The Last Midnight: Essays on Apocalyptic Narratives in Millennial Media

by Leisa A. Clark (Editor), Amanda Firestone (Editor), Mary F. Pharr (Editor)

Overview

Do you find yourself contemplating the imminent end of the world? Do you wonder how society might reorganize itself to cope with global cataclysm? (Have you begun hoarding canned goods and ammunition...?)

Visions of an apocalypse began to dominate mass media well before the year 2000. Yet narratives since then present decidedly different spins on cultural anxieties about terrorism, disease, environmental collapse, worldwide conflict and millennial technologies.

Many of these concerns have been made metaphorical: zombie hordes embody fear of out-of-control appetites and encroaching disorder. Other fears, like the prospect of human technology's turning on its creators, seem more reality based. This collection of new essays explores apocalyptic themes in a variety of post-millennial media, including film, television, video games, webisodes and smartphone apps.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476625263
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	10/13/2016
Series:	Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy , #53
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	280
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Leisa A. Clark is a professor of arts and humanities, teaching diverse class subjects such as art history, media studies, and film history. She is the author of a variety of books, ranging from fictional comedic space opera to critical edited collections. She lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. Amanda Firestone is an assistant professor at the University of Tampa in the Department of Communication, teaching media studies and digital identity. Mary F. Pharr is a professor emeritus of English at Florida Southern College. She lives in Lakeland, Florida.
Leisa A. Clark is a professor of arts and humanities, teaching diverse class subjects such as art history, media studies, and film history. She is the author of a variety of books, ranging from fictional comedic space opera to critical edited collections. She lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Amanda Firestone is an assistant professor at the University of Tampa in the Department of Communication, teaching media studies and digital identity.
Mary F. Pharr is a professor emeritus of English at Florida Southern College. She lives in Lakeland, Florida.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
Amanda Firestone
Introduction (Mary F. Pharr, Leisa A. Clark and Amanda Firestone)
Prelude—We Don’t Want to Miss a Thing: Millennial
Technologies of Participation and Intimacy (Andrew McAlister)
I: Culture, Values and Anxiety
The South Will Rise Again: Contagion, War and Reconstruction in The Walking Dead, Seasons One Through Five (Angela Tenga)
The Recuperation of Wounded Hegemonic Masculinity
on Doomsday Preppers (Tiffany A. Christian)
The Last ­Non-Judgment: Postmodern Apocalypse
in Battlestar Galactica (Stephen Joyce)
The Emergence of the Lost Apocalypse from 28 Days Later to Snowpiercer (Mark McCarthy)
II. Globalization, Corporate Power and Class Struggles
Going Viral in a World Gone Global: How Contagion Reinvents the Outbreak Narrative (Dahlia Schweitzer)
The Second Coming of Left Behind and the Deglobalization
of Christian Apocalypse (Tim Bryant)
Corporate Abuse and Social Inequality in RoboCop and Fido
(Bill Clemente)
We Go Forward: An Inquiry into The Hunger Games
and Other ­Class-Based Dystopias in Millennial Cinema
(Lennart Soberon)
III. Memory and Identity
Determined About Determinism: Genetic Manipulation, Memory and Identity in Shaping the Postapocalyptic Self in Dark Angel and Divergent (Max Despain)
The Apocalyptic Mental Time Travel Film: Erasing Disaster in Edge of Tomorrow and ­X-Men: Days of Future Past (Ryan Lizardi)
In the Flesh: The Politics of Apocalyptic Memory (Frances Auld)
In Search of a New Paradise and the Construction of Hell
in The 100 (Ceren Mert and Amanda Firestone)
IV. Simulation, Psychology and Inevitability
The Apocalypse Will Not Take Place: Megamonster Films
(Cloverfield, Pacific Rim, Godzilla) in the Postmodern Age (Sharon Diane King)
Psychological Significance Within Postapocalyptic Film: Two Unique Approaches to Adaptation (Patrick L. Smith)
“To Err Is Human”: The Human Species and the Inevitable
Apocalypse in The World’s End (Mary F. Pharr)
V. Being Human in a ­Techno-Universe
More Man Than Machine: The Construction of Body
and Identity in Battlestar Galactica and Terminator: The
Sarah Connor Chronicles (Leisa A. Clark)
­Techno-Apocalypse: Technology, Religion and Ideology
in Bryan Singer’s H+ (Eddie Brennan)
Technoscience as Alien Invasion in XCOM: Enemy Within (Bjarke Liboriussen)
Running for My Life: Convergence Culture, Transmedia
Storytelling and Community Building in the Smartphone Application Zombies, Run! (Amanda Firestone)
Appendix: Apocalyptic Criticism, Films, Television Series
and Video Games (Leisa A. Clark, Mary F. Pharr and Amanda Firestone)
About the Contributors
Index