Abstract

The article is devoted to biopolitics and forms of biopower in the post-apocalyptic worlds created in the texts of popular culture. The author’s theses are based on the analysis of 147 novels and short stories, as well as 246 films and series. The study describes the types of threats to the communities of survivors, strategies for dealing with them and their impact on the post-apocalyptic form of socialization. Although the analysis is not limited to the nuclear apocalypse, it pays special attention to radioactivity as a “magic factor” used in popular works. The author answers the question about what these thought experiments tell us about collective consciousness and “subconscious” of the late modern risk societies.