Branded Bodies, Rhetoric, and the Neoliberal Nation-State

Jennifer Wingard

"Branded Bodies, Rhetoric, and the Neoliberal Nation-State, by Dr. Jennifer Wingard, explores how neoliberal economics has affected the rhetoric of the media and politics, and how in very direct, material ways it harms the bodies of some of the United States' most vulnerable occupants. The book is written at a moment when the promise of the liberal nation state, in which the government purports to care for its citizens through social welfare programs financed by state funds, is eroding. Currently, state policies are defined by neoliberal governmentality, a form which privileges privatization and individual personal responsibility. Instead of the promise of citizenship and the protections that come with it, or "the American Dream" to use a more common euphemism, the state uses certain bodies that will never be accepted as citizens as an underclass in service of capital (think "Guest...