Confronting the Biopolitics of White Power: Toward a Curricular Ethic of Antiviolence

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: Power, Politics, and Reparative Writing

Abstract

This paper investigates the broad topic of violence through the biopolitical mythology of the white power movement. We theoretically contextualize this historical analysis in Foucault’s writings on biopolitics and Jason Stanley’s analysis of sexual anxiety, a core tenet of fascism. Data sources include the published writings of white power activists including, Brenton Tarrant, Dylann Roof, John Earnest, James Mason, and William Pierce. We draw some distinctions between the international white power movement and the resurgence of authoritarian populist political parties in the United States, Europe, Brazil, and elsewhere. Finally, we theorize a strategic reversal of biopolitics as an ethic of anti-violence in dialogue with Foucault’s writings on parrhēsia, Hongyu Wang’s curricular zero space, and Rob Nixon’s theorization of slow violence.

Authors

• James P. Burns, Florida International University

• Colin D. Green, The George Washington University

• Marilyn Hillarious, The George Washington University