Overview
Kecia Ali's Human in Death explores the best-selling futuristic suspense series In Death, written by romance legend Nora Roberts under the pseudonym J. D. Robb. Centering on troubled NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her billionaire tycoon husband Roarke, the novels explore vital questions about human flourishing. Through close readings of more than fifty novels and novellas published over two decades, Ali analyzes the ethical world of Robb's New York circa 2060. Robb compellingly depicts egalitarian relationships, satisfying work, friendships built on trust, and an array of models of femininity and family. At the same time, the series' imagined future replicates some of the least admirable aspects of contemporary society. Sexual violence, police brutality, structural poverty and racism, and government surveillance persist in Robb's fictional universe, raising urgent moral challenges. So do ordinary ethical quandaries around trust, intimacy, and interdependence in marriage, family, and friendship. Ali celebrates the series' ethical successes, while questioning its critical moral omissions. She probes the limits of Robb's imagined world and tests its possibilities for fostering identity, meaning, and mattering of human relationships across social difference. Ali capitalizes on Robb's futuristic fiction to reveal how careful and critical reading is an ethical act.
Full Product Details
Author: Kecia Ali
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Imprint: Baylor University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 13.90cm
, Height: 2.50cm
, Length: 21.50cm
Weight: 0.396kg
ISBN: 9781481306270
ISBN 10: 1481306278
Pages: 206
Publication Date: 01 February 2017
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
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Reviews
...Ali's book shows the rich possibilities of analysis that crime fiction offers its readers.--Heta Pyrhonen Clues
...Ali's book shows the rich possibilities of analysis that crime fiction offers its readers. --Heta Pyrhonen Clues
...Ali's book shows the rich possibilities of analysis that crime fiction offers its readers. -- Heta Pyrhoenen -- Clues
...Ali's book shows the rich possibilities of analysis that crime fiction offers its readers. -- Heta Pyrhoenen -- Clues In each chapter, Ali displays a sure command of Robbas oeuvre, of relevant popular romance scholarship, and of contemporary debates among readers. She avoids both dense academic jargon and fannish minutia, creating an accessible text for educated lay readers and a compelling one for scholars of popular romance fiction who do not share her encyclopedic knowledge of all 15,000 or so pages of the In Death books. -- Jessica Miller -- The Journal of Popular Romance Studies / Popular Romance Project
Author Information
Kecia Ali is Associate Professor of Religion at Boston University.
