DREAMWalker Group -- Works by David Seed (Writer)

Works by David Seed
(Writer)

Email: ???
Website: ???
Profile created March 2, 2005

Literary Theory -- Literature & Fiction -- Science Fiction & Fantasy

This page is under construction. If you would like to expedite its completion, please write to us and we'll place a priority on it.

American Science Fiction and the Cold War (1999)
American Science Fiction--in both literature and film--has played a key role in the portrayal of the fears inherent in the Cold War. The end of this era heralds the need for a reassessment of the literary output of the forty-year period since 1945. Working through a series of key texts, American Science Fiction and the Cold War investigates the political inflections put on American narratives in the post-war decades by Cold War cultural circumstances. Nuclear holocaust, Russian invasion, and the perceived rise of totalitarianism in American society are key elements in the author's exploration of science fiction narratives that include Fahrenheit 451, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Dr. Strangelove.

Imagining Apocalypse: Studies in Cultural Crisis (1999)
This volume brings together essays on the cultural expression of apocalypse primarily in anglophone science fiction of the nineteenth and 20th centuries. Focusing on themes, writers, and individual works, the contributors examine the relations between secular and spiritual apocalypse, connecting the fiction and films to their historical moment. Not surprisingly, war recurs throughout this material, as a critical turning-point, fulfillment of prophecy, or prelude to a new age. Among the writers covered are H.G. Wells, Olaf Stapledon, and such contemporary figures as Michael Moorcock, J.G. Ballard, and Storm Constantine.

Brainwashing: The Fictions of Mind Control: A Study of Novels and Films Since World War II (2004)
The term “brainwashing,” coined during the Korean War, was popularized by a CIA operative who was a tireless campaigner against communism. It took hold quickly and became a means to articulate fears of totalitarian tendencies in American life. David Seed traces the assimilation of the notion of brainwashing into science fiction, political commentary, and conspiracy narratives of the Cold War era. He demonstrates how these works grew out of a context of political and social events and how they express the anxieties of the time.

See also: