Description
Book SynopsisExamines case studies of popular culture as pessimistic rhetorical artifacts, and how non-traditional modes of argumentation can work rhetorically to overcome biases against pessimistic messaging.
Trade Review“This work explores our contemporary fascination with pessimism with such a strange relish and joy that one can’t help but feel relief that the end of human exceptionalism means the opening of weird new narratives and worlds (rather than the dire existential crisis we expected). Rigorous and cynical while being jubilant, the book is a marvelous injection of vitalistic wrongness to a sometimes tedious field.”
—Patricia MacCormack,author of Cinesexuality
“A new and important perspective on pessimistic appeals. This book’s value lies in its connection of the old theme of pessimism to today’s dominant forms of culture and entertainment. This is a fruitful new approach and will interest people in rhetorical studies, philosophy, film studies, and other disciplines.”
—Barry Brummett,author of Contemporary Apocalyptic Rhetoric
“This book is an important and original contribution to the philosophy of rhetoric and persuasion. It is a provocative intervention into understanding how pessimism, perhaps best understood through feeling, maintains its rhetorical power.”
—Samuel Boerboom Argumentation and Advocacy
