Bonnie Honig

Essays of feminist criticism in the age of Trump. She argues that shock politics and disaster capitalism are intimately intertwined with misogyny, and starts by performing a close reading of Trump’s family romance with gilding, TV, and monarchical aspirations, down to naming his son Barron, which is also the name he used when he was pretending to be a spokesman for himself. There are some gems in her analysis of pop culture phenomena, such as when she discusses the show Unbelievable by evoking W.E.B. Du Bois’s question “How does it feel to be a problem?” and arguing that the analogous question for misogyny is “How does it feel to be unbelievable?” because un/believability is structural. But I didn’t learn an awful lot.… (mais)

Shell-Shocked: Feminist Criticism After Trump by Bonnie Honig is a collection of essays that combine cultural critique and feminist criticism to examine the ways in which Trump's shock politics have attempted to desensitize us to its inherent cruelty and violence. Those whose lives have not been negatively impacted and also lack empathy and understanding for others will find this too inconvenient for them, not of the right time. Maybe for them the right time is after all the damage is done and those impacted have been eliminated, then they will feel comfortable reading this during this part of their lives. Probably not though, it just isn't in them to care enough.

Like any collection of essays there were some that spoke to me more than others. What I liked about this collection is that the ones that I found most engaging were the ones that showed me new avenues into understanding our time rather than the ones that widened an avenue I have traveled. In recovering from the trauma of the past 4 years, okay all of modern history but we have to start some where, we need as many ways to come to terms with what happened and what is happening still and, no doubt, what will continue to happen. This book offers interesting perspectives presented in a light jargon free manner that should sit well with anyone not swearing allegiance to the cult of Trump.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (mais)

Honig calls for a "cosmopolitan democracy" in which when we attach our loyalty to something we recognize an intransigent undecidability in democratic politics and attach our fear to the same thing, and in which we attach ourselves to the nation but also to many other institutions, groups, and organizations without regard to their territorial compass so that we can come to recognize citizenship and foreignness as categories of relationship between people with regard, or without necessary regard, for the boundaries of a nation.

Besides being smart, the book is clever, fun, and mildly inspiring--or was to me.… (mais)