Monster Politics: Austerity, hegemony and being out of place - book launch @ Centrala Space, Birmingham Thursday 28 June 6:30-8:30PM

*You’re invited to a book launch of Austerity as public mood by Kirsten
Forkert (BCU) and Posthuman Urbanism by Debra Benita Shaw (UEL) at Centrala
Space in Birmingham on Thursday 28 June 6:30-8:30PM. *

*http://centrala-space.org.uk/events/monster-politics-austerity-hegemony-and-being-out-of-place/*
<http://centrala-space.org.uk/events/monster-politics-austerity-hegemony-and-being-out-of-place/>

Kirsten and Debra will have a conversation about their books in relation to
austerity, normality and the representation of monsters in popular media.
The politics of austerity produces monstrous others who stand as scapegoats
for the effects of reduced public spending; refugees are conflated with
monstrous “economic migrants” or terrorists so as to be denied human
rights; young Black men are characterised as monsters so as to justify
police brutality; monsters threaten our children and the spectre of the
monstrous crowd is conjured in the service of law and order.

Are we all potentially monsters? Or are some of us more monstrous than
others? Is it possible to claim a position of monstrosity, of being ‘out of
place’ as the basis for a revitalised left politics? Or does doing so
reaffirm the binary opposition between the monstrous and the normal?

The event is sponsored by the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural
Research <https://www.bcu.ac.uk/media/research>.

*The event is free and open to the public, and will take place at Centrala
(Unit 4 Minerva Works, 158 Fazeley Street, Birmingham, B5 5RT). Please
register at: *
*https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/monster-politics-austerity-hegemony-and-being-out-of-place-tickets-46201531023*
<https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/monster-politics-austerity-hegemony-and-being-out-of-place-tickets-46201531023>


Kirsten Forkert and Debra Benita Shaw’s books deal with monster politics,
new social movements, responses to austerity and the right to the city.
Both books are both published by Rowman and Littlefield International.
<https://www.rowmaninternational.com/>

Gemma Commane (BCU) will introduce and respond to the conversation.



*About Austerity as Public Mood*

Austerity as Public Mood
<https://www.rowmaninternational.com/book/austerity_as_public_mood/3-156-8e0d9609-f942-4b91-a3e3-1b47400e7133>
explores how politicians and the media mobilise nostalgic and socially
conservative ideas of work and community in order to justify cuts to public
services and create divisions between the deserving and undeserving. It
examines the powerful appeal of these concepts as part of a wider public
mood marked by guilt, nostalgia and resentment – particularly around the
inequalities produced by global capitalism and changes to the nature of
work.

In doing so, the book engages with urgent questions about the contemporary
political climate. Focusing on the UK, it challenges accounts of
neoliberalism which frame it as primarily an individualising force and
localist definitions of community as mitigating its damaging effects.
Finally, it explores how resistance to austerity can challenge these
tendencies by offering a politics of solidarity and hope, and a forum for
experimentation with alternative forms of collectivity.

*About Posthuman Urbanism:*

Posthuman Urbanism
<https://www.rowmaninternational.com/book/posthuman_urbanism/3-156-f0d5f2b5-96ee-4331-af16-c0f32eb093da>
evaluates the relevance and usefulness of posthuman theory to understanding
the urban subject and its conditions of possibility. It argues that
contemporary science and technology is radically changing the way that we
understand our bodies and that understanding ourselves as 'posthuman'
offers new insights into urban inequalities.

By analysing the relationship between the biological sciences and cities
from the nineteenth-century onward as it is expressed in architecture,
popular culture and case studies of contemporary insurgent practices, a
case is made for posthuman urbanism as a significant concept for changing
the meaning of urban space. It answers the question of how we can change
ourselves to change the way we live with others, both human and non-human,
in a rapidly urbanising world.

*About Gemma Commane:*

Dr Gemma Commane is Lecturer in Media and Communications, and an active
researcher in the fields of media and cultural studies, and gender and
sexuality. Gemma’s research interests focus on contemporary cultural
studies, alternative constructions of femininity, entrepreneurship within
BDSM and kink (‘kinktrepreneurship’), gender and sexuality, researcher
positionality and ethnographic research.

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