Undead Ends

Stories of Apocalypse

By S. Trimble

Rutgers University Press

Undead Ends is about how we imagine humanness and survival in the aftermath of disaster. This book frames modern British and American apocalypse films as sites of interpretive struggle. It asks what, exactly, is ending? Whose dreams of starting over take center stage, and why? And how do these films, sometimes in spite of themselves, make room to dream of new beginnings that don’t just reboot the world we know? Trimble argues that contemporary apocalypse films aren’t so much envisioning The End of the world as the end of a particular world; not The End of humanness but, rather, the end of Man. Through readings of The Road, I Am Legend, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Children of Men, and Beasts of the Southern Wild, this book demonstrates that popular stories of apocalypse can trouble, rather than reproduce, Man’s story of humanness. With some creative re-reading, they can even unfold towards unexpected futures. Mainstream apocalypse films are, in short, an occasion to imagine a world After Man.

Undead Ends is a remarkable book—an imaginative, often brilliant, contribution to the long Western genealogies of apocalyptic thinking and to the ways that contemporary insurgent racialized, gendered, anti-colonialist movements have struggled to claim and transform apocalyptic politics and aesthetics. James Berger, author of After the End: Representations of Post-Apocalypse

Sensitive to questions of race, gender, and sexuality, Trimble never presumes a universal 'we' and writes with flair about representations of the End. An exciting new study of apocalyptic cinema. Diana Adesola Mafe, author of Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before: Subversive Portrayals in Speculative Film and TV

Undead Ends is a valuable and timely addition to the literature on climate fiction and apocalypse narratives. Through her well-written and nuanced readings of Anglo-American apocalypse films, Trimble illuminates and problematizes the ‘we’ of widespread apocalypse narratives by relating the films’ plots and perspectives both to 500 years of colonial history and to the ‘disaster capitalism’ of recent decades. We will be better off if we read Undead Ends—with regard to everyday life as well as to COVID-19 and other potentially apocalyptic hazards down the road. SFRA Review

Undead Ends is a remarkable book—an imaginative, often brilliant, contribution to the long Western genealogies of apocalyptic thinking and to the ways that contemporary insurgent racialized, gendered, anti-colonialist movements have struggled to claim and transform apocalyptic politics and aesthetics. James Berger, author of After the End: Representations of Post-Apocalypse

Sensitive to questions of race, gender, and sexuality, Trimble never presumes a universal 'we' and writes with flair about representations of the End. An exciting new study of apocalyptic cinema. Diana Adesola Mafe, author of Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before: Subversive Portrayals in Speculative Film and TV

Undead Ends is a valuable and timely addition to the literature on climate fiction and apocalypse narratives. Through her well-written and nuanced readings of Anglo-American apocalypse films, Trimble illuminates and problematizes the ‘we’ of widespread apocalypse narratives by relating the films’ plots and perspectives both to 500 years of colonial history and to the ‘disaster capitalism’ of recent decades. We will be better off if we read Undead Ends—with regard to everyday life as well as to COVID-19 and other potentially apocalyptic hazards down the road. SFRA Review

S. TRIMBLE teaches at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada.

Contents
Preface
Introduction: Storytelling and Survival
1          Telling Other Tales: Rememory in The Road
2          Adaptations and Mutations: I Am Legend’s Double Helix
3          Revolting Reanimations: The 28 Films
4          Maternal Backgrounds: Children of Men
5          Myth and Metamorphosis: Beasts of the Southern Wild
Epilogue: After Man, or, Death by Story
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index