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English Language and Literature

English Faculty Research and Publications

Film

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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

“I’D Rather Be In Afghanistan”: Antinomies Of Battle: Los Angeles, Gerry Canavan Oct 2014

“I’D Rather Be In Afghanistan”: Antinomies Of Battle: Los Angeles, Gerry Canavan

English Faculty Research and Publications

This article reads Battle: Los Angeles (2011) against the grain to argue that the film possesses an antiwar undertow running unexpectedly counter to its surface-level pro-military politics. The article uses the antinomy structuring Battle: Los Angeles as the opportunity to explore the pro- and anti-war politics of science fiction alien invasion film more generally, as well as consider the role of cooperation with the military in Hollywood blockbusters. The article closes with a Jamesonian reading of “the army”: as a kind of utopia as registered by mainstream cultural texts like Battle: Los Angeles.


Review Of Zombie Politics And Culture In The Age Of Casino Capitalism By Henry A. Giroux And Monsters Of The Market: Zombies, Vampires And Global Capitalism By David Mcnally, Gerry Canavan Apr 2012

Review Of Zombie Politics And Culture In The Age Of Casino Capitalism By Henry A. Giroux And Monsters Of The Market: Zombies, Vampires And Global Capitalism By David Mcnally, Gerry Canavan

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.


Fighting A War You've Already Lost: Zombies And Zombis In Firefly/Serenity And Dollhouse, Gerry Canavan Oct 2011

Fighting A War You've Already Lost: Zombies And Zombis In Firefly/Serenity And Dollhouse, Gerry Canavan

English Faculty Research and Publications

This article explores the use of zombie imagery in two sf narratives created by Joss Whedon: Firefly (US 2002–3), Serenity (US 2005) and Dollhouse (US 2009–10). The translation of the zombie from its traditional horror-movie context to the far-future space opera of Firefly/Serenity and the near-future cyberpunk of Dollhouse reveals the zombie's allegorisation of the consequences of biopolitical governmentality and neoliberal capitalism. In both series zombies function as a figure for both the dehumanisation caused by state and market forces and the possibility of Utopian resistance to these forces.