At the heart of Richard Seymour’s new book Disaster Nationalism there is a disquieting dynamic equation: the far right has found ways to profit politically from disaster, and in the coming years we will see disasters increasing in frequency and intensity. We can expect the fortunes of the far right to keep rising as the disasters pile up.

If we are, as Seymour argues in Disaster Nationalism, “in the early days of a new fascism,” then we must respond to the social forces producing Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Narendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Rodrigo Duterte before their politics crystallises much further. While it is easy to be disoriented or simply outraged by the viciousness and clownishness of these and other figures, Seymour shows these traits are features of their appeal. Exploiting social fragmentation and political dealignment, they have learned to speak to the immense frustrations and resentments of late capitalist life. Liberals blame working class racism, disinformation and ‘foreign’ trolls, and the inherent attraction of strongman leaders for the success of the new far right. But we must look deeper to understand disaster nationalism, whose primary base is downwardly mobile layers of the middle class, and which metastasises in conditions of economic strife, environmental breakdown, and disfigured social life. As parties of the centre left continue to discredit themselves in the face of the threat, the crisis of liberalism may present opportunities for a politics equipped to confront the new far right.

Join Jeff Sparrow and Richard Seymour (appearing online) for a discussion of Disaster Nationalism and the rise of the new far right. This event is co-hosted by the Critical Research Association at the University of Melbourne and New International Bookshop.

Copies of Disaster Nationalism will be on sale on the day.

Book cover of Disaster Nationalism by Richard Seymour with the blurred fire against dark sky on the background.

About the speakers

Richard Seymour is an author and founding editor of Salvage. His latest book is Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilisation, out now with Verso.

Jeff Sparrow is a senior lecturer at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne. He is a writer, editor, broadcaster and Walkley award-winning journalist.

Enquiries

Please send your enquiries to Dr Joe Hughes via joseph.hughes@unimelb.edu.au.

If you have any support requirements in order to participate fully, please contact us via scc-events@unimelb.edu.au.

Image credit: Guido Jansen, Flames in the fireplace, 2017. Open access on Unsplash.com.