Hoarders, Doomsday Preppers, and the Culture of Apocalypse

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vi

   PDF

2. Disposable Bodies

   • Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

   Pages 1-19

3. Bunker Mentality

   • Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

   Pages 20-31

4. Buy Before You Die

   • Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

   Pages 32-43

5. Embracing the Apocalypse

   • Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

   Pages 44-59

6. The End of the Future

   • Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

   Pages 60-69

7. Back Matter

   Pages 70-78

   PDF

The culture of twenty-first century America revolves around narcissistic death, violence, and visions of doom. Foster explores this culture of the apocalypse, from hoarding and gluttony to visions of the post-apocalyptic world.

• apocalyptic
• culture
• violence

"Foster, an avowed radical environmentalist, turns a dark lens on film and television of the last 60 years . . . Foster's firstperson observations and reactions enliven these topics but not nearly so much as the repeated use of such phrases as 'family friendly torture porn.' . . . This book will intrigue those interested in media studies. Summing Up: Recommended. Upperdivision undergraduates and graduate students." - CHOICE

"Gwendolyn Audrey Foster writes passionately about the debased media-scape of our death-worshipping culture. She probes into our collective fascination with an Earth without us, even as we continue activities that are sure to lead to yet more ecological devastation and mass extinction. Hoarders, Doomsday Preppers, and the Culture of Apocalypse is not a comforting book, but it is an eloquent call from a voice crying in the wilderness: a warning that we ignore at our peril." Steven Shaviro, DeRoy Professor, English, Wayne State University, USA

"In this urgent and important book, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster exposes and explores the multiform obscenities - of violence, wealth, consumption, ownership, avarice, aggression, and more - that infect the politics, businesses, entertainments, and mentalities of today's narcissistic, fear-peddling, death-celebrating culture, shining a laser-sharp spotlight on excesses of sexism, neo-liberalism, speciesism, capitalism, and nationalism in the contemporary media." - David Sterritt, Columbia University, USA

"In her newest book, Hoarders, Doomsday Preppers, and the Culture of Apocalypse, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster explores the excesses of late-capitalist American consumerism; her exploration of media representation of gluttony, hoarding, waste, and debt is compelling reading for anyone interested in contemporary popular culture." - Patrice Petro, Professor, English, Film Studies, and Global Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA

"Gwendolyn Audrey Foster challenges us to confront the apocalyptic narratives of our time in her engaging and thought-provoking book. Through our desire for what she terms 'apocotainment' - the apocalypse as entertainment for the masses - we eagerly digest the mediatized horrors of our planet's ecological destruction on screen as we continue to deny it as reality in our own front yards. Foster's book is a wakeup call to take notice of the preciousness of our common humanity, before we confront the death of our planet in real life." - Valérie K. Orlando, Professor, French and Francophone Literature and Film, University of Maryland, USA

• University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA

  Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

Gwendolyn Audrey Foster is Willa Cather Chair in English and Film in the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA.

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