Title

Postmodernity, and Digital Memory versus Human Remembering in M.T. Anderson's Feed

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Fall 2015

Journal Title

Children's Literature Association Quarterly

Volume

40

Issue

3

Abstract

M. T. Anderson’s young adult dystopian novel Feed (2002) depicts the social costs of the loss of historical memory in the digital age. Imagining a near future where nearly all teenagers exist on the feed, a brain-computer interface connecting users directly into cyberspace, Anderson portrays US youth as voracious and thoughtless consumers cut off from any historical awareness by the capitalist logic of postmodern, decontextualized image saturation. This article argues that Anderson posits human acts of remembering and dreaming, as opposed to digitally archived “memories,” as moments of transformative potential that might rekindle a critically and socially engaged historical consciousness.

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