Un-American Dreams
Apocalyptic Science Fiction, Disimagined Community, and Bad Hope in the American Century
Published on 1. May 2022
Book
Hardback
264 pages
978-1-80085-466-6 (ISBN)
Description
After the end, the world will be un-American. This speculation forms the nucleus of Un-American Dreams, a study of US apocalyptic science fiction and the cultural politics of disimagined community in the short century of American superpower, 1945-2001. Between the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which helped to transform the United States into a superpower and initiated the Cold War, and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which spelled the Cold War's second death and inaugurated the War on Terror, apocalyptic science fiction returned again and again to the scene of America's negation. During the American Century, to imagine yourself as American and as a participant in a shared national culture meant disimagining the most powerful nation on the planet. Un-American Dreams illuminates how George R. Stewart, Philip K. Dick, George A. Romero, Octavia Butler, and Roland Emmerich represented the impossibility of reforming American society and used figures of the end of the world as speculative pretexts to imagine the utopian possibilities of an un-American world. The American Century was simultaneously a closure of the path to utopia and an escape route into apocalyptic science fiction, the underground into which figures of an alternative future could be smuggled.
Reviews / Votes
'The tone throughout ties together the impressive mix of genre theory, cultural interpretation, political commentary, intellectual history, and biography. It balances critical theory with interpretation and argument in the exegesis of its five central texts/ideological formations. It is a pleasure to think with and a delight to read. Un-American Dreams is worth reading for those interested in the complex workings of hope for and deferral of radical alternatives to the present state of things. It is a coherent and cohesive project that presents deep research on its material from solid footing in a critical tradition. For these reasons and more, it is worth thinking with Ramirez about how to resuscitate hope the hard way, through an immanent critique of hope's shadowy form in apocalyptic sf of the American century.' Brent Ryan Bellamy, Science Fiction Studies 'Un-American Dreams is a landmark work of cultural-historical scholarship with extraordinary utility for scholars, teachers, and students examining late twentieth-century apocalyptic fantasy.'David M. Higgins, American Literary History 'Un-American Dreams is a success both as a work of interpretive close reading and one of pop-cultural history, as it challenges its readers to consider (pseudo-)apocalyptic science fiction beyond the easy scholarly cliches that have proliferated over the past half-century and to entertain the possibility that the utopian mode may not be quite as dead as is often assumed.' Alan Mattli, Amerikastudien
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Liverpool
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 163 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-80085-466-6 (9781800854666)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
J. Jesse Ramirez is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland.
Content
Preface The Dreams in Which I'm Dying
Introduction The Uses of Pseudo-Apocalypse
Chapter 1 The Last American: Earth Abides, Speculative Anthropology, and Settler Utopianism
Chapter 2 The Revelation of Philip K. Dick
Chapter 3 National Insecurity in Night of the Living Dead
Chapter 4 How to Bring Your Kids Up Alien: Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis Trilogy
Chapter 5 Waiting for the Martians: Independence Day and the Second American Century
Conclusion Pseudo-Apocalypse after the American Century
Introduction The Uses of Pseudo-Apocalypse
Chapter 1 The Last American: Earth Abides, Speculative Anthropology, and Settler Utopianism
Chapter 2 The Revelation of Philip K. Dick
Chapter 3 National Insecurity in Night of the Living Dead
Chapter 4 How to Bring Your Kids Up Alien: Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis Trilogy
Chapter 5 Waiting for the Martians: Independence Day and the Second American Century
Conclusion Pseudo-Apocalypse after the American Century