Abstract
This essay considers the changing relationship between asbestos and populism, as both terms travel across different semantic contexts. It argues that this dynamic relationship can help to outline a populist ecology, through which resource actors such as asbestos play a more significant role than either populist leaders or their people anticipate. Drawing on David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest as a site for examining the implications of this asbestos-inflected populist ecology, the essay suggests new ways of linking the recent populism of Donald Trump to an older, more articulate populism, exemplified by Pierre Trudeau.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 339-354 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies |
Volume | 21 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 29 Jul 2020 |
Keywords
- Infinite Jest
- asbestos
- populism
- Donald Trump
- Pierre Trudeau