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Carry The Fire: Intersections Of Apocalypse, Primitivism, And Masculinity In American Literature, 1945-2000, Dylan Barth

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines American apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic texts from 1945-2000 in order to consider the varying ways that masculinity has been constructed in relation to the imagined primitive. The first chapter provides an overview of studies in apocalypse, primitivism, and masculinity to lay the foundation for the in-depth, critical analyses that follow. The second chapter provides an operational definition of American post-apocalyptic fiction as well as a survey of American post-apocalyptic fiction that includes George Stewart's Earth Abides, Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon, Robert Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer, and David …