States of Emergency
Essays on Culture and Politics

Patrick M. Brantlinger (Author)

9780253010193

Paperback / softback, published 25 September 2013

308 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.454 kg

Deeply researched (with full footnotes and bibliography), carefully thought out, and eloquently argued, [States of Emergency] offer[s] a refreshing relief from the babble of mainstream social and political commentary, and a source of hopeful vision against the varied voices of apocalypse.

In his latest book, Patrick Brantlinger probes the state of contemporary America. Brantlinger takes aim at neoliberal economists, the Tea Party movement, gun culture, immigration, waste value, surplus people, the war on terror, technological determinism, and globalization. An invigorating return to classic cultural studies with its concern for social justice and challenges to economic orthodoxy, States of Emergency is a delightful mix of journalism, satire, and theory that addresses many of the most pressing issues of our time.

Preface
I. Class Conflicts
1. Cultural Studies and Class War
2. "It's the Economy, Stupid!"
3. Tea Party Brewhaha
4. Shooters
5. What's the Matter with Mexico?
6. Waste and Value: Thorstein Veblen and H. G. Wells
II. Postmodern Conditions
7. Shopping on Red Alert: The Rhetorical Normalization of Terror
8. The State of Iraq
9. On the Postmodernity of Being Aboriginal—and Australian
10. McLuhan, Crash Theory, and the Invasion of the Nanobots
11. Army Surplus: Notes on "Exterminism"
12. World Social Forum: Multitude versus Empire?
Notes
Works Cited
Index