Saturday, July 5, 2014

Hoarders, Doomsday Preppers, and the Culture of Apocalypse



Hoarders, Doomsday Preppers, and the Culture of Apocalypse


Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

The culture of twenty-first century America largely revolves around narcissistic death, violence, and visions of doom. As people are bombarded with amoral metanarratives that display an almost complete lack of empathy for others on television, in films, and on the internet, their insatiable appetite for excessive pain and routine death reflects an embrace of an endlessly warring culture. Foster explores this culture of the apocalypse, from hoarding and gluttony to visions of the post-apocalyptic world.

Gwendolyn Audrey Foster is Professor of Film Studies and English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her books include A Short History of Film (with Wheeler Winston Dixon, 2008, 2013), Performing Whiteness (2003), and Class-Passing: Social Mobility in Film and Popular Culture (2005). For a full list of her publications visit www.gwendolynaudreyfoster.com.

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