Stronghold Cities. Dystopian Fears in Utopian Asylums in Audiovisual Narratives Cover Image

Stronghold Cities. Dystopian Fears in Utopian Asylums in Audiovisual Narratives
Stronghold Cities. Dystopian Fears in Utopian Asylums in Audiovisual Narratives

Author(s): Ksenia Olkusz
Subject(s): Politics, Sociology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: dystopia; game; movie; narrative; utopia

Summary/Abstract: In the past few years there has been a growing interest in depicting permanently sieged strongholds, secluded last stands, or quarantined asylums within a post-apocalyptic world so as to strengthen the sense of the ultimate isolation and disconnection from the desolated world outside. The majority of those narratives share a similar world-model, featuring an over-crowded, fortified refuge and its ruler turning a utopian sanctuary into a dystopian confinement. This means that the society in such a world faces two actual threats: one imminent, be it a zombie apocalypse, bands of scavengers, or epidemic that forces people to take refuge – and the other one, concealed, which reveals itself when everything seems to be under control.

  • Issue Year: 7/2018
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 77-94
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: English
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