Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner

This book not only offers a thorough and lucid presentation of the multiple features of postmodernist theory today, it dramatizes them in a bravura reading of Blade Runner which sees the film’s seven different versions as so many historically distinct texts, each one constituting a modified reaction to a new and evolving socio-historical situation. Flisfeder expertly treads that narrowest of paths between description and evaluation, between theory and ideology. * Fredric Jameson, Knut Schmidt Nielsen Professor of Comparative Literature, Duke University, USA *
Between the lines of the different versions or simulacra of Blade Runner, Flisfeder offers a succinct and compelling account of postmodernism and its theoretical underpinnings. This wonderful book is an object lesson in film analysis and critical thinking that finds within the text an explanation for society's inability to conceive of alternatives to its own dystopian and mediatised present. * Ciara aka Colin Cremin, Senior Lecturer, The University of Auckland, New Zealand *
Matthew Flisfeder’s fast-paced and very readable book offers a knowledgeable and accessible introduction to postmodern theory. His analysis of Blade Runner not only helps unpack and illustrate his key concepts, but also gives fresh new perspectives on a modern film classic. Above all, this book foregrounds the continued relevance of postmodernism by emphasizing its usefulness as a critical and fundamentally political concept. * Dan Hassler-Forest, Assistant Professor of Media Studies, Utrecht University, The Netherlands *