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.
"Brad Evans and Henry Giroux's Disposable Futures is an insightful meditation on the role of violence in modern American society. In eight well-conceived and thoughtfully argued chapters, Evans and Giroux present readers with a damning critique of neoliberalism."
Gregory D. Smithers, American Book Review
"It is in this spirit of interrogation that Disposable Futures is situated. Evans is here joined by the American-Canadian Cultural critic Henry Giroux, who is well-known for his critical writings on education. It is no surprise, then, that the book, drawing on the writings of the Brazilian educator and philosopher Paolo Freire, should be so focused on the transformative powers of critical pedagogy
Jack D. Palmer, Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal
"Brad Evans and Henry Giroux offer 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. They diagnose our exposure to disposability in an era marked by the collapse of a vision of a viable future. In doing so, they have laid out the challenge before us. The only question le
Todd May, Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of the Humanities, Clemson University
