Cultural Studies Texts - Ayn Rand, Anthem (1938)

Laying the groundwork for Rand's way-more-famous later works, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), Anthem encapsulates the themes that Rand was to explore throughout her career, using a sci-fi setting to highlight contemporary themes. Specifically, she gives the no-no to the suppression of individualism and individual achievement in the name of social conformity and obedience. Think Battlestar Galactica meets Joseph Stalin.

The narrator refers to the term "we" as a monster, concluding that the word "Ego" is what's really sacred. How could "we" be monstrous in the society Rand depicts? How might a cultural studies scholar draw a parallel between that fictional monster and aspects of the modern world?