Imagining Apocalypse: Studies in Cultural Crisis

Description

This volume brings together essays by specialists in different disciplines on the cultural expression of apocalypse, in particular in anglophone science fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Approaching these works from historical, philosophical, linguistic and literary perspectives, the contributors examine the relationship between secular and spiritual apocalypse, connecting the fiction and films to their historical moment. Not surprisingly, war recurs throughout this material, as a critical turning-point, fulfilment of prophecy, or prelude to a new age. In particular the essays explore the issue of whether modern apocalypse is seen as an ending or a beginning, considered under its political, ethnic and gendered aspects. Among the writers covered are H. G. Wells, Olaf Stapledon and such contemporary figures as Michael Moorcock, J. G. Ballard and Storm Constantine. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction: Aspects of Apocalypse....Pages 1-14 The Tales of the Last Days, 1805–3794....Pages 15-26 The End of The Ages....Pages 27-44 Rewriting the Christian Apocalypse as a Science-Fictional Event....Pages 45-61 Edwardian Awakenings: H. G. Wells’s Apocalyptic Romances (1898–1915)....Pages 62-74 Acts of God....Pages 75-87 The Dawn of the Atomic Age....Pages 88-102 Silo Psychosis: Diagnosing America’s Nuclear Anxieties Through Narrative Imagery....Pages 103-117 Pocket Apocalypse: American Survivalist Fictions from Walden to The Incredible Shrinking Man....Pages 118-135 ‘An Unrehearsed Theatre of Technology’: Oedipalization and Vision in Ballard’s Crash....Pages 136-150 Disguising Doom: A Study of the Linguistic Features of Audience Manipulation in Michael Moorcock’s The Eternal Champion....Pages 151-165 Storm, Whirlwind and Earthquake: Apocalypse and the African-American Novel....Pages 166-180 Stylish Apocalypse: Storm Constantine’s Wraeththu Trilogy....Pages 181-198 Jews and Independence Day, Women and Independence Day: Science Fiction Apocalypse Now Evokes Feminism and Nazism....Pages 199-214 Future/Present: The End of Science Fiction....Pages 215-229 Back Matter....Pages 230-240