Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle

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"This is a must-read book for anyone ready to transcend fear and imagine a new reality."--Tikkun Disposable Futures makes the case that we have not just become desensitized to violence, but rather, that we are being taught to desire it. From movies and other commercial entertainment to "extreme" weather and acts of terror, authors Brad Evans and Henry Giroux examine how a contemporary politics of spectacle--and disposability--curates what is seen and what is not, what is represented and what is ignored, and ultimately, whose lives matter and whose do not. Disposable Futures explores the connections between a range of contemporary phenomena: mass surveillance, the militarization of police, the impact of violence in film and video games, increasing disparities in wealth, and representations of ISIS and the ongoing terror wars. Throughout, Evans and Giroux champion the significance of public education, social movements and ideas that rebel against the status quo in order render violence intolerable. "Disposable Futures poses, and answers, the pressing question of our times: How is it that in this post-Fascist, post-Cold War era of peace and prosperity we are saddled with more war, violence, inequality and poverty than ever? The neoliberal era, Evans and Giroux brilliantly reveal, is defined by violence, by drone strikes, 'smart' bombs, militarized police, Black lives taken, prison expansion, corporatized education, surveillance, the raw violence of racism, patriarchy, starvation and want. The authors show how the neoliberal regime normalizes violence, renders its victims disposable, commodifies the spectacle of relentless violence and sells it to us as entertainment, and tries to contain cultures of resistance. If you're not afraid of the truth in these dark times, then read this book. It is a beacon of light."--Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination "Disposable Futures confronts a key conundrum of our times: How is it that, given the capacity and abundance of resources to address the critical needs of all, so many are having their futures radically discounted while the privileged few dramatically increase their wealth and power? Brad Evans and Henry Giroux have written a trenchant analysis of the logic of late capitalism that has rendered it normal to dispose of any who do not service the powerful. A searing indictment of the socio-technics of destruction and the decisions of their deployability. Anyone concerned with trying to comprehend these driving dynamics of our time would be well served by taking up this compelling book."--David Theo Goldberg, author of The Threat of Race: Reflections on Racial Neoliberalism "Disposable Futures is an utterly spellbinding analysis of violence in the later 20th and early 21st centuries. It strikes me as a new breed of street-smart intellectualism moving through broad ranging theoretical influences of Adorno, Arendt, Bauman, Deleuze, Foucault, Zizek, Marcuse, and Reich. I especially appreciated a number of things, including: the discussion of representation and how it functions within a broader logics of power; the descriptions and analyses of violence mediating the social field and fracturing it through paralyzing fear and anxiety; the colonization of bodies and pleasures; and the nuanced discussion of how state violence, surveillance, and disposability connect. Big ideas explained using a fresh straightforward voice."--Adrian Parr, author of The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics Brad Evans and Henry A. Giroux are internationally renowned educators, authors, and intellectuals. Together, they curate a forum for Truthout.com that explores the theme of "Disposable Futures." Evans is director of histories of violence project at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom. Giroux holds McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest, and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy.

Brad Evans is a senior lecturer in international relations at the School of Sociology, Politics & International Studies (SPAIS), University of Bristol, UK. He is the founder and director of the histories of violence project. In this capacity, he is currently leading a global research initiative on the theme of "Disposable Life" to interrogate the meaning of mass violence in the 21st Century. Brad's latest books include Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of the Spectacle (with Henry Giroux, forthcoming, City Lights: 2015), Resilient Life: The Art of Living Dangerously (with Julian Reid, Polity Press, 2014), Liberal Terror (Polity Press, 2013), and Deleuze & Fascism (with Julian Reid, Routledge, 2013). He is currently working on a number of book projects, including Histories of Violence: An Introduction to Post-War Critical Thought (with Terrell Carver, Zed Books, 2015). Henry A. Giroux is a world renowned educator, author and public intellectual. He currently holds the Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department. His most recent books include: The Violence of Organized Forgetting with City Lights, 2014; Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism (Peter Lang, 2011); Henry Giroux on Critical Pedagogy (Continuum, 2011); Education and the Crisis of Public Values (Peter Lang 2012); Twilight of the Social: Resurgent Publics in the Age of Disposability (Paradigm Publishers, 2012); Disposable Youth (Routledge 2012); Youth in Revolt (Paradigm, 2013); The Education Deficit and the War on Youth (Monthly Review Press, 2013). A prolific writer and political commentator, he writes regularly for Truthout and serves on their board of directors. He currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada with his wife, Dr. Susan Searls Giroux.

"Brad Evans and Henry Giroux's Disposable Futures is an insightful meditation on the role of violence in modern American society. In eight well-conceived and thoughtfully argued chapters, Evans and Giroux present readers with a damning critique of neoliberalism."--Gregory D. Smithers, American Book Review "It is in this spirit of interrogation that Disposable Futures is situated. Evans is here joined by the American-Canadian Cultural critic Henry Giroux, who is well-known for his critical writings on education. It is no surprise, then, that the book, drawing on the writings of the Brazilian educator and philosopher Paolo Freire, should be so focussed on the transformative powers of critical pedagogy."--Jack D. Palmer, Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal "Brad Evans and Henry Giroux offer a trenchant analysis of neoliberalism's ills: its violence, its dystopian vision, its intrusiveness, and its attempt to eradicate all critical consciousness and with it all hope. They diagnose our exposure to disposability in an era marked by the collapse of a vision of a viable future. In doing so, they have laid out the challenge before us. The only question left is, do we have the will, as the authors suggest, to fabricate a nonviolent response to it?"--Todd May, Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of the Humanities, Clemson University "Beginning with Primo Levi and ending with Deleuze, Evans and Giroux map the radical transformation that has affected the representation of cruelty between the 20th and the 21st century: from 'exceptional' status, associated with the ultimate figures of state sovereignty, it has passed to 'routinized' object of communication, consumption and manipulation. This is not to say that everything is visible, only that the protocols of visibility have been appropriated by a different form of economy, where humans are completely disposable. To counter this violence in the second degree, and preserve our capacity to face the intolerable, a new aesthetics and politics of imagination is required. This powerful, committed, exciting book does more than just evoke its urgency. It already practices it."--Etienne Balibar, author of Violence and Civility "This profound and timely paperback covers the tragic and disheartening phenomenon of the continuing increase of violence in the world today. It is evident in film and video games where the carnage is appalling; it is revealed in the militarization of the police; it is supported by the trampling on human rights to privacy through widespread surveillance; it is showcased in the great disparities of wealth and poverty; and it is present in the dehumanization policies of ISIS and of those who willing to do anything to win the terror wars."--Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice