CULT Seminar: Amy Kaplan(University of Pennsylvania)
FACULTY OF
ARTS and
SOCIAL
SCIENCES
CULTURAL
STUDIES PROGRAM
Speaker Series
A lecture by
Amy Kaplan
Edward W. Kane Professor of English
University of Pennsylvania
March, 19, 2008, Wednesday
16:30
Sabancı Üniversitesi
Karaköy Kampüsü
"In the Name of Homeland Security"
This
lecture explores the multiple meanings of the keywords “homeland” and
“security” in contemporary political culture in the U.S. The word
“homeland,” despite its ancient ring” is strikingly new in the post 9/11
political lexicon, and it has xenophobic and racial implications as well as
gendered connotations that merge the image of the private home with the
national homeland. The ubiquity of the word “security” has come to
encompass more and more realms of social, psychic, economic, existential, and
political life. In contrast to “defense,” “security” breaks down the boundaries
between the domestic and the foreign, between inside and outside, the private
and the public as it enables the merging of the military, border patrol, and
police. How does security rely on the evocation of insecurity and
reinforce the exercise of state violence? This paper presents a
historical and cultural genealogy of this concept starting with a brief
consideration of its significance in 18th century political
philosophy. I then ask about the relation between the idea of social
security—in its broadest sense of common welfare—and the idea of national
security—with its emphasis on militarism and intelligence, and how these come
together in the recent creation of the Homeland Security Department.
Whereas David Harvey has written of “freedom” as the keyword of neoliberalism,
I argue that “security” has supplanted “freedom” as a discursive engine for
U.S. imperialism in the response to the ravages of neoliberal globalization.
It does the work of projecting, blurring and combining perceived
overlapping threats: “urban criminals,” “illegal aliens,” and “terrorists,” all
of which have racial connotations. Some of my examples include:
·
Parallels between the language of Bush’s National Security Statement of 2002
and brochures for home security systems;
·
The shift from “Operation Iraqi Freedom” to the “Security Plan for Bagdad”
·
The relation between the new “Border Fence” between the US and Mexico and
Israel’s “Security Fence” around Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
In each case, I pay attention to the
relation between language and space and suggest that security is about temporal
as well as geopolitical expansion temporal as well as geopolitical expansion.