Fiction of Dread

<p><b>A history and examination of dystopia and angst in popular culture that speaks to our current climate of dread.</b> <p/>At the dawn of the 20th century a wide-ranging utopianism dominated popular and intellectual cultures throughout Europe and America. However in the aftermathof the World Wars with such canonical examples as <i>Brave New World </i>and<i> Nineteen-</i><i>Eighty-Four</i> dystopia emerged as a dominant genre in literature and in social thought. The continuing presence and eventual dominance of dystopian themes in popular culture-e.g. dismal authoritarian future states sinister global conspiracies post-apocalyptic landscapes a proliferation of horrific monsters and end-of-the-world fantasies-have confirmed the degree to which the 21st is also a dystopian century. <p/>Drawing on literature as varied as H.G. Wells's <i>The Time Machine</i> Neil Gaiman's <i>American Gods</i> and Suzanne Collins's <i>The Hunger Games</i> and on TV and film such as <i>The Walking Dead Black Mirror</i> and <i>The Last of Us</i> Robert T. Tally Jr. explores the landscape of angst created by the monstrous accumulation of dystopian material. <i>The Fiction of Dread</i> provides an innovative reading of contemporary culture and offers an alternative vision for critical theory and practice at a moment when as has been famously observed it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.</p>