Neil Gerlach
Biographic Data
| ID | 1506902 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Neil Gerlach |
| GIVEN NAMES | Neil |
| FAMILY NAME | Gerlach |
| SIGNATURE | GERLACH N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Carleton University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Visualizing Ebola
Background Examining press coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, this article analyzes the work of the hazmat suit as a visual signifier of disease. Analysis Hazmat imagery from Africa operated to make the disease visible, both “othering” it and contributing to fantasies of containment. In American imagery, the suit became a figure of biosecurity and reassurance, while also connoting the prospect of American “diseaseability.” Con…
From Outbreak to Pandemic Narrative
Using framing analysis, this article explores how the English language press organized coverage of the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. The coverage began with a standard “outbreak” narrative that defined the problem in terms of “primitive” lifeways and inadequate humanitarian aid. However, after the World Health Organization declared an international emergency and after Ebola carriers began to appear in the West, the framing changed toward a …
Narrating Armageddon
The recurrence of the figure of the Antichrist in mainstream horror films is a culturally significant development since its origins in the 1970s. This paper argues that Antichrist films can be read as products of contemporary risk society characterized by a widespread reflexivity towards the outcomes of the modernization process, a deep insecurity over class relations, and an ambivalence towards expert knowledge within late modernity. These theme…
Narrating Armageddon
The recurrence of the figure of the Antichrist in mainstream horror films is a culturally significant development since its origins in the 1970s. This paper argues that Antichrist films can be read as products of contemporary risk society characterized by a widespread reflexivity towards the outcomes of the modernization process, a deep insecurity over class relations, and an ambivalence towards expert knowledge within late modernity. These theme…
The Antichrist as Anti‐Monomyth
It Won’t Always Be Wrong’
How to govern in the face of radical diversity and seemingly intractable conflict? A key question after 9/11, it is also central to dark fantasy literature.The literary answer is a return to legal rational authority, specifically bureaucracy. We examine the novel, Benighted (Kit Whitfield), where the Department for the Ongoing Regulation of Lycanthropic Activity must manage relations between the dominant lycanthropes and the despised underclass o…
Roof's The Poetics of DNA
From Mad Scientist to Bad Scientist
Journal Article From Mad Scientist to Bad Scientist: Richard Seed as Biogovernmental Event Get access Neil Gerlach, Neil Gerlach 1Neil Gerlach is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. He thanks the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its generous financial support of his biotechnological research. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Sch…
Introduction
The intellectual encounter between the social sciences and science fiction has been rich and varied. This Introduction examines how sf literature, sf criticism, and social science theory and practice have intersected and influenced each other. We suggest a four-part typology, analyzing how the social sciences have employed sf, how sf has dealt with the social, how sf criticism has addressed social theory, and how science fiction has itself emerge…
From Disciplinary Gaze to Biological Gaze
Imagine an America where violent crime rates have quadrupled over the past century, inexorably rising to a level that would be incomprehensible to previous generations. Imagine that the nature of violent crime seems to have changed, taking a turn toward casual sociopathy where the representative crime has become calculated serial murder rather than a one-off crime of passion. Imagine the resulting level of public fear, rampant to the point where…
Telling the Future, Managing the Present
This essay analyzes the techno-futurist vision of mid-to late-1990s business restructuring literature, arguing that the genre prominently employs sf strategies and assumptions. Three central figures emerge: the virtual organization, depicted as a revolutionary phenomenon that transcends the material constraints of “real” corporation; the cyborg employee, seen as the ultimate fantasy of merging the worker with the technologies of capitalism; and c…
The Business Restructuring Genre
Introduction
The intellectual encounter between the social sciences and science fiction has been rich and varied. This Introduction examines how sf literature, sf criticism, and social science theory and practice have intersected and influenced each other. We suggest a four-part typology, analyzing how the social sciences have employed sf, how sf has dealt with the social, how sf criticism has addressed social theory, and how science fiction has itself emerge…
The Business Restructuring Genre
Telling the Future, Managing the Present
This essay analyzes the techno-futurist vision of mid-to late-1990s business restructuring literature, arguing that the genre prominently employs sf strategies and assumptions. Three central figures emerge: the virtual organization, depicted as a revolutionary phenomenon that transcends the material constraints of “real” corporation; the cyborg employee, seen as the ultimate fantasy of merging the worker with the technologies of capitalism; and c…
From Disciplinary Gaze to Biological Gaze
Imagine an America where violent crime rates have quadrupled over the past century, inexorably rising to a level that would be incomprehensible to previous generations. Imagine that the nature of violent crime seems to have changed, taking a turn toward casual sociopathy where the representative crime has become calculated serial murder rather than a one-off crime of passion. Imagine the resulting level of public fear, rampant to the point where…
Introduction
The intellectual encounter between the social sciences and science fiction has been rich and varied. This Introduction examines how sf literature, sf criticism, and social science theory and practice have intersected and influenced each other. We suggest a four-part typology, analyzing how the social sciences have employed sf, how sf has dealt with the social, how sf criticism has addressed social theory, and how science fiction has itself emerge…
From Mad Scientist to Bad Scientist
Journal Article From Mad Scientist to Bad Scientist: Richard Seed as Biogovernmental Event Get access Neil Gerlach, Neil Gerlach 1Neil Gerlach is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. He thanks the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its generous financial support of his biotechnological research. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Sch…
Roof's The Poetics of DNA
It Won’t Always Be Wrong’
How to govern in the face of radical diversity and seemingly intractable conflict? A key question after 9/11, it is also central to dark fantasy literature.The literary answer is a return to legal rational authority, specifically bureaucracy. We examine the novel, Benighted (Kit Whitfield), where the Department for the Ongoing Regulation of Lycanthropic Activity must manage relations between the dominant lycanthropes and the despised underclass o…
The Antichrist as Anti‐Monomyth
Narrating Armageddon
The recurrence of the figure of the Antichrist in mainstream horror films is a culturally significant development since its origins in the 1970s. This paper argues that Antichrist films can be read as products of contemporary risk society characterized by a widespread reflexivity towards the outcomes of the modernization process, a deep insecurity over class relations, and an ambivalence towards expert knowledge within late modernity. These theme…
Narrating Armageddon
The recurrence of the figure of the Antichrist in mainstream horror films is a culturally significant development since its origins in the 1970s. This paper argues that Antichrist films can be read as products of contemporary risk society characterized by a widespread reflexivity towards the outcomes of the modernization process, a deep insecurity over class relations, and an ambivalence towards expert knowledge within late modernity. These theme…
From Outbreak to Pandemic Narrative
Using framing analysis, this article explores how the English language press organized coverage of the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. The coverage began with a standard “outbreak” narrative that defined the problem in terms of “primitive” lifeways and inadequate humanitarian aid. However, after the World Health Organization declared an international emergency and after Ebola carriers began to appear in the West, the framing changed toward a …
Visualizing Ebola
Background Examining press coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, this article analyzes the work of the hazmat suit as a visual signifier of disease. Analysis Hazmat imagery from Africa operated to make the disease visible, both “othering” it and contributing to fantasies of containment. In American imagery, the suit became a figure of biosecurity and reassurance, while also connoting the prospect of American “diseaseability.” Con…
Sociology (9 works) · Art (7 works) · Political science (6 works) · History (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Literature (5 works) · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis (4 works) · History (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works)