ABSTRACT

The accruement of crises over the last two decades, with their particular manifestations in the European context, has evoked the feeling of living in exceptional times, as captured in the recurrent claim that we live in the "age of anxiety." The main aim of this collection is to analyse, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the causes and consequences of the current dominance of the discourse of fear, anxiety, and crisis through the experience of distinct and often interdependent moral panics in twenty-first-century Europe.

With its multidisciplinary approach, this volume sheds light on the need to view the interrelationship between different crises and their associated affects as crucial in attaining a more nuanced understanding of the aetiology and effects of the current "age of anxiety." This multidisciplinary scrutiny of the interrelationship of twenty-first-century fears, anxiety and crises signals an original engagement with these complex phenomena in order to make their emergence and profound effects on contemporary society more comprehensible.

The timeliness of the thematic focus and the rigorous in-depth analyses make this collection relevant to students and academics within the fields of sociology, literary and cultural studies, political science and anthropology, as well as to those in European studies and global studies.

chapter Chapter 1|19 pages

Introduction

Fear, anxiety, and crisis. Europe and emotions in the twenty-first century

chapter Chapter 2|19 pages

The pedagogy of listening

The poetics of crisis in contemporary Europe

chapter Chapter 3|17 pages

Nordic (in)securities, transatlantic anxieties, and global crises

The inhospitable “homeland” in Northern European films

chapter Chapter 4|16 pages

Virtual terrorists, virtual anxiety

Affect and technology in Kamila Shamsie's Home Fire

chapter Chapter 5|15 pages

Anxiety in financial crisis cinema

Gendered alternatives to patriarchal neoliberalism in Costa-Gavras'sLe capital (2012) 1

chapter Chapter 6|16 pages

Border anxieties in Brexit literature

Anthony J. Quinn and the politics of crime fiction

chapter Chapter 8|17 pages

The witness of others

Refugees, hope, and Europe

chapter Chapter 11|19 pages

In defence of fear

COVID-19, crises and democracy

chapter Chapter 14|8 pages

Conclusion

The future of (meta)crisis: from anxiety and the culture of fear to hope, solidarity, and the culture of resilience?