Literature, Cultural and Media Studies

Manifesting the zeitgeist of our post-pandemic world, Apple TV's Severance probes the margins of work-life balance, the medicalization of normal human emotions, and the turbulence of disinformation, resistance, and reclamation. Fundamentally, the series grapples with systemization - how we organize and construct our histories, art and architecture, social orders, and bodies and minds. Written for both fans and scholars, Reintegrating Severance collects fifteen critical essays, each offering deep insights into an issue spurred by the series. Constructing History explores identity in the context of historical revisionism and corporate mythology; Art & Architecture builds on the first section by exploring the use of visual culture in shaping collective and personal stories; Agency, Autonomy, and Alienation dives deep into the political theories that earlier chapters have touched upon; finally, Multifaceted Bodies and Minds strays from, and ultimately finds a way back to, the intuitive wisdom and intraconnection of the self.