Crime and the Imaginary of Disaster DOI: 10.1057/9781137509079.0001 Other Palgrave Pivot titles Sharon Hayes and Samantha Jeffries: Romantic Terrorism: An Auto-Ethnography of Domestic Violence, Victimization and Survival Gideon Maas and Paul Jones: Systemic Entrepreneurship: Contemporary Issues and Case Studies Surja Datta and Neil Oschlag-Michael: Understanding and Managing IT Outsourcing: A Partnership Approach Keiichi Kubota and Hitoshi Takehara: Reform and Price Discovery at the Tokyo Stock Exchange: From 1990 to 2012 Emanuele Rossi and Rok Stepic: Infrastructure Project Finance and Project Bonds in Europe Annalisa Furia: The Foreign Aid Regime: Gift-Giving, States and Global Dis/Order C. J. T. Talar and Lawrence F. 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Amelia Lambelet and Raphael Berthele: Age and Foreign Language Learning in School Justin Robertson: Localizing Global Finance: The Rise of Western-Style Private Equity in China Isabel Dulfano: Indigenous Feminist Narratives: I/We: Wo(men) of An(Other) Way Stefan Lund: School Choice, Ethnic Divisions, and Symbolic Boundaries Andrew Szanajda: The Allies and the German Problem, 1941–1949: From Cooperation to Alternative Settlement Daniel Wirls: The Federalist Papers and Institutional Power: In American Political Development Christopher W. Hughes: Japan’s Foreign and Security Policy under the ‘Abe Doctrine’: New Dynamism or New Dead End? DOI: 10.1057/9781137509079.0001 Crime and the Imaginary of Disaster: Post-Apocalyptic Fictions and the Crisis of Social Order Majid Yar Professor of Sociology, University of Hull, UK DOI: 10.1057/9781137509079.0001 © Majid Yar 2015 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-50906-2 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–1–137–50907–9 PDF ISBN: 978-1-349-50614-9 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. www.palgrave.com/pivot doi: 10.1057/9781137509079 For Rodanthi – with thanks DOI: 10.1057/9781137509079.0001 Contents Acknowledgements vii 1 Situating the Apocalypse, Crime and Problem of Social Order 1 2 Law and Disorder in the Post-Apocalyptic Landscape: Social Breakdown, Sovereign Power and the State of Emergency 23 3 Dangerous Others: ‘Race’ and Crime after the Apocalypse 41 4 Crime, Disaster and the Crisis of the Gender Order 57 5 The Utopian Apocalypse: Crime, Justice and Redemption 76 List of Fictions 92 Bibliography 95 Index 112 vi DOI: 10.1057/9781137509079.0001 Acknowledgements I wish to express my appreciation to the many research- ers, scholars and writers whose work has inspired and informed this study. Many thanks are due to Julia Willan at Palgrave Macmillan, who has been hugely supportive in helping me realise my efforts to develop a distinctive take on cultural criminology, one that marries perspectives from criminology, sociology, cultural and media studies, and humanities scholarship. Likewise, I’m very appre- ciative of the entire editorial team at Palgrave Macmillan with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working over the past few years across a number of projects. Three academic colleagues in particular deserve special mention for their assistance with the development of this project. Firstly, thanks to my colleague Melissa Dearey, who was kind enough to share with me her expertise on matters related to religion, theodicy and evil. Secondly, thanks to Travis Linnemann for his support and for supplying me with some great examples of contemporary ‘zombie culture’. Thirdly, my heartfelt gratitude to Rodanthi Tzanelli, who not only shared with me insights drawn from her own ongoing research endeavours, but was also generous enough to provide extremely valuable feedback on the draft manuscript. DOI: 10.1057/9781137509079.0002 vii 1 Situating the Apocalypse, Crime and Problem of Social Order Abstract: This chapter maps the theoretical and conceptual framework of the study, taking as its focus two key themes that organise the book as a whole. Firstly, it explores the meanings of the apocalyptic, situating these within the cultural history of the West. Tracing apocalyptic thinking from its religious roots in Christian and Judaic theology, it follows the evolution of such ideas into the supposedly secular era of modernity. Central here is the fundamental ambiguity of the apocalyptic – it can be both negative, marking the wholesale destruction of the world as we know it, but also positive, a mechanism of renewal and redemption. Secondly, it seeks to connect contemporary discourses on crime and disorder to apocalyptic thinking through their shared preoccupation with the problems of evil and suffering. It concludes by setting out the book’s approach to textual sampling and analysis, the basis for the exploration of post-apocalyptic fictions in the chapters that follow. Yar, Majid. Crime and the Imaginary of Disaster: Post-Apocalyptic Fictions and the Crisis of Social Order. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. doi: 10.1057/9781137509079.0003. DOI: 10.1057/9781137509079.0003 1