Hype Power as Necropower: Questioning Death Making in U.S. Victory Culture

• In Event: Rethinking Sovereignty, Power and Justice from a Critical Perspective

Abstract

This paper examines dominant, exaggerated, and extravagant claims about so-called US (geo)political superiority, prowess, and triumph across both political and popular cultural forms, and particularly in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on the work of Timothy Luke, the concept of hype-power is mobilized in this paper and paired with Tom Engelhardt's notion of "victory culture" to make sense of social, political, economic, and biomedical/scientific claims about US might and global prowess. Yet, what these approaches to and understandings of hype power do not account for is the common and endemic death-making that necessarily accompanies and often is a consequence of hyped up social, political, and cultural rhetorics. This paper explores the seeming paradox of hype-power and/as necro-power, and it looks more closely at the ongoing pandemic to offer critical perspectives on the death-making that goes hand-in-hand with US claims about victory and its triumphalist political as well as popular culture.

Author

• Francois Debrix, Virginia Tech