Politics Of The Highly Improbable: Anticipation, Catastrophe, Security

Abstract

This dissertation theorizes the politics of imagining future catastrophes and their effects on contemporary political life. Interpreting late-20th century theories of epistemology and power, it scrutinizes concerns about human insecurity and their involvement in cultural knowledge production. In its broadest sense, the research articulates the politics of how humans live (and die) today; but most critically, how such politics influence ideas as the central fabric of contemporary life. Focusing chiefly on Foucault’s notion of the dispositif, critical security studies, and untranslated thinkers in contemporary French philosophy, it conceptualizes concerns for protecting against future events. I characterize future catastrophes not as empirical realities in themselves – because they exist in the future, and therefore not at all – but as speculative constructions that nevertheless bear enormous political force. I argue that speculating about disasters animates widespread anxieties about safety and insecurity in the United States. I develop this thesis under the banner of “catastrophism,” which designates a rational orientation to future disaster and a pervasive preoccupation with insecurity and death. The concept illustrates the relationship between security expertise and political life, broadly conceived, as it is informed by imagining future catastrophes in cultural and political discourses.