The alt-right movement in the United States has actively been endorsing the use of left theory to achieve its endsand with varying degrees of success. Tracing occasions where figures on the alt-right reference left theory, this volume asks if the alt-rights reference of left theory is just bad reading, or are there troubling ways that certain types of left theory encourage such interpretations? What if the connections between left theory and the alt-right lie in the shared disdain for certain types of institutions, structures of power, and the status quo? Are there lessons to be learned in what can often appear as an overlapping desire to deconstruct concepts like truth, justice, freedom, and democracy? Drawing on the longer history of right-wing readings of left theory, this volume seeks to unpack these recent developments and consider their impact on the future of theory.
The alt-right movement in the US has actively been endorsing the use of left theory to achieve its ends. This book asks if the alt-rights reference of left theory is just bad reading, in addition to drawing on the history of right-wing readings of left theory to unpack recent developments and consider their impact on future theory.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Jeffrey R. Di Leo and Sophia A. McClennen
1 Steal this Theory: How the Alt-Right Accomplished the Intellectual Crime of
the Century by Stealing Theory from the Left
Jeffrey R. Di Leo
2 The Three Stooges: How David Horowitz, Stanley Fish and Cary Nelson Turned
Academic Freedom into Right-Wing Slapstick
Sophia A. McClennen
3 The Zionists Gambit: Israel Politics, the "Antisemitism" Ruse, and the
Rightist Weaponization of Identity
Benjamin Schreier
4 The Public Use of Ressentiment
Zahi Zalloua
5 Glitch Politics: Specters of Alt-Right Anarchism
Emily Apter
6 Inertia Creeps: Critical Theory on/as Stasis
Peter Hitchcock
7 Rocket Theory
Rita Raley and Russell Samolsky
8 Ugly Freedom and the January 6 Insurrection
Elisabeth Anker
9 The Online House of Mirrors: Left Theory, Alt-Right Tactics, and
Anticoalitional Digital "Communities"
Gina Stinnett
10 The 3-D Printed Gun, the Logic of Simulation, and the Postmodern Right
Geoff Schullenberger
11 Whats in a Face? Theory of the Mask
Robin Goodman
12 The Global Alt-Right as Prefigured in Roberto Bolańo
Héctor Hoyos
13 Bad Laws: Torture John Yoo
Jacques Lezra
Jeffrey R. Di Leo is Professor of English and Philosophy at the University of Houston-Victoria. He is founder and editor of symplok and Executive Director of the Society for Critical Exchange and its Winter Theory Institute. His books include Dead Theory: Death, Derrida, and the Afterlife of Theory (2016), Higher Education under Late Capitalism: Identity, Conduct, and the Neoliberal Condition (2017), American Literature as World Literature (2017), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory (2019), The End of American Literature: Essays from the Late Age of Print (2019), Biotheory: Life and Death under Capitalism (2020, with Peter Hitchcock), Philosophy as World Literature (2020), Whats Wrong with Antitheory? (2020), Vinyl Theory (2020), Catastrophe and Education: Neoliberalism, Theory, and the Future of the Humanities (2020), and Happiness (2022).
Sophia A. McClennen is Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at Penn State University and founding director of the Center for Global Studies. She has published 13 books, including Trump Was a Joke: How Satire Made Sense of a President Who Didnt (2023), Pranksters vs. Autocrats: Why Dilemma Actions Advance Nonviolent Activism with Srdja Popovic (2020), and Globalization and Latin American Cinema (2018).
More info about Taylor & Francis e-books