Freedom's Multi-Levels: Aesthetics of Spiritual Hustle in Liberal Political Economies

This roundtable considers the presidential theme of “freedom” in light of current work on religion, economy, and popular culture. We are interested in conceptions of freedom produced by capitalism in recent decades and how they circulate through new kinds of work and related popular media. Drawing on our current research on multi-level marketing, life coaching, sales seminars, influencing, and personal branding, we examine the rise of these corporate forms and associated cultures of entrepreneurial hustle in contexts of wage stagnation, waning upward mobility, and rising inequality. Together, we ask: How do the aesthetics of entrepreneurial hustle negotiate the complicated and often contradictory senses of freedom produced by capitalism? Considering various entrepreneurial networks and lifestyle media, we explore how our discipline(s) can help think through the way capitalism's utopian promises of freedom are produced and experienced on aesthetic, affective, and bodily levels, even in states of economic precarity.