Apocalypse TV: Essays on Society and Self at the End of the World

by Michael G. Cornelius (Editor), Sherry Ginn (Editor)

Overview

The end of the world may be upon us, but it certainly is taking its sweet time playing out. The walkers on The Walking Dead have been "walking" for nearly a decade. There are now dozens of apocalyptic television shows and we use the "end times" to describe everything from domestic politics and international conflict, to the weather and our views of the future.

This collection of new essays asks what it means to live in a world inundated with representations of the apocalypse. Focusing on such series as The Walking Dead, The Strain, Battlestar Galactica, Doomsday Preppers, Westworld, The Handmaid's Tale, they explore how the serialization of the end of the world allows for a closer examination of the disintegration of humanity--while it happens. Do these shows prepare us for what is to come? Do they spur us to action? Might they even be causing the apocalypse?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476678757
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	03/19/2020
Pages:	206
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.42(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michael G. Cornelius is a professor of English and director of the Master’s of Humanities program at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He is an award-winning novelist and the author or editor of numerous scholarly works.. Sherry Ginn is a retired educator currently living in North Carolina. She has authored books examining female characters on science fiction television series as well as the multiple television worlds of Joss Whedon. Edited collections have examined sex in science fiction, time travel, the apocalypse, and the award-winning series Farscape, Doctor Who, and Fringe.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Apocalyptic Saturations; or, The End of the World Will Not End Michael G. Cornelius Sherry Ginn 1

Apocalyptic Television, Hobbes's Moral Psychology and the Tenuous Nature of Liberal Democratic Values William S. Allen 23

Post-Apocalyptic Competition and Cooperation in The Handmaid's Tale and The Walking Dead Sherry Ginn 40

The Long Winter of Discontent: The Changing Society of Survivors Fernando-Gabriel Pagnoni Berns Juan Ignacio Juvé Emiliano Aguilar 58

Risk Without End? The Seriality of Risk, the Outbreak Narrative and Serial Post-Apocalypse in Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan's The Strain Sebastian Müller 71

Driven to Extinction, Again: Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and the Irresistible Apocalypse Tony Perrello C. Anne Engert 86

The End of Everything: Survival Narratives and Everyday Heroism in Battlestar Galactica E. Leigh McKagen 102

Apocalypse(s) Already: Doomsday Preppers at the End of The(ir) Worlds JZ Long 113

Reinvesting in the Rapture: Apocalypse and Faith in The Leftovers Christina Wilkins 124

Social Life and Death in The Leftovers: Surviving the Personal Apocalypse Derek R. Sweet 137

"How many times have I died?": Time Loops, Post-Human Reversion and the Editable Self in The Magicians Michael G. Cornelius 149

Westworld and the Apocalyptic Cycle Adam Ellerbrock 163

Postnatural Comedy in The Last Man on Earth John Ella 174

Appendix 1 Apocalypse Television Series 185

Appendix 2 "Darkness" Lord Byron 189

About the Contributors 191

Index 195