This thesis identifies changes in the meaning of “security”—that is, the conditions characterizing “the good life”—among millennials in postrecessional neoliberal states. The Great Recession of 2007–2009 affected everyday life by deepening wealth inequalities and normalizing downward mobility; however, no work has been done on how popular understandings of “the good life” are shifting in the wake of the recession or what conditions are driving such changes in common sense. In response to this gap, this thesis unpacks millennial expressions of security in Ireland, the United States, and Canada to uncover long-standing senses of security eroding among millennials, the ways in which postrecessional neoliberal governmentality is shattering these ideals, and emerging alternative understandings of security. In Ireland, I find that expansionary monetary policy—a regulatory technology of neoliberal governmentality—is preventing millennials from securing themselves through enriching property ownership and giving rise to a sense that security may instead be rooted in minimizing deprivation. In the United States, millennial expressions suggest that a technology of the self that I call “branding with goals” is frustrating the idea that security means making oneself legible as a popularly affirmed kind of subject; in its wake, security emerges with exploration and pleasure. In Canada, popular pedagogies in universities—disciplinary technologies—are shaking a sense that security can be achieved by completing a university degree to become in-demand human capital; this failure makes room for pedagogies that teach students to dwell with conflict and uncertainty. Together, these findings evidence that postrecessional governmentality is corroding senses of “security” rooted in the liberal ideal of self-determination and suggest that “security” may alternatively be caught up with a sense of collective, if differential, vulnerability. Broadly, this thesis contributes to critical theory by offering novel insights on postrecessional regulatory ideals and governmentality in neoliberal polities. / Thesis / Candidate in Philosophy / The Great Recession impacted significant trends, such as the distribution of wealth and fertility rates, especially among the millennial generation. This thesis explores how the meaning of security is changing in and for millennials in English-speaking, Western neoliberal cultures amidst these shifts in everyday life and the forces responsible for these changes. Specifically, the thesis conducts this exploration by performing case studies of postrecessional expressions of “insecurity” in three neoliberal states: Ireland, the United States, and Canada. I argue that understandings of “security” as a state of being that can be realized by acquiring property, being legible to others, and becoming an in-demand worker are faltering as neoliberal norms make it increasingly difficult for younger adults to realize these ideals. Notably, these collapsing conceptions of “security” are rooted in liberalism’s driving ideal of self-determination; accordingly, the study suggests that neoliberalism may be frustrating the viability of liberalism’s historic promise.

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This research approaches independent film producer-distributor company A24 as a neoliberalentity in the context of the contemporary indie film industry. A24’s deliberate construction ofa public image as the ‘cool’ outsider positions them on the borders of independentcinema—in Indiewood. By means of a critical discourse analysis on A24’s indieness, framedby theories of paratextuality and neoliberalism, this research examines the essence of indieoppositionality as performed by A24. The respective indieness and neoliberal character ofindustry trendsetter A24 assist in reflecting on the general trend of independent cinema sincethe digital media wave of the mid-2010s, and suggest a trend towards a neoliberalmainstream-alternative middle ground.

An increasing body of literature reveals that powerful businesspeople have a long history of using their wealth for the benefit of the greater common good. With philanthrocapitalism, a new generation of hands-on donors that have made incredible fortunes within business sectors like information technology or finance, are taking on the world's most pressuring social and environmental problem, willing to change the way of giving and enhancing traditional philanthropy. The rich entrepreneurs turned philanthropists are applying their skills and talents that have made them successful in business and infusing the charity sector with corporate tools and strategies and are getting personally engaged and using political and social networks to leverage their efforts. Driven to find solutions to the world's most severe problems, philanthrocapitalists tend to target problems that cut across national boundaries, such as AIDS, Malaria, illiteracy, and population growth. Next to these familiar fields such as health and education, philanthropists are also increasingly engaging in nature conservation. By establishing private nature reserves or taking over failed state-run nature reserves, elite donors are increasingly featuring neoliberal conservation and intervene in political ecology particularly in biodiversity hotspots in the global South. Notwithstanding philanthrocapitalism growing prominence and significance, broader public debates and academic literature is just emerging in recent years and the impact on nature conservation has received little scholarly attention. By examining the case of the Gorongosa Project (GP), a transnational nature conservation project that was established by U.S. multimillionaire Greg Carr in Mozambique, this thesis seeks to illustrate: a) how philanthrocapitalism influences nature conservation, b) how philanthrocapitalistic conservation projects work in practice and, c) enhance understanding about the implications of philanthrocapitalism in conservation governance, recognising its advantages and limitations. The thesis further seeks to contribute to the academic discourse as the far-reaching ventures of Western philanthrocapitalists have provoked a controversial debate. Advocates such as economists, journalists and political organisations argue that the financial power, unique business skills, resources and networks enable philanthrocapitalists to contribute to solving global issues more efficiently than other stakeholders. In contrast, critics from political or social sciences or conservation point out the increasing influence that wealthy philanthropists have on global policymaking as well as social and political agendas and have raised concerns about democratic values and power and wealth inequalities.

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This interdisciplinary dissertation, The Rhetoric of Wolves, attempts to answer a simple, yet broad question: What do we talk about when we talk about wolves? While even the “we” here is contentious, as there are many perspectives and positions through which the wolf is figured, there are also many kinds of wolves, but no “real” wolf. That is, this dissertation takes seriously the contention that has recently arisen in the environmental humanities and animal studies through the late work of Jacques Derrida and others that figurations of “the animal” matter, not only for multi-species relations and coexistence, but for how the subject and polity are constructed and normalized. As these discourses put “the animal” into question, that is, how the animal functions as a discursive resource in socio-political issues, so too does this dissertation question how “the wolf” functions discursively in contemporary socio-political issues in North America. To address these questions, this dissertation utilizes a Foucaultian-inspired genealogical analysis of the discourse around “the wolf” understand how rhetoric about wolves coalesces into what I call “rhetorical assemblages” that vie to become regimes of truth that are used to attempt to settle the identity of the wolf and human-“animal” relations through the productive capacity of various power/knowledges that are historically and materially grounded. To do so, this dissertation examines and analyzes the rhetoric of a series of case studies in North America where figurations of wolves produce “the wolf” variously as man-hunting machines, outlaws that disrupt the natural order, illegal immigrants threatening family and tradition, and always already potential terrorists who must be productively managed through a biopolitics that attempts to make good the expectations of the dominant neoliberal frame of contemporary social and political life. / Graduate / 2023-08-15

[pt] O trabalho pretende realizar uma análise do sistema político econômico Neoliberal. Desde quando este ganha o mundo, a partir dos anos 1970/1980 do século passado e, se impõe como o novo formato do capitalismo globalizado. Junto à essa análise é proposta a relação das instituições de ensino na difusão, produção e reprodução do sistema Neoliberal, tomando este não mais como apenas um sistema político econômico, mas como uma norma social geral que engendra subjetividades, e ou maneiras de ser e estar no mundo atual. Portanto, as análises vão ao caminho, primeiramente, de definir aquilo que chamamos de Neoliberalismo, que modificações este trouxe para as instituições de ensino e por fim suas aproximações, atravessamentos, afastamentos, parcerias e, sobretudo, efeitos na produção de subjetividade, sobretudo no Brasil. / [en] The work intends to carry out an analysis of the Neoliberal economic political system. Since when did it take over the world, from the 1970s to the 1980s of the last century, it was imposed as the new format of globalized capitalism. Along with this analysis, the relationship between educational institutions in the diffusion, production and reproduction of the Neoliberal system is proposed, taking this no longer as just an economic political system but as a general social norm that engenders subjectivities, and or ways of being and being in the current world. Therefore, the analyzes go on the path, first, to define what we call Neoliberalism, what modifications it brought to educational institutions and finally its approximations, crossings, distances, partnerships and, above all, effects on the production of subjectivity, especially in the Brazil.

Studiens övergripande syfte är att undersöka potentiella neoliberala värderingar i planeringen för Norra Djurgårdsstaden och hur de påverkar planeringen för stadsdelen. Vidare avser studien att undersöka socioekonomiska konsekvenser av neoliberalt inflytande i planeringen, som drabbar sociala grupper i stadsdelen. För att uppnå syftet har en fallstudie i stadsdelen Norra Djurgårdsstaden genomförts. I studien har semistrukturerade kvalitativa intervjuer och kvalitativa innehållsanalyser genomförts.  Studien visar att Stockholms stads planering för Norra Djurgårdsstaden påverkas av neoliberala värderingar i olika sammanhang som genom stadens samverkan med privata aktörer, stadens främjande av företag och stadens ekonomiska ambitioner i planeringen för stadsdelen. Studiens resultat visar även att Stockholms stad bedriver en indirekt neoliberal planering, eller en planering som består av både traditionella planeringsvärderingar och neoliberala värderingar. Detta genom planeringspraktiker som till synes verkar bestå av inkluderande praktiker men som i själva verket består av flera exkluderande planeringspraktiker. Dessa exkluderande planeringspraktiker synliggör hur staden prioriterar målgruppen höginkomsttagare samtidigt som målgruppen låginkomsttagare exkluderas genom neoliberala värderingar i planeringen för stadsdelen Norra Djurgårdsstaden.

This dissertation traces the relationship between the cultural formations of 1980s U.S. imperialism and the ascendance of neoliberal capitalism. Analyzing government documents, popular and literary fiction, movement memoirs and photography, and popular music, the dissertation argues that neoliberal discourses, logics, and affects were articulated by state and university representations of U.S. imperialism, as well as by the feminist and solidarity movement cultures that attempted to oppose the United States' overt and covert interventions in the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The dissertation demonstrates how the university, the military, and the state reconfigured the materialist, anti-imperialist, and anti-racist imperatives of 1960s and 1970s movement cultural formations into fantasies of neoliberal recognition and tools for the production of neoliberal entrepreneurial subjectivities. But it also tracks how representations of U.S. imperialism provided resources for U.S. subjects to adjust affectively to new neoliberal dislocations and temporalities. Chapter 1 contends that sex radical memoirs by Kate Millet, Joan Nestle, Cherríe Moraga, and Samuel Delaney offered a vision of sexual solidarity politics that reinforced neoliberal arguments favoring economic privatization and apolitical citizenship. Chapters 2 and 3 show how these movement visions of desire and intimacy extended to the Caribbean and Central America, abetting U.S. imperialist violence and neoliberal economic transformations. I argue that Paule Marshall and Audre Lorde's cultural feminist attempts to reclaim a lost Caribbean heritage helped lay the affective groundwork for Grenada's neoliberalization, then examine how Central America solidarity movement culture, including fiction and photography by Barbara Kingsolver and Susan Meiselas, similarly naturalized neoliberal logics of privacy and intimacy. The second half of the dissertation turns to literary and popular culture, demonstrating how images and sounds of U.S. imperialism registered and soothed anxieties over new neoliberal economic conditions. Chapter 4 asserts that creative writing program fiction by Robert Olen Butler, Tobias Wolff, and Lorrie Moore mobilized the figure of the Vietnam veteran to offer readers a model for managing the volatility of post-Fordist capitalism. Chapter 5 contends that the pop/rock love-gone-wrong songs that scored the U.S. invasion of Panama offered a new genre of explanation for U.S. imperialism in the neoliberal age. / 2023-03-31T00:00:00Z