The leftovers. The dead in life and social disappearance

Death Stud. 2020;44(11):681-689. doi: 10.1080/07481187.2020.1771851. Epub 2020 Jun 11.

Abstract

Through an analysis of the TV series The Leftovers, we delve into the concept of "social disappearance" and into how it expresses the limits between life and death. The analysis focuses on the event that drives the plot: the mass disappearance of millions of people without reason. It has three moments: (1) the reconstruction of the order that the disappearance has broken; (2) the deviation of the mourning processes from their original logic; and (3) the acceptance that in the post-disappearance world nothing will be the same as before. The text offers some suggestions for thinking about possible lives in a world that is broken and with no promise of reconstruction, a world in which "social death" is one of its main features.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Attitude to Death*
  • Grief*
  • Humans
  • Social Isolation / psychology*