Post-Catastrophe Film

Stephen Lee Naish is a British-born writer, visual artist, and author of several books of nonfiction. Steve's work has appeared in Aquarium Drunkard, Film International, The Quietus, Archetype, Dirty Movies, Drunk Monkeys, Cosmonaut, Albumism, and other online and in-print journals and zines. He lives in Ontario, Canada.

'Post-Catastrophe Film is a serious engagement with how the end of the world is represented in science fiction. Stephen Lee Naish's analysis asks us to consider what catastrophic films are trying to tell us about our contemporary moment, underneath the spectacle and the rubble. From insistences on carrying on with daily life, indulging in individualist fantasies of frontiersmanship, escaping sacrifice zones, witnessing the slow degradation of everything, to the helpless yearning for heroic intervention. Naish asks us to confront our shared exposure and consider what we have to collectively lose – or gain.'

• List of Figures AcknowledgmentsPreludeIntroduction: The Slow-Motion Catastrophe A Primer to Understanding Post-Catastrophe FilmsSmall Screen Apocalypse: Examples of Post-Catastrophe FilmsDoes Technology Envision Our Annihilation? The Role of Artificial Intelligence, Simulated Dreamworlds, and Augmented Robots, and Cyborgs in Post-Catastrophe NarrativesCosmic Post-Catastrophe: Escaping our Planet and Colonizing OthersThe Optimistic Apocalypse: Star Trek as Post-Catastrophe NarrativeA Sense of an Ending: Envisioning the Absolute Destruction of Everything The Lonely Planet: On Being the Last Person on EarthBeing Normal in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Living Among Gods, Monsters, and Superheroes ConclusionWhy Post-Catastrophe Narratives MatterNotesIndex