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This edited collection uses critical theory in order to understand the rise of the Alt-Right and the election of Donald Trump-and, in doing so, to assert the necessity and value of various disciplines within the humanities. While neoliberal mainstream culture has expressed shock at the seemingly expeditious rise of the Alt-Right movement and the outcome of the 2016 United States presidential election, a rich tradition of theory may not only explain the occurrence of this "phenomenon," but may also chart an alternative understanding of the movement, revealing the persistence of right-wing populism throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Though the humanities have seen themselves undervalued and under attack in recent years, the historical and cultural contextualization of the current moment via theory is a means of reaffirming the value of the humanities in teaching the ever-important and multifaceted skill of critical literacy. This book re-affirms the humanities, particularly the study of literature, theory, and philosophy, through questions such as how the humanities can help us understand the here and now.
List of contents
1. Introduction: The State of the Humanities and the Age of the Alt-Right.- 2. "For Every Two Steps Forward, it Often Feels like we Take One Step Back": Foucauldian Historiography and the Current Political Moment.- 3. Cultural Marxism and the Cathedral: Two Alt-Right Perspectives on Critical Theory.- 4. The Right to Anger: Combative Publics.- 5. Herrenvolk Democracy: The Rise of the Alt-Right in Trump's America.- 6. From NeoReactionary Theory to the Alt-Right.- 7. Skepticism, Relativism, and Identity: The Origins of (Pseudo-)Conservatism.- 8. The Materialist Conception of Fiction.- 9. Liberation Through Oppression: Deleuze's Minor Literature and Deterritorialized Nationalisms in James Joyce's Ulysses.- 10. Death by a Thousand Hyperlinks: The Commodification of Communication and Mediated Ideologies.- 11. Critical Race Theory, Transborder Theory, and Code Switching in the Trump Years.- 12. Conclusion: Mining the Past for Usable Futures: The Global Rise of the Alt-Right and the Frankfurt School.
About the author
Christine M. Battista is Assistant Professor of English at Johnson & Wales University, Denver, USA. She is co-editor of
Ecocriticism and Geocriticism: Overlapping Territories in Environmental and Spatial Literary Studies (Palgrave, 2016).
She specializes in the environmental humanities, theory and criticism, postcolonial studies, and American literature.
Melissa R. Sande is Dean of Humanities at Union County College, USA. Her work has been published in such venues as
Quarterly Horse and
The Journal of South Texas English Studies. She specializes in American and Caribbean women’s writing, as well as literary theory.
Summary
This edited collection uses critical theory in order to understand the rise of the Alt-Right and the election of Donald Trump—and, in doing so, to assert the necessity and value of various disciplines within the humanities. While neoliberal mainstream culture has expressed shock at the seemingly expeditious rise of the Alt-Right movement and the outcome of the 2016 United States presidential election, a rich tradition of theory may not only explain the occurrence of this “phenomenon,” but may also chart an alternative understanding of the movement, revealing the persistence of right-wing populism throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Though the humanities have seen themselves undervalued and under attack in recent years, the historical and cultural contextualization of the current moment via theory is a means of reaffirming the value of the humanities in teaching the ever-important and multifaceted skill of critical literacy. This book re-affirms the humanities, particularly the study of literature, theory, and philosophy, through questions such as how the humanities can help us understand the here and now.
