Overview
- Provides a rich and in-depth account of political thinking around pop culture artefacts
- Discusses current debates with rationale that is distinctive in its move away from an identity based approach
- Explores complex material including Berlant’s cruel optimism, with commentary upon the wider international context
Part of the book series: Rhetoric, Politics and Society (RPS)
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Table of contents (5 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book explores the circulation of anger and hostility in contemporary American culture with particular attention to the fantasy of refusal, a dream of rejecting all the structures of the contemporary political and economic system. Framing the question of public sentiment through the lens of rhetorical studies, this book traces the circulation of symbols that craft public feelings in contemporary popular cinema. Analyzing popular twenty-first century films as invitations to a particular way of feeling, the book delves into the way popular sentiments are circulated and intensified. The book examines dystopian films (The Purge, The Cabin in the Woods), science fiction (Snowpiercer), and superhero narratives (the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Joker). Across these varied films, an affective economy that emphasizes grief, betrayal, refusal, and an underlying rage at the seeming hopelessness of contemporary culture is uncovered. These examinations are framedin terms of ongoing political protests ranging from Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, Black Lives Matter, and the 6th January 2021 invasion of the US Capitol Building.
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Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Kendall R. Phillips is Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University, USA. His publications include Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture (2005), Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter and the Modern Horror Film (2012) and A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema (2018).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: A Cinema of Hopelessness
Book Subtitle: The Rhetoric of Rage in 21st Century Popular Culture
Authors: Kendall R. Phillips
Series Title: Rhetoric, Politics and Society
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74136-5
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-74135-8Published: 28 September 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-74136-5Published: 27 September 2021
Series ISSN: 2947-5147
Series E-ISSN: 2947-5155
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 123
Number of Illustrations: 20 illustrations in colour
Topics: American Cinema and TV, Cultural Studies, Political Science