"In Defense of Partisan Criticism is a far-reaching exploration of the legal, philosophical, and rhetorical basis for understanding social justice in the United States. Through a thoughtful investigation of key political, social, and legal events in the history of the United States, Omar Swartz develops a compelling argument for engaged political scholarship by American academics, and offers readers a critical understanding of the place of race and class in American cultural history. Central to this understanding is an awareness of the "communication imagination"--The power of citizens to name the constraints placed upon them by U.S. political and legal institutions and to counter those constraints with narratives constructing a more socially just society based upon a wider sense of human identification and partisan engagement than is currently practiced in the normative U.S. public sphere."--Jacket.