"Age of Anxiety: Meaning, Identity, and Politics in 21st Century Film and Literature applies historical and contemporary political and rhetorical theory to current popular culture to discuss the problem of the displaced autonomous self and the quest for a meaningful life"--.

• Cover
• Age of Anxiety
• Series page
• Age of Anxiety: Meaning, Identity, and Politics in 21st-Century Film and Literature
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1
• Anxieties of the Autonomous Self
  • Fragmentation in the Age of Anxiety
  • Origins of the Age of Anxiety
  • The Anxious Malaise of Modernity
  • Social and Moral Danger of Nihilistic Anxiety
  • Notes
• Finding a Self in an Anxious Age
  • Chapter 2
  • How Dressing for Dinner Can Save Your Soul
    • Tocqueville on Aristocracy and Democracy
    • Aristocracy and Democracy in Downton Abbey
    • Downton Abbey and the Limits of Autonomy
    • Notes
  • Chapter 3
  • Kentucky Aristotelians in Space
    • The Kentucky Aristotelian
    • Agrarianism Goes to Space
    • Culture and Cultivation
    • Notes
• Technology and the Unease of the Modern Self
  • Chapter 4
  • Will You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?
    • Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau and the Pursuit of Comfort
    • Food for Thought: Lessons from the Zombie Apocalypse
    • Repairing the Damage: The Shop Class as Soulcraft
    • Notes
  • Chapter 5
  • Are You Even Human?
    • Westworld as a Maze of Self-Discovery
    • William/Man in Black—Choice and its Relationship to Identity
    • Dolores: Defragmentation of Memory and the Unification of the Self
    • Maeve: Free Will as Biologically and Socially Embedded Action
    • Consequences of Determinism and Artificial Intelligence
    • Notes
• Replacing Anxiety with Hope
  • Chapter 6
  • Faith Worth Fighting For
    • Hacksaw Ridge
    • Silence
    • Faith and Reason in the Age of Anxiety
    • Notes
  • Chapter 7
  • Frodo, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
    • MacIntyre and the Narrative Life
    • Tolkien the Deeper Narrative of Fairy-Story
    • Narrative Rationality within Tolkien’s Works
    • Restlessness and Contentment
    • Restless and False Promises of Control
    • Notes
  • Chapter 8
  • Healing the Anxiety of the Age
    • The Necessity of Reading Good Books
    • The Need for Truly Liberal Learning and Education
    • The Necessity of Leisurely Activity
    • Decreased Anxiety through Education and Leisure
    • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
  • About the Authors