Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism: Second Edition (Popular Culture and Everyday Life)

Description

In the second edition of Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism, Henry A. Giroux uses the metaphor of the zombie to highlight how America has embraced a machinery of social and civil death that chills any vestige of a robust democracy. He charts the various ways in which the political, corporate, and intellectual zombies that rule America embrace death-dealing institutions such as a bloated military, the punishing state, a form of predatory capitalism, and an authoritarian, death-driven set of policies that sanction torture, targeted assassinations, and a permanent war psychology. The author argues that government and corporate paranoia runs deep in America. While maintaining a massive security state, the ruling forces promote the internalization of their ideology, modes of governance, and policies by either seducing citizens with the decadent pleasures of a celebrity-loving consumer culture or by beating them into submission. Giroux calls for a systemic alternative to zombie capitalism through a political and pedagogical imperative to address and inform a new cultural vision, mode of individual subjectivity, and understanding of critical agency. As part of a larger effort to build a broad-based social movement, he argues for a new political language capable of placing education at the center of politics. Connecting the language of critique to the discourse of educated hope he calls for the reclaiming of public spaces and institutions where formative cultures can flourish that nourish the radical imagination, and the ongoing search for justice, equality, and the promise of a democracy to come. Cover Contents Acknowledgments Preface: Dystopian Nightmares in the Age of Savage Politics Notes Introduction: Zombie Politics, Democracy, and the Threat of Authoritarianism The Rise of Zombie Politics A Turn to the Dark Side of Politics Authoritarianism with A Friendly Face Depoliticizing Freedom And Agency Zomble Politics and The Culture of Cruelty Dangerous Authoritarianism or Shrinking Democracy? Conclusion Notes Section I: Zombie Politics and the Culture of Cruelty Chapter 1: Zombie Politics and Other Late Modern Monstrosities in the Age of Disposability Notes Chapter 2: The Politics of Lying and the Culture of Deceit in Obama’s America: The Rule of Damaged Politics Notes Chapter 3: Zombie Language and the Politics of the Living Dead Notes Chapter 4: Everyday Violence and the Culture of Cruelty: Entertaining Democracy’s Demise Notes Chapter 5: Market-Driven Hysteria and the Politics of Death Notes Chapter 6: Torturing Children: Bush’s Legacy and Democracy’s Failure: Salvos from the Culture of Cruelty Notes Section II: Zombie Theater and the Spectacle of Illiteracy Chapter 7: The Spectacle of Illiteracy and the Crisis of Democracy Notes Chapter 8: Zombie Politics and the Challenge of Right-Wing Teaching Machines: Rethinking the Importance of the Powel Memo Notes Chapter 9: Town Hall Politics as Zombie Theater: Rethinking the Importance of the Public Sphere Notes Chapter 10: Reclaiming Public Values in the Age of Casino Capitalism Notes Section III: Brutalizing Youth in the Age of Zombie Politics Chapter 11: No Bailouts for Youth: Broken Promises and Dashed Hopes Notes Chapter 12: Zero Tolerance Policies and the Death of Reason: Schols and the Pedagogy of Punishment Notes Chapter 13: Brutalizing Kids: Painful Lesons in the Pedagogy of Schol Violence Notes Chapter 14: Tortured Memories and the Culture of War Notes Chapter 15: Youth Beyond the Politics of Hope Notes Section IV: Conclusion Chapter 16: In the Dead Zone of Capitalism Notes Chapter 17: Disimagination Machines and Punishing Factories in the Age of Zombie Capitalism Notes Index