Publications and Research
Document Type
Book
Publication Date
Summer 8-8-2024
Abstract
Thinking Blue/Writing Red interrogates contemporary culture across a range of texts, from the pandemic (‘Covid’ and ‘Trump Speak’) to high theory (Melville's narratives) and popular culture (Beyoncé's ‘Formation’ and Super Bowl performance, Twin Peaks , metamodern ‘cli-fi’ films). Inspired by Derrida’s idea of the secret, Tumino examines the significance of social movements (Black Lives Matter, Occupy, alter-globalization) and naïve art (Darger, Ryden) to argue that these texts speak of the secrets that capitalism cannot speak. Contending that the cultural surfaces narrate only the ‘nonsecret,’ that to see the social logic of the culture one must dig into what Bruno Latour questions as the ‘deep dark below,’ Thinking Blue/Writing Red reads these texts to tease out the underlying narratives of the culture of capital.
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Comments
This book will be of interest to students in several disciplines, including philosophy, literary and cultural studies, film studies, women's studies, critical race studies, history, LGBTQ+ studies and environmental studies.
The book is a ground breaking, comprehensive, and lively engagement with the contemporary (post)humanities and neoliberal culture industries. It challenges their institutionalized common sense while reconfiguring the intellectual and political issues in a way that draws out their implications for academic and non-academic readers alike.
Prof. (Emerita) Teresa L. Ebert
University at Albany, SUNY
Stephen Tumino's Thinking Blue/Writing Red is an encompassing and enlightening exploration of the (post)neoliberal cultural topography of contemporary capitalism that is as impressively relentless in its analysis as it is wide ranging in its scope. It is a rigorous and scholarly, as well as readable and engaging, analysis of the contemporary that will be accessible to a wide audience of academic and non-academic audiences alike. It will educate and challenge readers to consider the social forces which shape their daily lives.
Dr. Robert Wilkie
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
I believe Tumino’s book makes an important and necessary contribution to radical discourse through its encompassing and sophisticated critique of mainstream media, higher education, pop culture, and political economy.
Prof. Steven Wexler
California State University, Northridge