The Moral Uncanny in Black Mirror

This erudite volume examines the moral universe of the hit Netflix show Black Mirror. It brings together scholars in media studies, cultural studies, anthropology, literature, philosophy, psychology, theatre and game studies to analyse the significance and reverberations of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian universe with our present-day technologically mediated life world. Brooker’s ground-breaking Black Mirror anthology generates often disturbing and sometimes amusing future imaginaries of the dark side of ubiquitous screen life, as it unleashes the power of the uncanny. This book takes the psychoanalytic idea of the uncanny into a moral framework befitting Black Mirror’s dystopian visions. The volume suggests that the Black Mirror anthology doesn’t just make the viewer feel, on the surface, a strange recognition of closeness to some of its dystopian scenarios, but also makes us realise how very fragile, wavering, fractured, and uncertain is the human moral compass.

Margaret Gibson a Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Griffith University, Australia. She author of several books including Objects of the Dead: Mourning and Memory in Everyday Life and the most recent (with Clarissa Carden) Living and Dying in a Virtual World: Digital Kinship, Nostalgia, and Mourning in Second Life.

Clarissa Carden is a historical sociologist and a postdoctoral research fellow at Griffith University, Australia, with an interest in the intersection of morality and social change, focusing on the lives of young people.