Description
Twenty-first century American television series such as Revolution, Falling Skies, The Last Ship and The Walking Dead have depicted a variety of doomsday scenarios--nuclear cataclysm, rogue artificial intelligence, pandemic, alien invasion or zombie uprising. These scenarios speak to longstanding societal anxieties and contemporary calamities like 9/11 or the avian flu epidemic.
Questions about post-apocalyptic television abound: whose voices are represented? What tomorrows are they most afraid of? What does this tell us about the world we live in today? The author analyzes these speculative futures in terms of gender, race and sexuality, revealing the fears and ambitions of a patriarchy in flux, as exemplified by the "return" to a mythical American frontier where the white male hero fights for survival, protects his family and crafts a new world order based on the old.
About the Author
Carlen Lavigne, Ph.D. (communications studies), teaches at Red Deer College in Alberta, Canada, and has published works on genre fiction, gender, queer studies and television.
Reviews
"Meticulous work done to clarify characters, relationships, and events in the shows... The book's clarity reinforces its usefulness-scholars examining a particular show will be able to navigate the subsections almost instantly...recommended"-Science Fiction Studies
Book Information
ISBN 9780786499069
Author Carlen Lavigne
Format Paperback
Page Count 194
Imprint McFarland & Co Inc
Publisher McFarland & Co Inc
Weight(grams) 254g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 10mm
