Description
Book SynopsisFabienne Collignon is Lecturer in Contemporary Literature at the University of Sheffield, UK. She has published articles on American techno-culture and machine aesthetics in journals such as
C-Theory, Configurations, and
Textual Practice.Trade Review[A] feat of solid scholarship ... and a rewarding read ... There are many ideas here that open new perspectives and point at very interesting lines of scholarly research ... It is what lies beyond
Rocket States, the trails that start from its pages, which is absolutely relevant to any Pynchon scholar, making this book a must-read for all of us. * Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon *
Rocket States is a fascinating study of how cultural fantasy shaped—and continues to shape—the U.S. security state. Fabienne Collignon reads the technological infrastructure of the Cold War as the product of a national dream-work, deeply influenced by collective desires and anxieties. With careful attention to military artifacts—from radar and weapons systems to rockets, satellites, lasers, and information networks—she reveals the lines of force running through an impressive array of narratives, theories, films, and cultural icons. The result is a compelling vision of the bizarre psychodynamics of a deadly serious episode in U.S. history. * Timothy Melley, Professor of English, Miami University, USA, and author of The Covert Sphere: Secrecy, Fiction, and the National Security State *
Compellingly written and hauntingly imagined,
Rocket States maps Thomas Pynchon’s
Gravity’s Rainbow onto the post-nuclear winter that slowly unfolds now across the traumatized cultural landscape of the twenty-first century. Here, missile technologies in the empty deserts of the American mind are viewed as talisman of the planet’s actual disappearance into increasingly phantasmatic dream-states, accumulating violence, and suicidal fantasies of mass exterminism. In effect,
Rocket States is what happens when the death-drive wears the mask of virulent technologies of nuclear warfare. * Arthur Kroker, Canada Research Chair in Technology, Culture and Theory, the University of Victoria, Canada, and author of Exits to the Posthuman Future *
Table of ContentsIntroduction Rise of the Machines (Nuclear) Enclosures Chapter 1: Excavation Colorado Masks Batteries in the Earth Gold, Dust Chapter 2: Preservation Kansas Bright/EMPTINESS The 98th Meridian Feed Lots ICBM, The Beginning The Cult of Future Death Chapter 3: Evacuation Cape Canaveral Report from An Obscure Planet Vorrichtung für die Isolierung Terminal Designs Chapter 4: Transmission New York Steel Machines Twins Our Own Little Deterrent Death-Rays Bibliography Index
