Training for Catastrophe: Fictions of National Security after 9/11
Lindsay Thomas
May 2021 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Karen Peakes
headphones
Audiobook
9 hr 12 min
Unabridged
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
Want a 59 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline.
Add
About this audiobook
Why would the normally buttoned-down national security state imagine lurid future scenarios like a zombie apocalypse? In Training for Catastrophe, author Lindsay Thomas shows how our security regime reimagines plausibility to focus on unlikely and even unreal events rather than probable ones. With an in-depth focus on preparedness (a pivotal, emergent national security paradigm since 9/11) she explores how fiction shapes national security.
Thomas finds fiction at work in unexpected settings, from policy documents and workplace training manuals to comics and video games. Through these texts—as well as plenty of science fiction—she examines the philosophy of preparedness, interrogating the roots of why it asks us to treat explicitly fictional events as real. Thomas connects this philosophical underpinning to how preparedness plays out in contemporary politics, emphasizing how it uses aesthetic elements like realism, genre, character, and plot to train people both to regard some disasters as normal and to ignore others.
Training for Catastrophe makes an important case for how these documents elicit consent and compliance. Thomas draws from a huge archive of texts to ask difficult questions about the uses and values of fiction.
Thomas finds fiction at work in unexpected settings, from policy documents and workplace training manuals to comics and video games. Through these texts—as well as plenty of science fiction—she examines the philosophy of preparedness, interrogating the roots of why it asks us to treat explicitly fictional events as real. Thomas connects this philosophical underpinning to how preparedness plays out in contemporary politics, emphasizing how it uses aesthetic elements like realism, genre, character, and plot to train people both to regard some disasters as normal and to ignore others.
Training for Catastrophe makes an important case for how these documents elicit consent and compliance. Thomas draws from a huge archive of texts to ask difficult questions about the uses and values of fiction.
Rate this audiobook
Tell us what you think.
Listening information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
