Disposable Futures
Disposable Futures makes the case that we have not just become desensitized to violence, but rather, that we are being taught to desire it. From movies and other commercial entertainment to “extreme” weather and acts of terror, authors Brad Evans and Henry Giroux examine how a contemporary politics of spectacle—and disposability—curates what is seen and what is not, what is represented and what is ignored, and ultimately, whose lives matter and whose do not.
Disposable Futures explores the connections between a range of contemporary phenomena: mass surveillance, the militarization of police, the impact of violence in film and video games, increasing disparities in wealth, and representations of ISIS and the ongoing terror wars. Throughout, Evans and Giroux champion the significance of public education, social movements and ideas that rebel against the status quo in order render violence intolerable.
To preserve our capacity to face the intolerable, a new aesthetics and politics of imagination is required. This powerful, committed, exciting book does more than just evoke its urgency. It already practices it.
Etienne Balibar
Brad Evans and Henry Giroux have written a trenchant analysis of the logic of late capitalism that has rendered it normal to dispose of any who do not service the powerful. Anyone concerned with trying to comprehend these driving dynamics of our time would be well served by taking up this compelling book.
David Theo Goldberg
If you’re not afraid of the truth in these dark times, then read this book. It is a beacon of light.
Robin D.G. Kelly
This book offers a trenchant analysis of neoliberalism’s ills: its violence, its dystopian vision, its intrusiveness, and its attempt to eradicate all critical consciousness and with it all hope. In doing so, they have laid out the challenge before us.
Todd May
Disposable Futures is an utterly spellbinding analysis of violence in the later 20th and early 21st centuries. It strikes me as a new breed of street-smart intellectualism
Adrian Parr
Further Reviews
Interview "Thinking Against Violence" with Brad Evans in The New York Times
Review in American Book Review
Review In Genocide Studies & Prevention
Review in The Journal of American History
Review in Tikkun
Short Review on CityLights Blog
Review in Quill & Quire
Excerpt "Have we Become Spectators Instead of Witnesses to Violence in Our Times?" in Alternet
Excerpt "Critique of Violence" published in TruthOut
Interview "Challenging a Disposable Future" with Brad Evans & Henry Giroux in TruthOut
Interview with Brad Evans on KBOO