Settler colonial PSYOPS: Desmond Hassing, Settler Dreams and Affective Warfare: The Communications Campaign that Formatted the United States of America, PhD dissertation, University of California San Diego / University of California Irvine, 2024 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler colonial PSYOPS: Desmond Hassing, Settler Dreams and Affective Warfare: The Communications Campaign that Formatted the United States of America, PhD dissertation, University of California San Diego / University of California Irvine, 2024

06Jul24

Abstract: “Settler Dreams and Affective Warfare: The Communications Campaign that Formatted the United States of America” proposes a methodology of analysis which (re)considers cultural products as intentional war messaging, or what is commonly referred to in military circles, as psychological operations (PSYOPS). By conducting a close reading of Indigenous representation, and the rhetoric that surrounded its production in the films, mascots, and comic books of the 20th and 21st century, this dissertation argues that the purpose of what we think of as Indian tropes was to further a wartime message of national identity creation, and further that cultural products are the best strategic weapon available to minoritarian subjects in the present for altering national identity formation.

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