Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author Samuels, Robert, 1961- author.

Title Viral rhetoric : psychoanalysis, philosophy, and politics after Covid-19 / Robert Samuels
Published Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, [2021]
©2021

Copies

Description 1 online resource
Series Palgrave pivot
Palgrave pivot.
Contents Chapter One: Introduction -- Chapter Two: Baudrillard and Viral Rhetoric -- Chapter Three: How the Rhetoric of Information Took Over Our World -- Chapter Four: Viral Culture -- Chapter Five: Freud's Contagion -- Chapter Six: Populism as a Cultural Virus -- Chapter Seven: Zizek's Pandemic -- Chapter Eight: Conclusion: Science, Politics, Media, and the Virus
Summary This book looks at the representation of viruses in rhetoric, politics, and popular culture. In utilizing Jean Baudrillard's concept of virality, it examines what it means to use viruses as a metaphor. For instance, what is the effect of saying that a video has gone viral? Does this use of biology to explain culture mean that our societies are determined by biological forces? Moreover, does the rhetoric of viral culture display a fundamental insensitivity towards people who are actually suffering from viruses? A key defining aspect of this mode of persuasion is the notion that due to the open nature of our social and cerebral networks, we are prone to being infected by uncontrollable external forces. Drawing from the work of Freud, Lacan, Laclau, Baudrillard, and Zizek, it examines the representation of viruses in politics, psychology, media studies, and medical discourse. The book will help readers understand the potentially destructive nature of how viruses are represented in popular media and politics, how this can contribute to conspiracy theories around COVID-19 and how to combat such misinterpretations. Robert Samuels teaches Writing and Rhetoric at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. He is the author of fifteen books, including Zizek and the Rhetorical Unconscious and Teaching Writing, Rhetoric, and Reason at the Globalizing University. He has doctorates in English and Psychoanalysis
Notes Includes index
Print version record
Subject Metaphor.
Viruses.
Psychoanalysis.
Metaphor
Viruses
metaphor.
psychoanalysis.
Metaphor
Psychoanalysis
Viruses
COVID-19.
Oratòria política.
Mitjans de comunicació de massa.
Psicologia social.
Filosofia social.
Genre/Form Llibres electrònics.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9783030738952
3030738957