After Globalization

In lively and unflinching prose, Eric Cazdyn and Imre Szeman argue that contemporary thought about the world is disabled by a fatal flaw: the inability to think "an after" to globalization. After establishing seven theses (on education, morality, history, future, capitalism, nation, and common sense) that challenge the false promises that sustain this time–limit, After Globalization examines four popular thinkers (Thomas Friedman, Richard Florida, Paul Krugman and Naomi Klein) and how their work is dulled by these promises. Cazdyn and Szeman then speak to students from around the globe who are both unconvinced and uninterested in these promises and who understand the world very differently than the way it is popularly represented. After Globalization argues that a true capacity to think an after to globalization is the very beginning of politics today.

Acknowledgments A Prixecis: The Argument 1 Part I: The Afterlife of Globalization a. Nothing Can Save Us 5 b. From Globalization to Anti–Americanism 9 c. From Anti–Americanism Back to Globalization 15 d. “I face the World as it is”: On Obama 29 e. Of and After: Two Narratives of the Global 34 f. Seven Theses after Globalization 44 g. Something’s Missing 57 Part II: The Limits of Liberalism a. After Globalization, or, Liberalism after Neoliberalism 69 b. Neoliberals Dressed in Black: Richard Florida 77 c. The Anecdotal American: Thomas Friedman 100 d. Confidence Game: Paul Krugman 114 e. The Non–Shock Doctrine: Naomi Klein 134 f. The Limits of Hollywood: Michael Clayton 152 Part III: The Global Generation a. Next Generation 171 b. From Anti–Americanism to Globalization 173 c. A Map of the World 179 d. Biogeographies 207 e. Can’t Get There from Here 218 Conclusion: “Oh, Don’t Ask Why!” 225 Index 239

Eric Cazdyn  is Professor of Cultural and Critical Theory, Psychoanalysis, and East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. He is author of The Already Dead: The New Time of Politics, Culture, and Illness  (2012) and  The Flash of Capital: Film and Geopolitics in Japan  (2003), and editor of T respasses: Selected Writings of Masao Miyoshi (2011). Imre Szeman is Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta. He is co–editor of Cultural Theory: An Anthology (Wiley–Blackwell 2010), author of Zones of Instability: Literature, Postcolonialism and the Nation (2003) and co–author of Popular Culture: A User?s Guide (3rd. ed. 2013).

“Summing Up: Recommended.  Upper–division undergraduates and above.”  ( Choice , 1 August 2012)