Seeing the Apocalypse: Essays on Bird Box is the first volume to explore Josh Malerman's best-selling novel and its recent film adaptation, which broke streaming records and became a cultural touchstone, emerging as a staple in the genre of contemporary horror. The essays in this collection offer an interdisciplinary approach to Bird Box, one that draws on the fields of gender studies, cultural studies, and disability studies. The contributors examine how Bird Box provokes questions about a range of issues including the human body and its existence in the world, the ethical obligations that shape community, and the anxieties arising from technological development. Taken together, the essays of this volume show how a critical examination of Bird Box offers readers a guide for thinking through human experience in our own troubled, apocalyptic times.
Brandon R. Grafius is assistant professor of biblical studies at Ecumenical Theological Seminary, Detroit. Gregory Stevenson is professor of religion and Greek at Rochester University.
Introduction: The Body's Apocalyptic Vulnerability Brandon Grafius and Gregory Stevenson 1Bird Box and the Imperative of Sight Ken Junior Lipenga 2Feeling the (Post)Apocalypse: The Affective Dimensions of Bird Box Rachel Elizabeth Barraclough 3The Blind Leading the Blindfolded: Representing Disability in Contemporary Horror Films Rebecca L. Willoughby 4Making the End of the World Great Again: Birdbox, Borders, and the Refugee Crisis Leland Merritt 5Mother, Monster Within/Monster, Mother Without: Bird Box and Maternal Fear Amy Hagenrater-Gooding 6Bird Box, WR Bion, and the Sublime Andrew Slade 7"It's Too Bad We're Not Horses": The Animal as Witness in Bird Box Dragoslav Momcilovic 8The Horror of Smartphones and Voice Assistants: Technophobia and Disability in Bird Box and A Quiet Place Paul Muhlhauser and Marya Kuratova 9Consumed by Memes: How Bird Box Reflects the Current Acceptance and Anxiety Toward Internet-Distributed Film and Television Heidi Ippolito
Josh Malerman's novel Bird Box and Susanne Biers' Netflix adaptation became a cultural phenomenon in 2018. Editors Grafius and Stevenson have gathered a remarkable set of essays in this volume that investigate how Bird Box participates in larger cultural dialogues on apocalypse, motherhood, technology, disability, refugees, the environment, fear of the unknown, redemption, technophobia, and binge-watching, among others. As with the best of this kind of volume, the contributors reframe the film, how we see it, and what it says about the world. If anything, the implications from the analyses and insights in this volume render both the film and our reality that much more terrifying. -- Kevin J. Wetmore, Loyola Marymount University, author of Post-9/11 Horror in American Cinema and Bram Stoker Award-nominated editor This outstanding collection on post-apocalyptic horror Bird Box explores the film's complex and timely commentary on critical issues such as disability and ableness; community and social responsibility; and the body in culture, technology and society. This volume positions Bird Box as an important genre piece, a rare sense-deprivation type of apocalyptic body horror that uniquely celebrates disability, whilst calling our attention to the reality that when society breaks down, the structures that protect us crumble along with it. Like Bird Box, the strength of this inventive and beautifully crafted volume lies in the ideal casting of its contributors and the solid concept of the content. Film fans, students, and researchers will find Grafius and Stevenson's radical new volume, which was written during a real-world pandemic, lively, accessible, and fascinating! -- Victoria McCollum, Ulster University Bird Box was more than just a popular Netflix film, it was a global phenomenon. Seeing the Apocalypse: Essays on Bird Box brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to shed light on the ways the film connected with social anxieties around disability, community, technology, and other issues. This volume provides invaluable insights into not only Bird Box but also the broader trend of apocalyptic horror in the 21st century. -- Kendall R. Phillips, Syracuse University
