Dystopian Fiction and Alternate Histories in the Trump Era

The aftermath of the 2016 elections has seen a marked increase in the popularity of dystopian fiction and alternate histories in print and on the screen Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here, Octavia Butler's Parable of Sower and Orwell's 1984 have all seen renewed interest and higher sales. The Dystopian TV series based on Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale has captured the popular imagination along with Westworld.There has also been a resurgence of alternate histories in novels and television, fictionally reimagining the history of slavery, the Civil War and World War II. This talk explores the current popularity of these genres (and of particular novels and TV shows) in the Trump Era, as cultural expressions of the current political moment that comment on debates about the meaning of 45's election and the prospects for fighting back.