Spatial Resistance: Literary and Digital Challenges to Neoliberalism

by Christian Beck

Overview

Spatial Resistance: Literary and Digital Challenges to Neoliberalism utilizes various literary and digital artifacts to show the potential and possibility of changing the ways we consider the spaces we inhabit. As many spaces become increasingly privatized and policed, it is necessary to contemplate ways in which corporate and state-controlled spaces can not only be subverted but fundamentally changed to embrace the diverse lived experiences of all peoples. Through an analysis of fictional and virtual spaces, readers will be able to identify new ways to institute spatial change in everyday spatial lives in an effort to promote more democratic and equal experiences. While this book uses primarily the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari to engender change, it also provides practical examples to amend, change, or update the actions to suit particular needs and spaces. This book shows that radical politics and the possibility of significant change can reside in just about any object or narrative; it is the responsibility of the individual to take up the task of creating social change premised on equality, liberty, and solidarity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498552417
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/11/2019
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Christian Beck is lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Central Florida.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Nomad in the Desert

Chapter 1: Post-Modern Theory, Pre-Modern Tactics: Using the Past to Resist the Present

Chapter 2: The Tempest and the Coming Storm

Chapter 3: Dietland: The Spatial, Revolutionary Body

Chapter 4: Remapping the Story

Chapter 5: Digital Spaces and the Rise of Hacktivism

Chapter 6: #Tagging Social Space: Graffiti and Resistance

Chapter 7: De-Aerialization: Drones and Volumizing Space

Chapter 8: Digital Resistance

Conclusion: Nationalism is Not the Answer

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

In Spatial Resistance, Christian Beck outlines the ways that contemporary "societies of control" have organized and delimited the spaces we inhabit. Beck then reveals the ways that fiction may open up alternative spaces for liberty within which can emerge a radical politics suited to our historical moment.

Robert T. Tally Jr.

Written by a scholar of medieval literature who exhibits remarkable intellectual versatility, this book contains novel ideas that will travel well to disciplines such as international relations and comparative politics. Beck’s conceptualization of alternate spaces for resistance in the context of the digital realm and the air will be of keen interest to students of social movements and democratization, while his discussion of drones and alternate modes of governance in liberated areas of Syria challenge dominant ways of thinking about the nation-state and sovereignty. A truly remarkable journey through time, space, and alternate spaces.

Mietek Boduszynski

Neoliberalism is not only an economic project but a particular configuration of social space, based on control, regulation, and surveillance. In this brilliant book, Beck shows how the hegemony of the neoliberal project can be challenged by the mapping of alternative and more autonomous spaces emerging in the interstices of everyday life. Drawing on literature, cultural studies, graffiti art, and hacking, the author highlights the importance of spatiality to any politics of resistance.

Saul Newman

Written by a scholar of medieval literature who exhibits remarkable intellectual versatility, this book contains novel ideas that will travel well to disciplines such as international relations and comparative politics. Beck’s conceptualization of alternate spaces for resistance in the context of the digital realm and the air will be of keen interest to students of social movements and democratization, while his discussion of drones and alternate modes of governance in liberated areas of Syria challenge dominant ways of thinking about the nation-state and sovereignty. A truly remarkable journey through time, space, and alternate spaces.

Mietek Boduszyński