A Dark California ─ Essays on Dystopian Depictions in Popular Culture

Focusing on portrayals of California in popular culture, this collection of new essays traces a central theme of darkness through literature (Toby Barlow, Angela Carter, Joan Didion, Thomas Pynchon, and Claire Vaye Watkins), video games (L.A. Noire), music (Death Grips, Lana Del Rey, and Red Hot Chili Peppers), TV series (True Detective and American Horror Story), and film (Starry Eyes, Southland Tales and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night). Providing insight into the significance of Californian icons, the contributors explore the interplay between positive stereotypes connected with the myth of the Golden State and ambivalent responses to the myth based on social and political power, the consequences of consumerism, transformations of the landscape, and the dominance of hyperreality.

Katarzyna Nowak-McNeice is Conex-Marie Curie Research Fellow at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain. She has published essays on California literature, Post-colonial theory and opera studies. Agata Zarzycka is Assistant Professor at the Institute of English Studies, University of Wroclaw, Poland. She has published essays on speculative fiction, transmediality and video games.