American Popular Culture in the Era of Terror: Falling Skies, Dark Knights Rising, and Collapsing Cultures

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Biographical Note: Jesse Kavadlo, PhD, is professor of English at Maryville University of St. Louis. Commendation Quotes: "Writing about the 'era of terror, ' Jesse Kavadlo strikes just the right note: the abortive rhyme of that phrase seems to promise the comfort of periodization yet leaves an aural residue of disquiet. His mind well-stocked, his eye attentive to significant detail and big picture alike, the author explores a satisfying range of texts--those grappling directly with the horror of 9/11, as well as those imbued with a dread traceable to that climacteric. Featuring substantial consideration of such disparate yet related material as the "Lost" television series and the "Hunger Games" and "Twilight" books and movies, not to mention the "Dark Knight" trilogy and the fictions of Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy, and Chuck Palahniuk, Kavadlo's study of the 9/11 legacy in our popular and literary culture is not only wide-ranging--it is informed, entertaining, insightful, learned, and highly, highly readable."Commendation Quotes: "Jesse Kavadlo's masterful study of post-9/11 terror exposes the deep fear and anguish at the heart of contemporary popular culture. With spellbinding writing and broad research, Kavadlo shows us the links between terror and the fear of a dystopian future. This is cultural criticism at its finest--reaching meaningfully into the past to chart a pathway for the future."Commendation Quotes: Skillful and smart, this book is both an accessible and welcome addition to the literature on post-9/11 media and culture. One of the few books to seamlessly discuss trends across novels, comics, film, television, and other popular culture, Kavadlo deftly engages what it means to live in a world that has been indelibly changed, and is constantly attempting to work through those changes in ways that we don't always expect."Publisher Marketing: Bringing together disparate and popular genres of the 21st century, "American Popular Culture in the Era of Terror: Falling Skies, Dark Knights Rising, and Collapsing Cultures" argues that popular culture has been preoccupied by fantasies and narratives dominated by the anxiety --and, strangely, the wish fulfillment--that comes from the breakdowns of morality, family, law and order, and storytelling itself. From aging superheroes to young adult dystopias, heroic killers to lustrous vampires, the figures of our fiction, film, and television again and again reveal and revel in the imagery of terror. Bringing together disparate and popular genres of the 21st century, Kavadlo's single-author, thesis-driven book argues that many of the novels and films about September 11, 2001, have been about much more than terrorism alone, while popular stories that may not seem related to September 11 are deeply connected to it. The book examines New York novels written in response to 9/11 along with the anti-heroes of television and the resurgence of zombies and vampires in film and fiction to draw a correlation between Kavadlo's "Era of Terror" and the events of September 11, 2001. Geared toward college students, graduate students, and academics interested in popular culture, the book connects multiple topics to appeal to a wide audience.