But Klein’s account of “disaster capitalism” is unconnected to “disaster patriarchy.” In disaster patriarchy, shock is an everyday occurrence and reality itself is at stake. Klein builds on different examples of shock treatment to analyze neoliberalism’s “shock doctrine.” She details what I call “the shock politics two-step,” in which whole populations, or detainees subjected to torture, are first deprived of sensorial stimulation (for a population, communications are shut down for a detainee, a hood is placed over the person’s head) and then, later, once their sensory guard is down, subjected to overstimulation (the public is bombarded with propagandist messaging the detainee is subjected to bright lighting and deafeningly loud music). I build on Rivers’ approach in Shell Shocked, affiliating feminism with criticism’s art of close reading and noting its power as a humanistic response to shock politics. For Rivers, shell shock was a sensorial injury and he treated it with a program of sensorial regeneration that included walks, nature, and poetry in addition to hypnosis and talk therapy.
For Yealland, shell shock was a kind of feminized malingering, and he treated it with shock therapy (“the terrified soldier must utter words to get the torture to stop,” said John Mullan, quoting Barker’s book in The Guardian).
Barker contrasts the approaches of real-life figures W.H.R. How, though, can disaster patriarchy and its shell-shock effects be discerned? In what ways does feminist criticism provide tools to resist and refuse it? And what is the way forward for feminist criticism in the Biden era? To answer these questions, I spoke with Honig regarding her thinking on feminist criticism in the age of Trump we have lived through and how we might articulate “a feminist theory of refusal.” 3ĭaniel Steinmetz- Jenkins: Why did you title your new book Shell Shocked: Feminist Criticism After Trump? Is there a connection between your notion of “shell shock” and the theme of Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine? 5īonnie Honig: Yes, there is a connection, but I was also informed by shell-shock treatment during World War I, novelized by Pat Barker in Regeneration. Trumpism is thus to be understood as a kind of “disaster patriarchy” leading to the unending gaslighting of democratic institutions. Such a permanent disorientation of reality, Honig observes, shocks and overwhelms a people’s senses. Honig, a professor of modern culture and media/political science at Brown University, shows how feminist criticism can help readers understand the idea of male entitlement, a concept in which freedom is reduced to being able to impulsively “say what you think and grab what you want.” This impulsiveness, she argues, is essential to Trumpism and ultimately leads to constant disruptions, daily controversies, and rumbles of political rage. This is why Bonnie Honig’s new book, Shell Shocked: Feminist Criticism After Trump, can be considered a landmark study, one that helps makes sense of the last four years.