- Final Abstract: In no more than 150 words, provide the abstract for your final project.
Militarization, especially on it’s observed scale within the United States, is a particularly difficult subject to study. The ubiquitous nature of the military’s influence across popular culture produces a taken-for-granted level of ignorance across demographics. Glorification of the military has simply become so normalized and widely present that younger generations know no other commonality. In many, or even the majority of, countries across the world, this sort of military fetishization and commercialization is simply not present. This paper then will serve to disclose a variety of different sectors which have succumb to military influence, explaining the inherent interconnected nature this influence has to the neoliberalization and specifically focusing on the post 9/11 era, where positive sentiment towards the military across the public was a central, crucial goal of the government. In doing so, such industries such as Hollywood, higher education, and private security forces will be explored and backed by statistics from the public budgetary record and accounting.
Comments
Thanks for the abstract, Devon. I have one concern regarding your project: if I understood you correctly, you want to show the link between militarization and neoliberalism by looking at three spheres: Hollywood, higher, education, and private security. This sounds like an ambitious project, which I appreciate. But keep in mind that when you analyze these sphere, you have to show not only how these spheres have been subject to militarization but also to neoliberalism and then connect these two to each other. So please do not lose sight of your main goal of showing the link between neoliberalism and militarization.
Also, try to avoid making such sweeping generalizations ” Glorification of the military has simply become so normalized and widely present that younger generations know no other commonality.” I am sure different demographic groups have different relationships to the glorification of the military in the US (especially after the Iraq War).