Overview

From Outbreak to The Walking Dead, apocalyptic narratives of infection, contagion, and a global pandemic are an inescapable part of twenty-first-century popular culture. Yet, these fears and fantasies are too virulent to be simply quarantined within fictional texts; vocabulary and metaphors from outbreak narratives have now infiltrated how news media, policymakers, and the general public view the real world and the people within it. In an age where fact and fiction seem increasingly difficult to separate, contagious bodies (and the discourses that contain them) continually blur established boundaries between real and unreal, legitimacy and frivolity, science, and the supernatural. Where previous scholarly work has examined the spread of epidemic realities in horror fiction, the essays in this collection also consider how epidemic fantasies and fears influence reality. Bringing scholarship from cultural and media studies into conversation with scholarship from the medical humanities and social sciences, Embodying Contagion aims to give readers a fuller picture of the viropolitics of contagious bodies in contemporary global culture.  

Full Product Details

Author:   Sandra Becker ,  Megen de Bruin-Mole ,  Sara Polak
Publisher:   University of Wales Press
Imprint:   University of Wales Press
ISBN:  

9781786836908

ISBN 10:   1786836904
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   15 April 2021
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors Preface Embodying the Fantasies and Realities of Contagion Part I: Epidemic Fantasies in Reality Chapter 1: The Krokodil Drug Menace, Cross-Genre Body Horror, and the Zombie Apocalypse Chapter 2: Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic and the Ebola Scare - How the CDC's Use of Zombie Pop Culture Helped Fan a Nationalist Outbreak Narrative Chapter 3: The Zika Virus, Ebola Contagion Narratives, and U.S. Obsessions with Securitizing Neglected Infectious Diseases Chapter 4: An Affectionate Epidemic: How Disability Goes Viral on Social Media Chapter 5: 'Fatties Cause Global Warming': The Strange Entanglement of Obesity and Climate Change Part II: Epidemic Realities in Fantasy Chapter 6: 'Time is of the Essence, Doctor': Twenty-First Century (Post-)Apocalyptic Fiction, White Fatherhood, and Anti-Intellectual Tendencies in FX's The Strain Chapter 7: Killable Hordes, Chronic Others, and 'Mindful' Consumers: Rehabilitating the Zombie in Twenty-First-Century Popular Culture Chapter 8: Networks, Desire, and Risk Management in Gay Contagion Fiction Chapter 9: This Long Disease, My Life:' AIDS Activism and Contagious Bodies in Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me Chapter 10: The Epidemic of History: Contagion of the Past in the Era of the Never-Ending Present 'Contagion Contagion': Viral Metaphors, Lockdown and Suffering Economies in the COVID-19 Pandemic Bibliography

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Author Information

This collection will be suitable for undergraduates in cultural theory, literature and media studies, and the social sciences, as an introduction to global apocalypse, viropolitics, and the contagious body in contemporary culture. Each chapter will briefly introduce viropolitics as it applies to a specific topic, outlining a field, method, and methodology. The rest of the chapter will then turn to a specific case study (or studies), by way of illustration.

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