Blast, Corrupt, Dismantle, Erase: Contemporary North American Dystopian Literature

In Blast, Corrupt, Dismantle, Erase, twenty-five contributors investigate how dystopian fiction reflects twenty-first century reality, using diverse critical methodologies to examine how North America is portrayed in a perceived age of crisis, accelerated uncertainty, and political volatility.

Drawing from contemporary novels such as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, and the work of Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, and many others, this book examines dystopian literature produced by North American authors between the signing of NAFTA (1994) and the tenth anniversary of 9/11 (2011). As the texts illustrate, awareness of and deep concern about perceived vulnerabilities―ends of water, oil, food, capitalism, empires, stable climates, ways of life, non-human species, and entire human civilizations―have become central to public discourse over the same period.

By asking questions like “What are the distinctive qualities of post-NAFTA North American dystopian literature?” and “What does this literature reflect about the tensions and contradictions of the inchoate continental community of North America?” Blast, Corrupt, Dismantle, Erase resituates dystopian writing within a particular geo-social setting and introduces a productive means to understand both North American dystopian writing and its relevant engagements with a restricted, mapped reality.

I: Altered States

The first section of the book includes essays on literature investigating the breakdown of systems and the possibility of envisioning–or creating–new spaces for agency, creativity, and critical engagement.

II: Plastic Subjectivities

This section contains essays that address works that scrutinize the intricate relationships between social organization, new technologies, and political and economic orders.

III: Spectral Histories

The third section includes works exploring the erasure, denial, and rewriting of personal and collective history, a key dystopian trope, and their particular manifestations within a contemporary North American context.

IV: Emancipating Genres

The final section addresses fiction ruminating on and reworking facets of the dystopian genre, especially those that pertain to North American culture, history, or geography.