Embodying Contagion (eBook)

This collection will be suitable for undergraduates in cultural theory, literature and media studies, and the social sciences, as an introduction to global apocalypse, viropolitics, and the contagious body in contemporary culture. Each chapter will briefly introduce viropolitics as it applies to a specific topic, outlining a field, method, and methodology. The rest of the chapter will then turn to a specific case study (or studies), by way of illustration.

Notes on Contributors
Preface
Embodying the Fantasies and Realities of Contagion
Part I: Epidemic Fantasies in Reality
Chapter 1: The Krokodil Drug Menace, Cross-Genre Body Horror, and the Zombie Apocalypse
Chapter 2: Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic and the Ebola Scare – How the CDC’s Use of Zombie Pop Culture Helped Fan a Nationalist Outbreak Narrative
Chapter 3: The Zika Virus, Ebola Contagion Narratives, and U.S. Obsessions with Securitizing Neglected Infectious Diseases
Chapter 4: An Affectionate Epidemic: How Disability Goes Viral on Social Media
Chapter 5: ‘Fatties Cause Global Warming’: The Strange Entanglement of Obesity and Climate Change
Part II: Epidemic Realities in Fantasy
Chapter 6: ‘Time is of the Essence, Doctor’: Twenty-First Century (Post-)Apocalyptic Fiction, White Fatherhood, and Anti-Intellectual Tendencies in FX’s The Strain
Chapter 7: Killable Hordes, Chronic Others, and ‘Mindful’ Consumers: Rehabilitating the Zombie in Twenty-First-Century Popular Culture
Chapter 8: Networks, Desire, and Risk Management in Gay Contagion Fiction
Chapter 9: This Long Disease, My Life:’ AIDS Activism and Contagious Bodies in Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me
Chapter 10: The Epidemic of History: Contagion of the Past in the Era of the Never-Ending Present
‘Contagion Contagion’: Viral Metaphors, Lockdown and Suffering Economies in the COVID-19 Pandemic
Bibliography