This collection explores and interrogates the complex role of the child character in the dystopian landscape of post-apocalyptic cinema, including classic, recent, and international films, approached from a variety of theoretical, methodological, and cultural perspectives.

The child in many post-apocalyptic films occupies a unique space within the narrative, a space that oscillates between death and destruction, faith and hope. The Child in Post-Apocalyptic Cinema interrogates notions of the child as a symbol of futurity and also loss. By exploring the ways children function discursively within a dystopian framework we may better understand how and why traditional notions of childhood are repeatedly tethered to sites of adult conflict and disaster, a connection that often functions to reaffirm the “rightness” of past systems of social order. This collection features critical articles that explore the role of the child character in post-apocalyptic cinema, including classic, recent, and international films, approached from a variety of theoretical, methodological, and cultural perspectives.

This collection examines the child’s role in contemporary post-apocalyptic films and television.. By exploring the function of child characters within a dystopian framework, this volume illustrates how traditional notions of childhood are tethered to sites of adult conflict and disaster, a connection that often works to reaffirm the “rightness” of past systems of social order.

In a novel set in an indefinite, futuristic, post-apocalyptic world, a father and his young son make their way through the ruins of a devastated American landscape, struggling to survive and preserve the last remnants of their own humanity

In this post-apocalyptic novel from Newbery Medal–winning author Robert C. O’Brien, a teen girl struggling to survive in the wake of unimaginable disaster comes across another survivor. Ann Burden is sixteen years old and completely alone. The world as she once knew it is gone, ravaged by a nuclear war that has taken everyone from her. For the past year, she has lived in a remote valley with no evidence of any other survivors. But the smoke from a distant campfire shatters Ann’s solitude. Someone else is still alive and making his way toward the valley. Who is this man? What does he want? Can he be trusted? Both excited and terrified, Ann soon realizes there may be worse things than being the last person on Earth.

This collection seeks to broaden the discussion of the child image by close analysis of the child and childhood as depicted in non-Western cinemas. Each essay offers a counter-narrative to Western notions of childhood by looking critically at alternative visions of childhood that does not privilege a Western ideal. Rather, this collection seeks to broaden our ideas about children, childhood, and the child’s place in the global community. This collection features a wide variety of contributors from around the world who offer compelling analyses of non-Western, non-Hollywood films starring children.

The year is 2021. No child has been born for twenty-five years. The human race faces extinction. Under the despotic rule of Xan Lyppiat, the Warden of England, the old are despairing and the young cruel. Theo Faren, a cousin of the Warden, lives a solitary life in this ominous atmosphere. That is, until a chance encounter with a young woman leads him into contact with a group of dissenters. Suddenly his life is changed irrevocably as he faces agonising choices which could affect the future of mankind. NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE