Description
The alt-right movement in the United States has actively been endorsing the use of left theory to achieve its ends—and with varying degrees of success. Tracing occasions where figures on the alt-right reference left theory, this volume asks if the alt-right’s reference of left theory is just bad reading, or are there troubling ways that certain types of left theory encourage such interpretations? What if the connections between left theory and the alt-right lie in the shared disdain for certain types of institutions, structures of power, and the status quo? Are there lessons to be learned in what can often appear as an overlapping desire to deconstruct concepts like truth, justice, freedom, and democracy? Drawing on the longer history of right-wing readings of left theory, this volume seeks to unpack these recent developments and consider their impact on the future of theory.
Table of Contents
An Introduction
Jeffrey R. Di Leo and Sophia A. McClennen
1 Steal this Theory, or How the Alt-Right Accomplished the Intellectual Crime of the Century by Stealing Theory from the Left
Jeffrey R. Di Leo
2 The Three Stooges: How David Horowitz, Stanley Fish, and Cary Nelson Turned Academic Freedom into Right-Wing Slapstick
Sophia A. McClennen
3 The Zionist’s Gambit: Israel Politics, the "Antisemitism" Ruse, and the Rightist Weaponization of Identity
Benjamin Schreier
4 The Public Use of Ressentiment
Zahi Zalloua
5 Glitch Politics: Specters of Alt-Right Anarchism
Emily Apter
6 Inertia Creeps: Critical Theory on/as Stasis
Peter Hitchcock
7 Rocket Theory
Rita Raley and Russell Samolsky
8 Ugly Freedoms and the January 6 Insurrection
Elisabeth Anker
9 The Online House of Mirrors: Left Theory, Alt-Right Tactics, and Anticoalitional Digital "Communities"
Gina Arlene Stinnett
10 The 3-D Printed Gun, the Logic of Simulation, and the Postmodern Right
Geoff Schullenberger
11 What’s in a Face? Theory of the Mask
Robin Truth Goodman
12 The Global Alt-Right as Prefigured in Roberto Bolaño
Héctor Hoyos
13 Bad Laws: Torture John Yoo
Jacques Lezra
