Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism

Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism capitalizes upon the metaphor and popularity of zombies to explore the relevance of the term for examining the political and pedagogical conditions that have produced a growing culture of sadism, cruelty, disposability and death in America. The book is an attempt to develop a new form of political critique forged out of what may seem an extreme metaphor yet is particularly apt for drawing attention to the ways in which political culture and power in American society now work in the interests of mere survival. The metaphor does more than suggest the symbolic face of power, it attempts to mark and chart the visible registers of a kind of zombie politics, including the emergence of right-wing teaching machines, a growing politics of disposability, the emergence of a culture of cruelty, the ongoing war being waged on young people, and especially on youth of color. The book begins and ends with an analysis of authoritarianism. This focus on zombie politics and authoritarianism serves as a warning and a call to critical engagement in the interest of hope-not as a political rhetoric emptied of context and commitment but one that seeks to resuscitate a democratic imaginary and energized social movements that is the one antidote to the zombification of politics. The aim of the book is to break through a poisonous common sense that often masks zombie politicians, anti-public intellectuals, politics, institutions, and social relations while serving to bring into focus a new language, pedagogy, and politics in which the living dead will be moved decisively to the margins rather than occupying the very center of politics and everyday life.