American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability

FAIN: FEL-288593-23

Russ Castronovo
University of Wisconsin, Madison (Madison, WI 53715-1218)

Research and writing for a book examining how early American conceptions of national security are expressed in its literature and other media.  

"American Insecurity" breaks down the concept of security by investigating its American origins and the structures of state as well as the structures of feeling that flow from what philosophers posit as the impetus to form a political community in the first place. The goal is to examine how security provides an organizing principle for collective life in ways that both enhance freedom and limit it. Through critical attention to a range of novels, tracts, pamphlets, and newspapers, including the complete run of the first Black newspaper in the United States, "Freedom’s Journal" (1827-29), in conjunction with contemporary critical theory about media, biopolitics, and affect, I look at how security’s generative capacity to provide a foundation for art and culture is matched only by its capacity to register a sense of vulnerability.  Edited for clarity by staff.

Media Coverage

podcast on "American Insecurity" (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Russ Castronovo
Publication: New Books Network
Date: 11/30/2023
Abstract: podcast about book
URL: http:/https://newbooksnetwork.com/american-insecurity-and-the-origins-of-vulnerability

Associated Products

American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability (Book)
Title: American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability
Author: Russ Castronovo
Abstract: For more than three centuries, Americans have pursued strategies of security that routinely make them feel vulnerable, unsafe, and insecure. American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability probes this paradox by examining American attachments to the terror of the sublime, the fear of uncertainty, and the anxieties produced by unending racial threat. Challenging conventional approaches that leave questions of security to policy experts, Russ Castronovo turns to literature, philosophy, and political theory to show how security provides an organizing principle for collective life in ways that both enhance freedom and limit it. His incisive critique ranges from frontier violence and white racial anxiety to insurgent Black print culture and other forms of early American terror, uncovering the hidden logic of insecurity that structures modern approaches to national defense, counterterrorism, cybersecurity, surveillance, and privacy. Drawing on examples from fiction, journalism, tracts, and pamphlets, Castronovo uncovers the deep affective attachments that Americans have had since the founding to the sources of fear and insecurity that make them feel unsafe. Timely and urgent, American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability sheds critical light on how and why the fundamental political desire for security promotes unease alongside assurance and fixates on risk and danger while clamoring for safety.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://search.worldcat.org/title/1355607927
Access Model: access through purchase of book or through library database
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780691249858
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Jeffersonian Trembling: White Nationalism and the Origins of Racial Insecurity.“ (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Jeffersonian Trembling: White Nationalism and the Origins of Racial Insecurity.“
Author: Russ Castronovo
Abstract: Keynote Address, “Voices & Agencies: America and the Atlantic, 1600–1865.” University of Duisburg-Essen
Date: 03/18/2024
Conference Name: Voices and Agencies

“American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability” (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: “American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability”
Author: Russ Castronovo
Abstract: seminar on book
Date Range: February 2024
Location: University of California, Los Angeles

American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability
Abstract: presentation at Wisconsin Book Festival
Author: Russ Castronovo
Date: 10/22/2023
Location: Madison Public Library

"American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability" (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: "American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability"
Abstract: lecture on book
Author: Russ Castronovo
Date: 03/03/2024
Location: University of Naples, L'Orientale

"American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability" (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: "American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability"
Abstract: lecture on book
Author: Russ Castronovo
Date: 03/05/2023
Location: University of Rome, Sapienza

Insecurity and Catastrophe (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Insecurity and Catastrophe
Author: Russ Castronovo
Author: Anna Brickhouse
Abstract: seminar on these concepts
Date Range: 03/18/2024
Location: C19: Conference of 19th Century Americanists

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