A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book

The Founding Fathers in the Temporal Imaginaries of Texas Gun Politics




AuthorsKolehmainen Pekka M.

EditorsBenita Heiskanen, Albion M. Butters, Pekka M. Kolehmainen

Publishing placeLeiden

Publication year2022

Book title Up in Arms: Gun Imaginaries in Texas

Series titleEuropean Perspectives on the United States

Number in series1

First page 52

Last page82

Number of pages30

ISBN978-90-04-51466-9

eISBN978-90-04-51467-6

ISSN2666-724X

Web address https://brill.com/view/book/9789004514676/BP000012.xml

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/176135657


Abstract

This chapter explores the act of political imagining around guns by centering on the temporal imaginaries constructed about the Founding Fathers in gun debates in Texas. It questions how the groups on both sides invoke the Founding Fathers as both objects and subjects of political imaginations. On one hand, political activists have created imaginary historical versions of the Founding Fathers to place them in relation to their own political imaginations in the modern day, to depict their stance as a continuum of a wider arc of history. On the other hand, the debates have touched on the potential limits of the imaginations of the Founding Fathers themselves, sparking discussions and disagreements on what the historical figures could have imagined in their own times. The chapter uses a body of materials drawn from media, activists, and fieldwork interviews to explore these two points and to elucidate through them the larger dynamics of political conflict in the contemporary United States. It asks how the temporal imaginaries of the Founding Fathers constructed around guns are drawn into larger ideological tensions that govern modern politics.


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Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 20:43