Sovereignty, Inc.: Three Inquiries In Politics And Enjoyment (trios)

What does the name Trump stand for? If branding now rules over the production of value, as the coauthors of __Sovereignty, Inc.__ argue, then Trump assumes the status of a master brand whose primary activity is the compulsive work of self-branding—such is the new sovereignty business in which, whether one belongs to his base or not, we are all “incorporated.” Drawing on anthropology, political theory, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and theater, William Mazzarella, Eric L. Santner, and Aaron Schuster show how politics in the age of Trump functions by mobilizing a contradictory and convoluted enjoyment, an explosive mixture of drives and fantasies that eludes existing portraits of our era. The current political moment turns out to be not so much exceptional as exceptionally revealing of the constitutive tension between enjoyment and economy that has always been a key component of the social order. Santner analyzes the collective dream-work that sustains a new sort of authoritarian charisma or __mana__, a __mana-facturing__ process that keeps us riveted to an excessively carnal incorporation of sovereignty. Mazzarella examines the contemporary merger of consumer brand and political brand and the cross-contamination of politics and economics, warning against all too easy laments about the corruption of politics by marketing. Schuster, focusing on the extreme theatricality and self-satirical comedy of the present, shows how authority reasserts itself at the very moment of distrust and disillusionment in the system, profiting off its supposed decline. A dazzling diagnostic of our present, __Sovereignty, Inc.,__ forces us to come to terms with our complicity in Trump’s political presence and will immediately take its place in discussions of contemporary politics. "William Mazzarella, Eric Santner, and Aaron Schuster join forces to analyze the disorienting experience of politics in the Trump era. Drawing from anthropology, media theory, political theory, philosophy, and psychoanalysis, the coauthors show how Trump's compulsive self-branding generates a correspondingly obsessive attention on the part of the public. By retweeting news about Trump, whether in praise or in scorn, the public participates in the manufacturing and reproduction of the Trump brand. This circuit, the coauthors argue, generates a form of pleasure on all sides, even for Trump's detractors, to such an extent that it stultifies, rather than galvanizes, forms of political resistance. The book's provocative claim is that regardless of political affiliation, we all enjoy Trump. Each of the book's extended essays tackles different aspects of this perverse enjoyment, resonating richly with each other in the manner of the unique collaboration that defines TRIOS series volumes"-- Provided by publisher Contents Introduction: In the Beginning Was the Brand Name • William Mazzarella, Eric L. Santner, and Aaron Schuster The Rebranding of Sovereignty in the Age of Trump: Toward a Critique of Manatheism • Eric L. Santner Brand(ish)ing the Name; or, Why Is Trump So Enjoyable? • William Mazzarella Beyond Satire: The Political Comedy of the Present and the Paradoxes of Authority • Aaron Schuster