Branded bodies, rhetoric, and the neoliberal nation-state / Jennifer Wingard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wingard, Jennifer, 1975-

Series:

Cultural studies/pedagogy/activism

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human body--Social aspects.

Human body.

Human body--Political aspects.

Human body--Symbolic aspects.

Neoliberalism.

Physical Description:

xiv, 147 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lanham, MD : Lexington Books, [2013]

Summary:

Branded Bodies, Rhetoric, and the Neoliberal Nation-State, by Jennifer Wingard, explores how neoliberal economics has affected the rhetoric of the media and politics and how, in very direct, material ways, it harms the bodies of some of the United States' most vulnerable occupants. This book is written during a time when the promise of the liberal nation-state is eroding. Instead of offering the promise of citizenship and the state-supported protections that come with it, or "the American Dream," to use a more common euphemism, the nation-state uses certain bodies that will never be accepted as citizens to form an underclass in service of capital (think "Guest Worker Programs"). And those underclassed "bodies" are identified through branding. To demonstrate how damaging branding has become, Wingard offers readings of key pieces of legislation on immigration and GLBT rights and their media reception from the past twenty years. By showing how brands are assembled to create affective threats, Branded Bodies, Rhetoric, and the Neoliberal Nation-State articulates how dangerous the branding of bodies has become and offers rhetorical strategies that can repair the damage caused by political branding; Branded Bodies, then, is an intervention into the rhetorical practices of the nation-state. It attempts to clarify how the nation-state uses brands to forward its claims of equality and freedom while condemning those who do not "fit in" to particular categories valued by the neoliberal state. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Othering and Branding: Assembling Neoliberal Identities 1

2 Branding the Family: U.S. Protectionism and the Tie that Binds 27

3 (Dis)Embodying the Branding of Protection: Assemblage in the ICE Age 53

4 "José Padilla" and "Osama bin Laden": Material Consequences of Branding Bodies 79

5 From Branding to Bodies: (Re)Assembling the Worker 103.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780739180204

0739180207

9780739180211

0739180215

OCLC:

814706850