Theorist Brent Ryan Bellamy illuminates the political unconscious of the American post-apocalyptic novel, exploring over 35 works to show how this subgenre expresses a growing anxiety about the decline of US hegemony. The shape of the future is defined by "the remainder:" what is left after the imagined catastrophe. Bellamy draws on a range of disciplinary fields including science fiction studies, American studies, energy humanities research, and critical race theory, to describe how this literary mode accommodates both a reactionary impulse and a progressive impetus for a new world. |