Landscapes of Loss: The Semantics of Empty Spaces in Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Fiction (original) (raw)

Taking a look at two contemporary TV series, The Walking Dead and Survivors, this article argues that the recent revival of post-apocalyptic fiction relies on the appropriation of empty and fragmented spaces, which function as subtle vehicles of ideologies such as discourses of security, bodily integrity and the neoliberal politics of late capitalism in Western societies. The visual representation of abandoned spaces and the rebuilding of a spatial order that has the characters following a nomad-like existence both historicise and renormalize the moral dilemmas of the post-apocalypse not only by offering a powerful social commentary of what it means to (re-)connect with a changed environment but also through seemingly rendering the catastrophe a familiar phenomenon.