Neoliberal Culture : Living with American Neoliberalism

Departing from the conventional understanding of neoliberalism as a set of economic and political policies favoring free markets, Neoliberal Culture presents a framework for analyzing neoliberalism in the United States as a culture-or structure of feeling- which shapes American everyday life. The book proposes five 'components' as the keys to any study of American neoliberal culture: biopower, corporatocracy, globalization, the erosion of welfare-state society, and hyperlegality, these five components enabling rich analyses of key artifacts of the neoliberal era, including the Iraq War, Las Vegas, welfare reform, Walmart, and Oprah's Book Club. Carefully organized according to its central themes and adopting a case study approach in order to allow for thorough, illustrated analyses, this book is an important tool for scholars and students of contemporary cultural studies, popular culture, American Studies, and sociology. Ventura (English, Spelman College) departs from conventional understandings of neoliberalism that focus on it as a political and economic formation and argues that neoliberalism is apparent in cultural formations and artifacts. She does this by historicizing American neoliberal culture and offering a framework for doing cultural analysis in the context of US neoliberalism. She takes everyday objects, like books in Oprah's Book Club or food, and relates them to the economic and political structures of neoliberalism. She looks at the erosion of the welfare-state, how social reproduction is pushed onto individuals and families, how globalization manifests itself locally, how small-town Americana is reflective of corporatocracy, how the family figures in the depoliticizing of welfare, and how food politics can be thought as a terrain of resistance against neoliberal American culture. This is an exciting book on how the cunning of neoliberal reason has gone on behind the backs of individuals. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Acknowledgments General introduction: neoliberal culture Understanding the components of American neoliberal culture Learning from neoliberal Las Vegas: understanding globalization in location Home is where the market is : corporatocracy in context Neoliberal welfare : hyperlegality and the erosion of welfare-state society Biopower and operation Iraqi (governing through) freedom Conclusion: resisting neoliberalism Works cited Index. Suitable for scholars and students of contemporary cultural studies, popular culture, American Studies, and sociology, this title presents a framework for analyzing neoliberalism in the United States as a culture - or structure of feeling - which shapes American everyday life.