«We live in an age defined by toxicity. Bacon and the contributors have produced a timely, astute collection that intelligently and creatively engages and analyzes the wide panoply of trauma and poisoned discourse. Entertaining, fascinating and, honestly, terrifying, this book is paradoxically a delight and purgative to read! An antidote to the very thing it explores.» (Professor Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr., author of Post-9/11 Horror in American Cinema)

What is Toxic?

This volume provides a timely and original examination of the concept of «toxic» that today seems to inform all areas of popular culture and society. Connoting many forms of negativity, denial or disillusion, «toxic» has become central to the experience of living in the twenty-first century.

Comprising twenty-nine original essays by experts in their fields, this collection offers something of a guide to how areas of toxicity often overlap and/or inform other ones. Topics as diverse as «fake news», environmental denialism, toxic nostalgia, deep fakes, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo and cancel culture are covered. Studied texts include popular culture from the film Get Out (2018) to the Pussy Hat Movement, from social media «sadfishing» to governmental responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This companion unravels the often purposely entangled narratives that are used to fuel much cultural and political populism. It serves as an important intervention into the conversations occurring around extreme partisanship and divisive views on where we might be heading and how dystopian the future will really be.