By Patrick Brantlinger
In his latest book, Patrick Brantlinger probes the state of
contemporary America. Brantlinger takes aim at neoliberal economists, the Tea
Party movement, gun culture, immigration, waste value, surplus people, the war
on terror, technological determinism, and globalization. An invigorating return
to classic cultural studies with its concern for social justice and challenges
to economic orthodoxy, States of Emergency is a delightful mix of
journalism, satire, and theory that addresses many of the most pressing issues
of our time.
States of Emergency consists
of twelve essays ranging from top-down class conflict in the U.S. to
immigration (“What’s the Matter with Mexico?”) to the war on terror to
unemployment and homelessness among veterans (“Army Surplus”) to the World
Social Forum. Brantlinger’s focus is on social justice; he explores, for
example, how and why societies exclude certain segments of their populations
from full rights and recognition, sometimes to the extent of deeming them
“surplus” populations worthy only of extermination. Five of the essays
were invited contributions to journals or to other people’s anthologies.
These include “Shooters,” about the Virginia Tech massacre, invited for the
inaugural issue of the on-line South Korean journal Situations, and
“Shopping on Red Alert: The Rhetorical Normalization of Terror,” which
first appeared in Iraq War Culture, edited by Cynthia Fuchs and Joe
Lockard. The essay on the Tea Party ends with a short, dramatic excursion
to Wonderland, and “The State of Iraq” is Brantlinger’s attempt to out-Twain
Mark Twain. The volume’s title comes from Walter Benjamin: “The
tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we
live is not the exception but the rule.”
States of Emergency is available for purchase at Indian University Press and Amazon
