Activity: Academic Talks or Presentations › Invited talk › Research
Description
Is it still meaningful to speak of ideology in a post-truth world? If so, how does it operate? The paper begins with a discussion of the controversial topic of the veil and argues that ideology functions as its own kind of veil in reproducing the idea of the Other as a figure that is concealing a disturbing excess. Drawing on Hegelian and psychoanalytic thought, it then moves to a consideration of ideology’s ambiguous framing of Otherness and antagonism as reflected in such events as the liberal scandal over Lee Harper’s Go Set a Watchman and the recent responses to the 2017 New Year’s Eve assaults in Cologne. Finally the paper explores the emergence of Trump as a new type of figure that is indicative of the way in which ideology sustains itself through fake antagonism and the (regulated) violation of its implicit rules.