Post-apocalyptic culture
Subtitle: modernism, postmodernism, and the twentieth-century novel
By: Teresa Heffernan.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Toronto
Language: eng
Number of pages: 208
ISBN-13: 9780802098153
Subjects: English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism; American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Modernism (Literature); Postmodernism (Literature); Apocalypse in literature; Order in literature; Redemption in literature
Description: "In Post-Apocalyptic Culture, Teresa Heffernan poses the question: what is at stake in a world that no longer believes in the power of the end? Although popular discourse increasingly understands apocalypse as synonymous with catastrophe, historically, in both its religious and secular usage, apocalypse was intricately linked to the emergence of a better world, to revelation, and to disclosure." "In this interdisciplinary study, Heffernan uses modernist and postmodernist novels as evidence of the diminished faith in the existence of an inherently meaningful end. Probing the cultural and historical reasons for this shift in the understanding of apocalypse, she also considers the political implications of living in a world that does not rely on revelation as an organizing principle." -- Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.