In this Book
- After the Orgy: Toward a Politics of Exhaustion
- Book
- 2002
- Published by: State University of New York Press
- Series: SUNY series in Postmodern Culture
summary
Applying Jean Baudrillard’s question “What are you doing after the orgy?” to the postmillennial climate that informs our contemporary cultural moment, this book argues that the imagination of apocalyptic endings has been an obsessive theme in post-Enlightenment culture. Dominic Pettman identifies and examines the dynamic tensions of various apocalyptic discourses, from the fin-de-siècle decadents of the 1890s to the fin-de-millènnium cyberpunks of the 1990s, in order to highlight the complex constellation of exhaustion, anticipation, panic, and ecstasy in contemporary culture. Through analyses of rapturous cults, cyberpunk literature, post-apocalyptic cinema, techno-paganism, death fashion, and the Y2K prophecy, After the Orgy explores why the twentieth century swung so violently between the poles of anticipation and anticlimax. In the process, the book raises pressing questions concerning the relevance of such ideas in our new millennium and points out alternatives to the monotonous horror of traditional narratives.
Table of Contents
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- Title Page, Copyright, Dedication
- pp. iii-v
- Acknowledgments
- p. xiii
- Introduction: After the Orgy
- pp. 1-24
- 2. The Rapture of Rupture
- pp. 37-61
- 3. The Virtual Apocalypse
- pp. 63-98
- 4. Decaying Forward: Satiety and Society
- pp. 99-115
- 5. Cosmic Architects
- pp. 117-140
- 6. Playing at Catastrophe
- pp. 141-170
- Works Cited
- pp. 187-197
Additional Information
ISBN
9780791488492
DOI
MARC Record
OCLC
53226096
Pages
222
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No