Article on Apocalypse and Environmentalist Books

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Lee Quinby

Hi, here’s the article I mentioned in class on how apocalyptic some of the recent books on environmentalism are:

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Doom-Boom/125474/?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en

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The End, and New Beginnings

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Mac Warren

Throughout human history, the apocalypse has been present as a cultural construct capable of inducing a wide range of reactions among those who accept its viability. Now, as the concept is deconstructed in conjunction with the complexities of postmodernism, the clarity of the End of Days seems less apparent than ever.

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Trials and Tribulations

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Sam Barnes

The story of the end of the world is written into its beginning – that Word of God extinguished at last, that inevitable return to the emptiness from which it was born.  But as we sit in the middest of creation, desperately entangled in the illusions and realities manifest everywhere in our lives, contemplation of – and, perhaps, reconciliation with – the death that awaits us might serve to force us to actualize this time we have been granted, and lead a life without fear.  Like the armored heroes of the vernacular, one must fathom the depths and confront demons inner and outer if he or she is ever to see this world with fresh eyes and embrace its endless mystery.  “For those who believe that one simply cannot call apocalypse a metaphor or a parable,” writes Elizabeth Rosen in the epilogue to Apocalyptic Transformation, “I point out that it is both these things.”

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Apocalypse as Entertainment

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Grecia H.

Since the beginning of the semester, I have been keeping in mind the connection between the Apocalypse and entertainment. These two essays explore and show the complex dichotomy of these concepts. The Apocalypse lends itself to extraordinary scenes of epic destruction that entertain the masses in movies, literature, and video games. The tradition of apocalypse is not experiencing any type of diminishment as technology advances. Technology is perpetuating the value of the apocalypse –the event- as entertainment.

The apocalypse and the arena of entertainment are catapulting each other. Even if he apocalyptic mindset is in transition in America, its entertainment value is not suffering. As the sales of Halo 3 show and the box office sales of movies such as 2012 the devastating scenes of the End still attract a wide audience in and out of the fundamentalist mindset. The fundamentalists are in favor in continuing the apocalyptic vision in order for their mindset to continue, but the apocalypse in entertainment lives outside of that mindset. This is why some parents were against using Halo 3 as a teaching tool, because they understand that video games like these can be taken misunderstood by both the secular world and the fundamentalist mindset.

Films such 28 Days Later, Children of Men, and Apocalypto are obviously part of the apocalyptic tradition, but they can also be described as a zombie movie, an action movie, and a tale of the ancient world. Children of Men’s ties to the Book of Revelation are much more obvious, but without being analyzed, these movies can be seen separate from the religious tradition. Before taking this class, I am not sure that I would have looked into them as part of an apocalyptic mindset.

The funny thing about the past two thousand years we still have a countdown, we still create a new even that will bring about the end. Whether it’s a meteor or any other cosmic event, a nuclear holocaust, or global warming there is always another signal to the End that has failed for two millennia. What is it about the Book of Revelation that keeps it alive even after it is proven wrong every new day that the sun rises on the Earth?

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Why Men Throw Bombs

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Andreas Apostolopoulos

Quinby’s Essay on “Unsettling the Fundamentalist Mindset” provides yet another look into the plethora of ways in which apocalyptic notions and the fundamentalist mindset come into play in a broad-range of real-world situations. The entire patriarchal structure of American families, in which the task of child-rearing ( as a natural consequence of child-bearing) is assigned to the mother and the task of bread-winning and family-protection is assigned to the father, rests on patriarchal gender dualism. The entire gender structure of religion rests on the omnipotent fatherly male-god figure, with several male potentates who are in direct communication with him, local male priests and reverends, and finally the male head of the family household who controls the women and children of the family. This leaves the female in a position of susceptibility and powerlessness. She is, in a sense, an undesirable object as far as the male is concerned. The male struggles for the one true God’s paternal love, in the fundamentalist sense, but does not seek the affection of the Jezebel’s on earth—which may or may not include his wife. In fact, this is a quintessential struggle for fundamentalist men—as Jurgensmeyer warns us. Men are constantly seeking spiritual enlightenment, love from God the father—but are also bound by their biology to seek out women, whose very existence they are told to believe is sinful. This clash between biological instinct and religious duty has often created a sense of pent up sexual frustration amongst fundamentalist men, and is one of the primary reasons, as Jurgensmeyer cleverly puts it, as to ‘Why Men throw bombs’.

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