Reintegrating Severance: Interdisciplinary Insights on Apple Tv’s Dystopian Thriller

This edited collection is an interdisciplinary examination of Apple TV’s Severance, in which employees of a biotech firm consent to having their brains severed so that their work selves and non-work selves do not retain each other’s memories. What transpires is a reckoning with the very nature of the self, consciousness, and memory, through a series steeped in explorations of capitalism, social welfare, and bioethics. Chapters in this book examine the popularity and critical acclaim surrounding the show; its retrofuturistic asethetic; its commentary on popular culture and identity; and its engagement with nostalgia, among other topics.

Jennifer Dawes is Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English, Humanities, and Philosophy at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, USA. She has previously published on Dark Tourism in the American West and on western narratives. She teaches classes in film and literature and has included episodes of Severance in her class ＂Technology and Consciousness in Film and Television.＂

Nora M. Isacoff holds appointments at both Columbia University and New York University, USA, where she teaches interdisciplinary seminars such as ＂Consciousness and Cognitive Science＂ and ＂Language and Mind.＂ Her research and writing integrate scientific and humanistic approaches to exploring the nature of mind and consciousness. She is the co-author of the book Data and Teaching: Moving beyond Magical Thinking to Effective Practice (Teachers College Press).