams Deferred: A Dialectical Fairy Tale

(Hardback)

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The American Dream and Dreams Deferred: A Dialectical Fairy Tale shows how rival interpretations of the American Dream poignantly express conflict over its very meaning, revealing the dialectical tensions within. Exploring often neglected voices, literatures, and histories, Thomas E. Reifer and Carlton D. Floyd highlight moments when the American Dream alternately appears possible, when it seems out of reach, and when it seems both possible and out of reach, paying particular attention to these dialectically entwined moments. The authors present a synthesis of the American Dream, their deferment, and its costs, projecting alternative futures, simultaneously informed by the dystopian remembrance of sufferings, past and present. In so doing, the authors invite readers to make a new collective dream of a better future, on a socially just, multicultural, and ecologically sustainable social foundation, into a living reality.

Reviews

"A wide-ranging, learned, incisive exploration of the dreams and nightmares of this strange society, of what the authors call 'the typically disconnected histories of capitalism and racism that undergird our democratic republic, shaping the ground on which we all stand.'"

--Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor, University of Arizona

"Carlton D. Floyd and Thomas Ehrlich Reifer offer an impressive, well-researched, and much-needed critique of the American Dream. Asking us to consider the dreams that have been and continue to be deferred, Floyd and Reifer place popular narratives of the American Dream in dialectical relationship with marginalized narratives to explore the chasm between the Dream and the nation's stark historical realities. While they acknowledge that dreams are crucial in the making of collective memory and a sense of peoplehood, they also demonstrate that we need to be careful of what we dream, since dreams that lack truth, such as the American Dream and its ever-changing forms, often divide humanity into deadly rivalries. Given the relational processes of exploitation and exclusion that define our current moment, The American Dream and Dreams Deferred: A Dialectical Fairy Tale is a must read for anyone interested in creating a future that is absent of such processes."

--Jerry Rafiki Jenkins, author of The Paradox of Blackness in African American Vampire Fiction

Author Bio

Thomas E. Reifer is professor of sociology and affiliated faculty in Asian studies, ethnic studies, and Latin American studies at the University of San Diego, an associate fellow of the Transnational Institute (Amsterdam), and an official Freedom Writers teacher.

Carlton D. Floyd is associate professor of English, affiliated faculty in womens and gender studies, a former associate provost for inclusion and diversity, and cofounder of the Center for Inclusion and Diversity at the University of San Diego.