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Looking Backward, Looking Forward: Utopia, Avatar , and the Loss of Progressive Metanarrative

Looking Backward, Looking Forward: Utopia, Avatar , and the Loss of Progressive Metanarrative Looking Backward, Looking Forward Utopia, Avatar, and the Loss of Progressive Metanarrative David R. Shumway When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. Three-quarters of a million people lost their jobs that month. Many had lost their homes, and with them the only nest eggs they had. Even the usually impervious upper middle class had seen a decade of stagnant or declining investment, with the stock market dropping in value with no end in sight. Hope was as scarce as credit. In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. . . . But there was no story--and there has been none since. --Drew Westen, New York Times, August 6, 2011 Michael Bérubé begins The Left at War with a statement, written he says early in http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png StoryWorlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies University of Nebraska Press

Looking Backward, Looking Forward: Utopia, Avatar , and the Loss of Progressive Metanarrative

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Publisher
University of Nebraska Press
Copyright
Copyright © University of Nebraska Press
ISSN
2156-7204
Publisher site
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Abstract

Looking Backward, Looking Forward Utopia, Avatar, and the Loss of Progressive Metanarrative David R. Shumway When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. Three-quarters of a million people lost their jobs that month. Many had lost their homes, and with them the only nest eggs they had. Even the usually impervious upper middle class had seen a decade of stagnant or declining investment, with the stock market dropping in value with no end in sight. Hope was as scarce as credit. In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. . . . But there was no story--and there has been none since. --Drew Westen, New York Times, August 6, 2011 Michael Bérubé begins The Left at War with a statement, written he says early in

Journal

StoryWorlds: A Journal of Narrative StudiesUniversity of Nebraska Press

Published: Apr 25, 2014

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