Books about Paranoia?

[catch22girl]

Okay, I've finally started researching for my senior thesis. I'm looking for books on Power and Paraonia, or ones about the last stages of the Cold War. Also, anything about paranoia and fiction would be a HUGE help but I couldn't find anything like that in Borders and I'm not entirely convinced that it exists.

For some odd reason, most of the books I could find on modern America in Borders were either "Post-9/11 oral history" or like, Reagan's biographies. I did almost pick up the book on John O'Neill, because it's such a frightening fascinating depressing story. However, that wouldn't do much for my senior thesis.

Comments

[cinesister.livejournal.com]

Got a hypothesis/test question?

[catch22girl]

Sorta. Right now I'm looking for someone who really sink my teeth into so that I can prove or disprove something instead of trying to just show things without a real thesis statement. I believe that in the 80s most conspiracy or plot films tended to take place in big business and wall street and in the 90s, with the collapse of the soviet union and the end of the cold war these plots moved into the actual government itself.

Example: Wall Street (S&L disaster, trying to hide information..) vs. like, Conspiracy Theory.

[cinesister.livejournal.com]

Sounds valid. I've heard/read that point made a bunch of times in various places, so it's pretty much a given understanding in media theory now, as far as I understand.

[catch22girl]

You don't by any chance remember any of those places, do you? That's the nice thing abotu a senior thesis, it doesn't necessarily HAVE to be proving anything new.

[cinesister.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. No, I don't remember those places. But I did a lot of theoretical reading when I was really into TXF and was under that fandom's disillusion that it was much more culturally important than it actually turned out to be. Ah, we were SO disillusioned lol. But yeah...I used to intellectualise things like that far too much. What a dork I used to be. *G* That's why I got out of school after my BA...too much study, and all the fun drains out of life/art.

[catch22girl]

LOL. Me too, I have a book here somewhere called like "paranoia, fiction and the x-files", oh, duh, LOL. I actually find it fascinating how it's turned out to be so unimportant culturally. But that might be just me. Yes! I was trying to tell someone how studying film is making me not like certain things and they're like well the more I learn the more I like it and I just keep thinking...I don't like analyzing things so deeply. That's what I realized yesterday. I have no desire at ALL to be a film critic I really want to just make film/tv and leave analysis to someone else.

[cinesister.livejournal.com]

The more learn, the less real you are in my opinion. The more you learn, the less you know.

[catch22girl]

So that's kinda like the anti-NBC slogan, huh?

[cinesister.livejournal.com]

Um...if I knew what the NBC slogan was...lol

[catch22girl]

I think it's "The More You Know"

So how's writin' going?

[cinesister.livejournal.com]

Writing has been abandoned for the evening, in favour of spoiling myself and watching a copious amount of television.

Although earlier I was researching the subject of apocalypse in religion. So I did *something* today.

[catch22girl]

I bought a book called 'teach yourself postmodernism'. That's not really accomplishing anything though.

Oooh, that sounds interesting - apocalypse in religion, seems like it's a pretty common theme in most?

Hopefully you're referring to spoiling yourself as in treating yourself very well and being all warm and happy.

[cinesister.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm wrapped up warm in a blankie and watching Las Vegas curiously.

I'm just doing research on the apocalypse for my own information, really. In my short, the whole apocalypse will happen O.S., so it's purely to educate myself so my writing will have another confident layer underneath everything else. I aim to use research as a tool, so that when I get around to writing about something, the actual writing part comes easily. Even if this short is going to be low budget and made quickly, I still want the writing to have substance.

[catch22girl]

How is Las Vegas...I don't think I've watched a single new show this season.

Actually, 'its the end of the world as we know it' has been stuck in my head for days. So it's a religious apocalypse or a manmade one? That's kind of how I am with papers, if I know enough about my subject it's much easier to write it. Then again, when I was younger I used to do ALL this reseach for like fanfic, because when writing about something you sorta need to know facts and connections. I think that if it's low budget with a short production schedule, it's especially important for the writing to have substance.

[cinesister.livejournal.com]

I guess 'man-made' would be the way to perceive it, but not entirely. It's a little more complicated than that.

[catch22girl]

Like man-made but with religious elements...like man as the hand of god?

[cinesister.livejournal.com]

Not really.

[catch22girl]

Was just a stab in the dark anyway. I read this thing a while ago about how if humanity was wiped from the planet the things we created would eventually...well, not even eventually like in a few weeks, destroy the world forever. Something about the pollution of the bodies and the power plants melting down without supervision. Interesting but really freaky.

[cinesister.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty likely. And then the ants would take over.

[catch22girl]

And cockroaches, can't forget about them. Horse sized, ridden by ants.

[cinesister.livejournal.com]

Thank god my script will end long before any of that.

[catch22girl]

The special effects budget alone would kill you. Yeah, usually post-apocalypse only works when there are people left.