Celebration Capitalism: The London Olympics and Its Discontents

Event description

This talk examines 'celebration capitalism', the affable cousin of Naomi Klein's 'disaster capitalism'. First, Boykoff will explain precisely what he means by 'celebration capitalism' before pointing to key historical moments in its emergence. Then he'll look at how celebration capitalism is playing out in London and how activists are responding.

Speaker: Jules Boykoff is the author of Activism and the Olympics: Dissent at the Games in Vancouver and London (Rutgers University Press, forthcoming) and The Suppression of Dissent: How the State and Mass Media Squelch USAmerican Social Movements (Routledge, 2006). His writing on the Olympics has appeared recently in New Left Review, The Guardian, The Nation, Human Geography, and elsewhere. He is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Brighton’s Chelsea School of Sport. In August, he will return to Pacific University in Oregon (USA) where he is an Associate Professor of Political Science.