Jesse Kavadlo

Bringing together the most popular genres of the 21st century, this book argues that Americans have entered a new era of narrative dominated by the fear—and wish fulfillment—of the breakdown of authority and terror itself. 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. Kavadlo's single-author, thesis-driven book makes the case 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 September 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.

Falling Skies, Dark Knights Rising, and Collapsing Cultures

American Popular Culture in the Era of Terror

Bob Batchelor

Author Michael Chabon is acutely attuned to life in contemporary America, providing insight into the history of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in novels such as The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), Wonder Boys (1995), and Telegraph Avenue (2012). The Pulitzer prize–winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Chabon follows in the footsteps of past stylists, writing across multiple genres that include young-adult literature, essays, and screenplays. Despite his broad success, however, Chabon’s work has not been adequately examined from a critical perspective. Michael Chabon’s America: Magical Words, Secret Worlds, and Sacred Spaces is the first scholarly collection of essays analyzing the work of the acclaimed author. This book demonstrates how Chabon uses a broad range of styles and genres, including detective and comic book fiction, to define the American experience. These essays assess and analyze Chabon’s complete oeuvre, demonstrating his deep connection to the contemporary world and his place as a literary force. Providing a context for understanding the author’s work from cultural, historical, and stylistic perspectives, Michael Chabon’s America is a valuable study of a celebrated author whose work deserves close examination.

Magical Words, Secret Worlds, and Sacred Spaces

Michael Chabon's America

Don DeLillo - winner of the National Book Award, the William Dean Howells Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize - is one of the most important novelists of the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. While his work can be understood and taught as prescient and postmodern examples of millennial culture, this book argues that DeLillo's recent novels - White Noise, Libra, Mao II, Underworld, and The Body Artist - are more concerned with spiritual crisis. Although DeLillo's worlds are rife with rejection of belief and littered with faithfulness, estrangement, and desperation, his novels provide a balancing moral corrective against the conditions they describe. Speaking the vernacular of contemporary America, DeLillo explores the mysteries of what it means to be human.

Balance at the Edge of Belief

Don DeLillo

Don DeLillo is one of the most important novelists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Yet despite DeLillo's prolific output and scholarly recognition, much of the attention has gone to his works individually, rather than collectively or thematically. This volume provides separate entries into the wide variety and categories of contexts that surround and help illuminate DeLillo's writings. Don DeLillo in Context examines how geography, biography, history, media studies, culture, philosophy, and the writing process provide critical frameworks and ways of reading and understanding DeLillo's prodigious body of work.

Don DeLillo in Context

Bringing together the most popular genres of the 21st century, this book argues that Americans have entered a new era of narrative dominated by the fear—and wish fulfillment—of the breakdown of authority and terror itself. • Provides an interesting new framework in which to examine popular culture • Examines films, television shows, and primary texts such as novels for evidence of cultural anxiety and a preoccupation with terror • Offers insightful and original interpretations of primary texts • Suggests possible conclusions about cultural anxiety regarding breakdowns of tradition and authority

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

Michael Chabon’s America: Magical Words, Secret Worlds, and Sacred Spaces is the first comprehensive scholarly collection analyzing the work of acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon. At its core, the book demonstrates how Chabon uses a broad range of styles and genres, including detective and comic book fiction and essays and other works of nonfiction, to get at the heart of defining the American experience. As a result, Michael Chabon’s America provides context and exploration for understanding the author’s work from cultural, historical, and stylistic perspectives by scholars from five continents, revealing Chabon’s deep global impact.

Jesse Kavadlo

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