Power: Contemporary & Neoliberal w/ Dr. Wendy Brown

We continue to explore the concept of power by asking how neoliberalism might be both informing our understanding of power and changing how it manifests. Combining a number of insights from previous guests, we wade into the myriad ways power manifests in our neoliberal world and why we need to consider the many different kinds of power both distinctly and collectively. We were honored to be led in this conversation by Dr. Wendy Brown, UPS Foundation Professor, School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study.

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Dr. Wendy Brown is a political theorist who works across the history of political thought, political economy, Continental philosophy, cultural theory, and critical legal theory. Brown investigates the subterranean powers shaping contemporary Euroatlantic polities, with particular attention to the political identities, subjectivities, and expressions they spawn. She is the author or co-author of a dozen books, including States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity; Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire; Walled States, Waning Sovereignty; Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution; and In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West. Across her work, Brown aims to illuminate powers unique to our era and the predicaments they generate for democratic thought and practice.

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While it would be impossible to cite all of her influential work on power here, the publications below provide a useful starting point for her scholarship:

Brown, W. (2020). States of injury: Power and freedom in late modernity. Princeton University Press.

Brown, W. (2015). Undoing the demos: Neoliberalism's stealth revolution. Mit Press.

Brown, W. (2006). American nightmare: Neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and de-democratization. Political theory, 34(6), 690-714.

Brown, W. (2003). Neo-liberalism and the end of liberal democracy. Theory & event, 7(1).

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The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.

Music: purple-planet.com