Surveying disaster films from a Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective, this book explores the disaster film genre from its initial appearance in 1933 (The Grapes of Wrath, 1933) to its present-day form (Don’t Look Up!, 2021), laying bare the ideological unconscious at work within the genre.
The Disaster Film as Social Practice examines environmental science, history, film and literature in its interdisciplinary analysis of the disaster film genre. It explores the interplay, and the dichotomy, of “restorative” and “reflective” disaster narratives. An analysis of cinema's role in symbolizing and managing collective anxiety around disaster and death narratives examines how disaster films, through their narrative structures and symbolic elements, contribute to the public's understanding and emotional processing of real-world threats, and how cinematic narratives shape and are shaped by public and private ideological discourses, reflecting deeper psychological and environmental truths. Finally, the book offers an overview of how the transformation of the disaster film genre over time tells a history through imagining the worst.
Providing a nuanced understanding of the disaster film genre and its significance in contemporary culture and thought, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of film studies, cultural studies, media studies, and environmental studies.
1. Birth of a Genre: Disaster on Film 2. From The Grapes of Wrath to the Fruits of Science: Surviving Man-Made Disaster 3. Monsters from the Id: The Cold War and the Nuclear Disaster Film 4. The Golden Age of the Disaster Film 5. Millennial Anxiety, Twin Films, and the Restorative Disaster Fantasy 6. After the Fall: Disaster Films from 2004-2016 7. Hyperobjects of the Reel and the End of Civilization
Biography
Joseph Zornado is Professor of English at Rhode Island College, USA. He has published numerous essays and books on film, culture, and media including Disney and the Dialectic of Desire: Fantasy as Social Practice (2017), Critical Thinking: Developing the Intellectual Tools for Social Justice (2019), and The Cinematic Superhero as Social Practice (2021), with Sara Reilly.
Sara Reilly is an Adjunct Instructor and Assistant Director of Academic Advising at Rhode Island College, USA. She teaches first-year writing and various transitional college success courses. She has previously published The Cinematic Superhero as Social Practice (2021), with Joseph Zornado.
