Escape Into the Future
Cultural Pessimism and Its Religious Dimension in Contemporary American Popular Culture
Published on 30. October 2007
Book
Paperback/Softback
333 pages
978-1-932792-52-2 (ISBN)
Description
Escape into the Future analyzes the power of pessimism, showing links between present-day religious pessimism and the nihilism of popular culture. Stroup and Shuck rummage through an interesting and eclectic body of pop culture--from Fight Club to X-Files to the Left Behind series--pointing out the presence of pessimistic themes throughout. This volume identifies and illuminates the religious language used in these works to articulate America's need to escape from its present cultural path and, ultimately, provide hope that it might do so.
Reviews / Votes
From X-Files and Left Behind to Fight Club and New Age writing, Stroup and Shuck map out a trajectory of growing cultural cynicism embedded within escape fantasies. Such cultural-political pessimism might still be a minority viewpoint in America, but as a variety of real-world correlatives hint, it could also be "near-term cultural prophecy." Here is provocative and engaged reading at its best. --Robert K. Johnston, Professor of Theology and Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary The strength of the volume lies in the popular culture material that the authors cover, much of which still has resonance with undergraduate students... Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through graduate students. -- CHOICEMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Waco
United States
Dimensions
Height: 227 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
490 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-932792-52-2 (9781932792522)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
John M. Stroup | Glenn W. Shuck
Escape into the Future
Cultural Pessimism and its Religious Dimension in Contemporary American Popular Culture
E-Book
08/2008
Baylor University Press
€53.99
Available for download
Persons
Glenn W. Shuck is Assistant Professor of Religion at Williams College.John M. Stroup is Harry and Hazel Chavanne Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University.
Content
1. Secret Agents: Visions of Escape, Glimpses of Hope
2. Do We Still Want to Believe?: The X-Files and the American Struggle with Progressive Action
3. Perhaps Today: The Dialectic of Despair and Activism in Popular Evangelical Literature
4. God's Unwanted: Fight Club and the Myth of ""Total Revolution""
5. Relocating the American Dream: The Challenges and Ambiguities of Contemporary Cultural Pessimism
6. The Quest for a Real-World Correlate Sightings of Cultural Pessimism in the Domains of Scholarship and Journalism
7. The Question of Real-World Correlates to Fantasy Processes of Decline: The Deep Structure of Decay, or, Descent into the Engine Room of the RMS Titanic
Epilogue-Into the Great Wide Open
2. Do We Still Want to Believe?: The X-Files and the American Struggle with Progressive Action
3. Perhaps Today: The Dialectic of Despair and Activism in Popular Evangelical Literature
4. God's Unwanted: Fight Club and the Myth of ""Total Revolution""
5. Relocating the American Dream: The Challenges and Ambiguities of Contemporary Cultural Pessimism
6. The Quest for a Real-World Correlate Sightings of Cultural Pessimism in the Domains of Scholarship and Journalism
7. The Question of Real-World Correlates to Fantasy Processes of Decline: The Deep Structure of Decay, or, Descent into the Engine Room of the RMS Titanic
Epilogue-Into the Great Wide Open