Branded Bodies, Rhetoric, and the Neoliberal Nation-State

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Branded Bodies, Rhetoric, and the Neoliberal Nation-State, by Dr. Jennifer Wingard, explores how neoliberal economics has affected the rhetoric of the media and politics, and how in very direct, material ways it harms the bodies of some of the United States most vulnerable occupants. The book is written at a moment when the promise of the liberal nation state, in which the government purports to care for its citizens through social welfare programs financed by state funds, is eroding. Currently, state policies are defined by neoliberal governmentality, a form which privileges privatization and individual personal responsibility. Instead of the promise of citizenship and the protections that come with it, or the American Dream to use a more common euphemism, the state uses certain bodies that will never be accepted as citizens as an underclass in service of capital (think Guest Worker Programs). And those underclassed bodies are identified through branding. In order to demonstrate just how damaging branding has become, Wingard offers readings of key pieces of legislation on immigration and GLBT rights and their media reception from the past twenty years. By showing how brands are assembled to create affective threats, Branded Bodies, Rhetoric, and the Neoliberal Nation-State articulates how dangerous the branding of bodies has become and offers rhetorical strategies that can repair the damage to bodies caused by political branding. Branded Bodies, then, is an intervention into the rhetorical practices of the nation-state. It attempts to clarify how the nation state uses brands to forward its claims of equality and freedom all the while condemning those who do not fit in to particular categories valued by the neoliberal state.

Reviews

[T]his book is useful for explaining the processes through which individuals and groups are dehumanized. At times I found this book infuriating, which illustrates the power with whichWingard demonstrates the injustice of many of these brands. Those interested in social movements, political communication, and GLBT and immigrant issues will find this book useful. * Rhetoric Society Quarterly *
Jennifer Wingard has given us a powerful concept to think about the ways commodity logic has invaded national discourse. Her analysis of neo-liberal rhetoric is persuasively grounded in telling examples of gay and lesbian, immigrant, enemy combatant, and worker branded bodies and of the material forces driving their circulation. Anyone interested in a smart account of the insidious and seductive culture of control should read this book. -- Rosemary Hennessey
Jennifer Wingards book is a must read for anyone who takes seriously that words have material power. More to the point, Wingards book pushes readers to see how rhetorics that circulate in an era of neoliberal global capital directly affect people and their place in the nation-state. Through thoughtful and cogent rhetorical analyses of US legislation, she lucidly shows how rhetorics have both political and, most importantly, visceral consequences. Branded Bodies offers a clear intervention into the rhetorical processes that demarcate those who matter and those who fall outside the purview of US neoliberal values in a moment of contemporary globalization. -- Rebecca Dingo

Author Bio

Jennifer Wingard is an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, and Pedagogy and a faculty affiliate to the Womens Studies Program at the University of Houston. Over the past five years, she helped design and implement the new Ph.D. concentration in Rhetoric, Composition, and Pedagogy. She specializes in 20th Century Rhetorical Theory, Transnational Feminist Theory, and Materialist Theories of Teaching English in the Corporate University. Her scholarship focuses on the impact of global neobliberal economics on local civic discourses, and she has been published in Reflections, Journal of Advanced Composition (JAC), and other interdisciplinary edited collections. She is currently working on her second book tentatively titled: No Zoning! Houston, TX the Neoliberal City.