{"product_id":"surrealpolitik-surreality-and-the-national-security-state-9781785359491","title":"Surrealpolitik: Surreality and the National Security State","description":"\u003cp\u003eOur times are not just weird, but literally surreal: we live in a paranoid, increasingly authoritarian culture in which the real, the presumed and the purported are indistinguishable strands of a dense hallucinatory web of mediated spectacles. Surrealpolitik takes up cultural theorist Mark Fisher's challenge to expose capitalist realism's 'realism' as nothing of the sort. To subject the symbolic order to a surrealist mode of inquiry is to transgress taboos, reveal biases and inconsistencies, test assumptions and investigate the extent to which the real is, like our dreams - a fungible projection of our unconscious expectations. The nexus of dreams, hyperreality, paranoia, totalitarianism, terror, art, myth and culture is where realpolitik becomes the surrealpolitik of the title.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eJohn Schoneboom is the founding editor of Bratum Books' Uncommonalities series of short stories that share a common first line, to which he also shamelessly contributes his own efforts. He holds MAs in creative writing (Northumbria) and science, technology, and international affairs (George Washington University) and a BA focusing on US foreign policy in Central America (Hampshire College). Originally from New York, Schoneboom now resides in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Zero Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50922849272082,"sku":"9781785359491","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_e238170a-e6bb-4a6d-be97-d0880096effe.jpg?v=1738942006","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/surrealpolitik-surreality-and-the-national-security-state-9781785359491","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}