This book makes sense of the social, political, and conceptual consequences of the 2008 credit crisis by looking at the ways that our culture has sought to formally represent and politically respond to it.

Annie McClanahan is Assistant Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine.

"The book is a masterful exploration of the cultural politics of the financial crisis and a powerful mediation on how to make sense of an era of unrepayable debts...Dead Pledgesis a must read. For whom? Well, anyone living in the 21st century, concerned about insurmountable debts, thinking of how culture and the economy transect each other, and striving for a radical politics fit for the mortgaged times in which we live."--Aparna Gopalan, New Books Network