Apocalypticism In Literature Research Papers (original) (raw)

Scholars have commonly located the source of Paul’s analogy for the resurrection body in 1 Cor 15:39–49 in the enumerated creatures of Genesis 1. Some interpreters have suggested Sir 43:1–10 lies behind the reference to the variegated glory of the celestial bodies mentioned in 1 Cor 15:41. Paul seems to list each of the respective terrestrial creatures and their bodies in a hierarchical order, as he does with the celestial bodies, relating the resurrection body to the later. Rather than the eschatological egalitarianism presumed in some attempts to appropriate Pauline eschatology for theological purposes, this text suggests that Paul envisioned the imminent resurrection of the dead would result in a kind of celestial hierarchicalism, a point often overlooked by interpreters. In this paper, I will argue for an alternative source for the celestial hierarchicalism apparent in the formulation of Paul’s resurrection mythos in 1 Cor 15:41, namely, an apocalyptic reception of Exodus tradition rooted in the hierarchical ascent of the cosmic mountain in Exodus 24 and its later reception. As is the case for other apocalypticists before, contemporary with, and after Paul, this paper will provide further evidence that Paul's own particular construal of Jewish eschatological mythoi, while recognizable, would place him squarely alongside other Jewish contemporaries who operate at the fringes of their own tradition in the wider ancient Mediterranean religious landscape.

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- New Testament, Pauline Literature, Eschatology and Apocalypticism, Second Temple Judaism

In questo saggio si svolgerà una comparazione dei tre brevi romanzi di Calvino La formica argentina (1952), La nuvola di smog (1958), La speculazione edilizia (1957), con le opere di Malerba in cui maggiormente emerge il suo impegno ecologico: Il serpente (1966), Salto mortale (1968) e Fantasmi romani (2006). Tra questi romanzi che trattano con nerbo la tematica etico-ambientale, esiste un dialogo molto forte a livello testuale e ideologico, certamente maturato dall'amicizia e dagli scambi tra i due autori. Malerba e Calvino, uomini di città cresciuti però in stretto rapporto con la campagna, si rivelano attenti osservatori dei mutamenti economici, antropologici e ambientali che l'Italia subiva nell'epoca del boom. Lontana da qualsiasi lirismo romantico e da sentimenti nostalgici per un mitico passato, la relazione tra letteratura e ambiente affiora nei testi come una forma di denuncia ecologica contro inquinamento, speculazione edilizia e sottomissione degli organismi non-umani. Sia Malerba sia Calvino si fanno portavoce della necessità di smascherare le ideologie dominanti e boicottare le logiche binarie come natura / cultura. Nella battaglia che inscenano tra umano e non-umano emerge la loro prospettiva " ecocentrica " che attribuisce un valore intrinseco ad ogni organismo vivente e al loro spazio naturale a prescindere dalla loro utilità e profitto per l'essere umano. Abstract This essay compares Italo Calvino's short novels La Formica Argentina (1952), La Nuvola di Smog (1958), and La Speculazione Edilizia (1957), with Luigi Malerba's works, in which his strong environmental consciousness most comes to light: Il Serpente (1966), Salto Mortale (1968) and Fantasmi Romani (2006). These works engage in a textual and ideological " ecocentric " dialogue about the environment and society, which was certainly the result of the close friendship and professional exchanges between the two authors. This project thus participates in ecocriticism through an investigation of the textual and ideological dialogue between these texts. Rather than merely romantic lyricism and feelings of nostalgia for the mythical past, the relationship between literature and the environment emerges in the texts as a form of ecological denunciation against pollution, building development, and the subjugation of non-human organisms. Malerba and Calvino, city men who spent their upbringing in close contact with nature, reveal themselves to be attentive observers of the economical, anthropological, and environmental changes that Italy underwent in the period known as the economic boom. Both Malerba and Calvino bring to the fore the urgency to unmask dominant ideologies and to boycott perceived binary oppositions of nature versus culture. Through these texts, they stage a battle between the human and non-human, bringing together their " ecocentric " perspective with their goal of bestowing an intrinsic value to every living organism and their natural space.

- by Miriam Aloisio
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- Apocalypticism In Literature, Ecocriticism

Claude Eatherly, pilota e metereologo,
era un ragazzo texano di
27 anni quando ordinò lo sgancio
della prima bomba atomica della
storia, Little Boy, che colpì Hiroshima
il 6 agosto 1945.
Nonostante la giovane età, non
era certo un dilettante: per quella
missione vennero scelti i migliori
piloti della US Army, e Eatherly
aveva già dato prova del suo valore
militare, abbattendo, nel corso
della sua fulminante carriera,
più di trenta aerei nemici. Dopo
lo sgancio della bomba, tuttavia,
lasciò l’esercito e rifi utò qualsiasi
riconoscimento al valore da parte
degli Stati Uniti. Compì anche
maldestre rapine e altri piccoli
crimini, con la speranza di trovare
sollievo nel biasimo collettivo. Ma
ciò non bastò a placare i suoi dilanianti
sensi di colpa e Eatherly
venne internato in un ospedale
psichiatrico. Fu in questo momento,
quattordici anni dopo Hiroshima,
che iniziò un carteggio con
Günther Anders, il fi losofo tedesco
autore del capolavoro L’uomo
è antiquato. Il risultato è questo
libro: un commovente scambio
epistolare tra Anders e un’anima
persa, in cerca di un’espiazione
tanto impossibile quanto necessaria.
Dopo anni di assenza dalle
librerie, torna disponibile una delle
testimonianze più toccanti sul
disastro che cambiò per sempre
la coscienza collettiva.

- by micaela latini
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- Cultural History, Political Philosophy, Ethics, Jewish Studies

This collection of essays originates from the 2014 Evil in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity conference hosted by the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St Mary's University, Twickenham. Featuring an international collection of senior and junior scholars, it represents the cutting edge of scholarship on portrayals of evil in the Second Temple period and the earliest centuries of Christianity. The individual essays consider the significance of “evil” as it relates to a diverse set of topics, including Qumran and its texts, images of disability in 2 Maccabees, dissociations of Jesus from evil in early Christian manuscripts, the “apocalyptic Paul,” Jesus' exorcisms, Gospel cosmologies, the epistle of James, 4 Ezra, the Ascension of Isaiah, Marcion, John Chrysostom, and the Acts of the Martyrs. Contents Christopher A. Rollston: An Ur-History of the New Testament Devil: The Celestial שׂטן (śāṭān) in Zechariah and Job – Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer: Evil at Qumran – Benjamin Wold: Demonizing Sin? The Evil Inclination in 4QInstruction – Louise J. Lawrence: Evil and the Body of Antiochus IV Epiphanes: Disability, Disgust and Tropes of Monstrosity in 2 Maccabees 9:1–12 – Tommy Wasserman: Variants of Evil: The Disassociation of Jesus from Evil in the Text of the New Testament – James G. Crossley: Jesus, Healings and Mark 2:1–12: Forgiveness, a Release, or Bound Again to the Great Satan? – Christopher W. Skinner: Overcoming Satan, Overcoming the World: Exploring the Cosmologies of Mark and John – Jonathan A. Draper: Darkness as Non-Being and the Origin of Evil in John's Gospel – Loren T. Stuckenbruck: How Much Evil Does the Christ Event Solve? Jesus and Paul in Relation to Jewish “Apocalyptic” Thought – James P. Davies: Evil's Aetiology and False Dichotomies in Jewish Apocalyptic and Paul – Chris Tilling: Paul, Evil, and Justification Debates – Steve Walton: Evil in Ephesus: Acts 19:8–40 – Lloyd K. Pietersen: Artemis, Demons, Mammon and Satan: The Construal of Evil in First Timothy – Susanne Luther: The Evil of the Tongue: Evil and the Ethics of Speech in the Letter of James – Nicholas J. Ellis: A Theology of Evil in the Epistle of James: Cosmic Trials and the Dramatis Personae of Evil – Robbie Griggs: Apocalyptic Experience in the Theodicy of 4 Ezra – Jonathan Knight: The Portrayal of Evil in the Ascension of Isaiah – Chris Keith: “The Scriptures are Divine Charms”: Evil, Books, and Textuality in Early Christianity – Dieter T. Roth: Evil in Marcion's Conception of the Old Testament God – Paul Middleton: Overcoming the Devil in the Acts of the Martyrs

In my paper, I am discussing Decameron, one of the most important literary works of the 14th century, also known as The Human Comedy. The devastating pandemic of the Black Death of the Middle Ages produced the highest number of lethal cases of all time across Europe. The atmosphere of this crisis in the middle of the century pervades the frame narrative of Boccaccio’s 100 and a half short stories and the novellas themselves. True to the contemporary worldview, Boccaccio's narrative uses the theological interpretation which, starting out from the prophecies of the Book of Revelation of the Bible about the end of the world, received the pandemic as God’s rightful punishment. According to this, people’s sin is properly punished by the blows of natural catastrophes and invisible illnesses. We may go even further if we profoundly consider the intertextual relationship between the Christian prophecy of warning signals before the Last Judgment with the text of Decameron. The theological content of the apocalypse is much more than the narrative of punishment for sins or of doom. As an author familiar with scholastic theology, Boccaccio may also have known this when he created a mostly ironic, but at times merely mimetic relationship between the theological reference of the apocalypse and the historical reference of the pandemic in the motivic and linguistic allusions of his own masterpiece. Close reading not only the frame narrative, but also the grotesque representations of the motifs of the garden, death, and the triple branching of life after death (Hell, Purgatory or Heaven), I am looking for the answer to the question in what sense can we exactly consider Decameron as an apocalyptic reading of the pandemic.

The 2012-phenomenon includes apocalyptic fantasies regarding an impending collapse of our contemporary society, supposedly prophesized by the ancient Maya and their Long Count calendar. Sometimes connections to the ancient Maya collapse are made. That also happens to be the quite common in academic circles. Some academic researchers believe we can learn from the past failures for future solutions. The objects that were involved in the ancient Maya collapse were not the same as now and therefore we have little to learn from the Maya collapse in relation to our own ecological crisis. The ancient and contemporary Maya’s sensual profiles of ecology, time and space were/are quite different from those found within the “2012-phenomenon” and academia.

- by Johan Normark
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- Resilience, Apocalypticism, Mesoamerican Archaeology, Ecology

While there can be a blessing in reading any part of God’s Word, the promise in Revelation 1:3 motivated me all the more toward this study project, “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.” (NIV). This "Revelation Haiku Project" is the summarization of a study of the New Testament book of Revelation by writing one haiku per chapter using the 5 syllable, 7 syllable, 5 syllable Japanese poetic pattern in English.

- by Richard J McLaughlin
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- New Testament, Poetry, Apocalypticism, Johannine Literature

Biblical Theology Bulletin 49 (2019): 173–174

This paper examines the comics series The Walking Dead, focusing on how the horror genre shapes and constrains the political meanings of the narrative. The demands of horror keeps the characters from escaping the state of nature, with the... more

- by Peter Paik
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- Hobbes, Comics Studies, Ortega y Gasset, Apocalypticism In Literature

This book explores Italian science fiction from 1861, the year of Italy’s unification, to the present day, focusing on how this genre helped shape notions of Otherness and Normalness. In particular, Italian Science Fiction draws upon critical race studies, postcolonial theory, and feminist studies to explore how migration, colonialism, multiculturalism, and racism have been represented in genre film and literature. Topics include the role of science fiction in constructing a national identity; the representation and self-representation of “alien” immigrants in Italy; the creation of internal “Others,” such as southerners and Roma; the intersections of gender and race discrimination; and Italian science fiction’s transnational dialogue with foreign science fiction. This book reveals that though it is arguably a minor genre in Italy, science fiction offers an innovative interpretive angle for rethinking Italian history and imagining future change in Italian society.

- by Simone Brioni and +1
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- World Literatures, Multiculturalism, Film Studies, Dystopian Literature

« Que le cinéma aille à sa perte, c’est le seul cinéma. Que le monde aille à sa perte, qu’il aille à sa perte, c’est la seule politique. » (Le Camion, premier projet). Si l’on a beaucoup glosé sur la vocation politique de cette double déclaration, autant peut-être que sur le projet cinématographique d’ensemble qu’elle semble supposer, d’aucuns parlant de cinéma impossible ou de mort du cinéma (Madeleine Borgomano, Sarah Gaspari), l’on n’a jamais vraiment comparé la structure des deux propositions : elles apparaissent rigoureusement parallèles, mais elles ne le sont pas. Aux yeux de Duras, le cheminement vers la perte est une politique par rapport au monde, mais le cinéma est déjà en soi un cheminement vers la perte, intrinsèquement, essentiellement.
En ce sens, il faut interroger à nouveaux frais l’aspect apocalyptique du cinéma de Duras, non plus au départ de sa réflexion politique littéraire (Détruire, dit-elle, Abahn, Sabana, David) mais bien plutôt à l’aune d’un pouvoir qu’elle accorde singulièrement à l’image et non au texte. Si elle réécrivait la plupart de ses textes, parfois de manière obsessionnelle, Duras n’a jamais déclaré un livre raté (tout au plus L’homme menti et Theodora Katz n’ont-ils jamais été achevés, mais ils n’ont pas été publiés non plus). Par contre, selon son propre et fier aveu, son cinéma est un ensemble de films ratés ou d’échecs, ce qui n’empêche pas l’écrivain de les donner à voir. L’apocalypse du cinéma durassien est thématique (tous les spécialistes l’ont constaté), mais elle est également structurelle, elle est conditionnée par le matériau : l’image est apocalyptique. L’image est un révélateur (au double sens photographique et apocalyptique), mais la révélation n’annonce que la perte et la destruction par l’opération même de la monstration. Ce qui est montré est toujours déjà irrémédiablement perdu et détruit.
Cette réflexion globale se décline selon deux axes qui sont autant de questions : d’une part, quelle est cette essence singulière que Duras attache à l’image ?, et d’autre part, pourquoi Duras ne considère-t-elle pas le texte sur le même plan que l’image ? Le premier axe permet ainsi de reparcourir l’ensemble de la production cinématographique durassienne : les délabrements du décor et la disparition des personnages de Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta désert, le ratage sur lequel reposent Le Camion et Le Navire Night, le reniement de Baxter, Véra Baxter, le noir abyssal de L’homme atlantique, mais aussi la perspective de la perte qui s’insinue dès les propositions de traitement de l’image dans le scénario de Hiroshima mon amour.

- by Christophe Meurée
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- Avant-Garde Cinema, Literature and cinema, Apocalypticism, Image Analysis

Eight endorsements for Reading Revelation After Supersessionism written by Elaine Pagels (Princeton University), Paul Trebilco (U of Otago), Richard Ascough (Queens University), Anders Runesson (U of Oslo), Greg Carey (Lancaster Theological Seminary), Paul Rainbow (Sioux Falls Seminary), Gerald Borchert (Carson Newman University), and Henri Goulet (Messianic Studies Institute)

The article has two main focuses – first, it follows the most significant and important Antichrist myth researches, and secondly, the Greek tradition of De Christo et Antichristo by Hippolytus of Rome and the Slavonic versions of the text. The Slavonic witnesses are examined according to their omissions, additions, grammatical and morphological variations, and also some of the changes in the Bible quotations are highlighted. This work does not pretend to present new information on the Greek sources but to demonstrate how important the Slavonic translation is to the interpretation of the Greek original. The most interesting results are pointed out in the relation with the Greek text itself, where the proximity between the Greek fragment of Meteora Monastery 573 and the Slavonic tradition is presented.

- by Иван И . Илиев
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- Theology, Apocalypticism, Old Church Slavonic, Manuscript Studies

It is common to see Myshkin, the principal character of Dostoevsky's The Idiot, as a failed lover and a compassionate saintly figure, who gets entangled in a love triangle but cannot embody it. This paper challenges such a view and argues that Myshkin fully incarnates the violent dynamic of desire that governs the novel. With the help of René Girard's notion of mimetic desire, the paper explores Myshkin's relationship with Rogozhin as erotic rivalry. Instead of seeing the two characters as autonomous entities, it is suggested that they should be viewed as doubles, as two poles of the same consciousness. On this view, Myshkin's compassion and Rogozhin's lust become two different manifestations of the same desire, united by a conflict of interest, which drives the love triangle towards a violent resolution.

- by Denis Zhernokleyev
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- Religion, Russian Literature, Theology, Orthodox Theology
- by Laura Wright
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- Literature, Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Literary Theory

Lettura del romanzo "La strada" (The Road) di Cormach McCarthy (2006)

“Anthony Burgess and Science Fiction”, Jim Clarke, SFRA Review 313, Summer 2015, pp. 28-35. Anthony Burgess was a reluctant writer of SF, but a highly influential one. This article, for the SFRA Review, introduces the author and his SF... more

- by Kevin Pinkham
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- British Literature, James Joyce, Anthony Burgess, George Orwell

Surveys and problematizes references to the end of the world in proems of Anglo-Saxon charters.

- by Rolf H . Bremmer Jr
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- Medieval Literature, Medieval History, Anglo-Saxon Studies, Medieval Studies

An extended consideration of Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 (2017). The story is a heist plot engineered by residents of the Met Life Building in the year 2140, when the seas had risen 50 feet. Topics: Fiction and reality, patterns, transportation infrastructure, formal order encompassing narrative chaos, politics, from the micro politics the Met Life Tower, to New York City politics, and beyond that to the nation and the world financial system. Includes photographs of the current New York skyline in which you can see the Met Life Building as it currently exists.

- by Bill Benzon
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- Future Studies, Literature, Literary Criticism, Science Fiction

An undergraduate level introduction to apocalyptic literature.

Petrarch in Provence. A Valley, a Town, a Mountain
Francesco Petrarch used to define himself as an eternal pilgrim having lived in numerous different places. He spent a significant part of his life in the Provence region in southern France, initially in Carpentras and later in Avignon and Vaucluse. This book is concerned with how Petrarch depicted these locales in Provence. The book asserts that although the poet was not attempting to describe Provence in a systematic manner as a region, one can nevertheless choose three locales which he depicted extremely impressively in his literary works, these being: Vaucluse, Avignon and Mont Ventoux.
Vaucluse is a valley not far from Avignon where Petrarch purchased a house closely adjacent to the source of the Sorgue river in the year 1337. Petrarch lived a simple country life here immersed in reading and writing. This space gradually became embodied with numerous meanings. Petrarch first and foremost placed this locale in polemic fashion against the busy and morally corrupt life of the town, concretely in Avignon. He takes pains to draw attention to his simple meals, clothes, contact with the surrounding nature and his isolation from people. His time spent in Vaucluse is also an attempt at emulating the lives of ancient Roman writers and statesmen who retired to their rural villas for study and repose. Since Petrarch did not have their financial resources, he opted for at least a truly remarkable locale, the valley and the source of the Sorgue, these being not only natural beauties but also having been referred to in classical sources. The valley also has a certain Christian genius loci, since the distinct spring has been from time immemorial (even during pagan times) a revered spot, with St. Veranus having even spent several years in the valley as a hermit. Petrarch’s life here undoubtedly also had spiritual and hermit-like features. Vaucluse has become celebrated by the fact that Petrarch set the plot of his lyrical collection Rerum vulgarium fragmenta and experienced primarily here his long and unfulfilled love for Laura. The nature around Vaucluse served as a means for evoking the fleeting visits by Laura to the valley. The continually changing natural backdrop serves to create the effect of an analogy or contrast to his spiritual states of mind.
Vaucluse is located in a strong polemical tension in relation to Avignon which was home to the Papal Curia in Petrarch’s day and which was a truly lively political and cultural centre at the time. Petrarch constantly attacked the French Papal Curia as a historical anomaly which had broken away from the apostolic beginnings, forsaken Holy Rome and was in his eyes living a life of debauchery. Petrarch’s descriptions of Avignon are extremely expressive and display his profound disgust with the situation. In the descriptions, Petrarch makes use of metaphorical images, comparisons with Babylon, Hell and a labyrinth. He employs almost apocalyptic rhetoric in long impassioned lines and metaphors focused on the sins, vices and debaucheries which reign in Avignon.
The third prominent locale in Provence is Mont Ventoux which Petrarch climbed on 26 April 1336 accompanied by his brother. This was only a short incident in his life and there are even doubts existing as to whether the climb actually even took place. Nevertheless, this letter, with its remarkable depiction of the mountain scenery and masterful transition between the description of the actual ascent and a description of his spiritual states of mind, has become one of Petrarch’s most celebrated texts. The present book is primarily concerned with the autobiographical features of the letter and the poet’s subjectivity linked with a feeling for the natural world. A detailed commentary has been written about the letter.
The book deals with the above-mentioned three locales with the use of all of the relevant criticism. It takes a stance on the various interpretative positions. It is actually the first book ever to place the three locales in Provence into mutual linkages and study their literary depictions in one piece. It focuses attention on the connections with literary tradition (in particular the typologies, locus amoenus, locus horridus, mountains as a point of contact with the deity), on the actual, allegorical and symbolic portrayal of space, the moral connotations of places, Petrarch’s autobiographical exhibitions, the innovative treatment of nature in love discourse and the depiction of literary space from the perspective of literary theory (first and foremost a phenomenological focus). The book also provides a complete translation of the relevant texts with a detailed commentary accompanying them. The majority of these texts have been translated into Czech for the first time.

- by Jiri Spicka
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- Space and Place, Petrarch, Apocalypticism In Literature, Landscape
- by Andrei Orlov
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- Religion, Early Christianity, Old Church Slavonic, Angelology

This essay analyses Nnedi Okorafor's 'Who Fears Death' within the framework of Ernst Bloch’s theories of utopianism. Okorafor’s feminist fantasy forms a radical counter-narrative to Eurocentric perceptions of Africa by breaking down the diametrically opposed categories of tradition and modernity, magic and science, superstition and rationality, while also probing into some of the most contentious issues of modern African history, such as female genital mutilation and ethnic cleansing. As a “critical dystopia” (Moylan), 'Who Fears Death' opens up an oppositional space that is both critical and transformative.

This booklet is comprised of three brief essays: * Opening the Gates of Hell Upon the Earth: Prelude to Armageddon * A Nation of Witches and Sorcerers * New Insights in Amillennial Eschatology The first two of... more

- by Steve Rafalsky
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- Christianity, Theology, Literature, Poetry
- by Brian Schroeder
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- Religion, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Humanities

The paper examines Byzantine views on different types of social and religious outcasts – holy fools, imaginary Ethiopians (blacks), heretics, infidels (Jews and Muslims), women – and the attitudes of the Byzantines towards the others. Analysis is focused on the holy foolishness for the Christ’s sake as cultural, religious, social, and literary phenomenon. The study traces the changes in Byzantine hagiography and mindset, which were provoked by the shifting of imperial borders after the Arab conquests.

- by Julia Zlatkova
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- Apocalypticism In Literature, Byzantine Hagiography, Otherness, Holy Foolishness
- by Tom Miles
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- American Literature, American Studies, Apocalypticism, Eschatology and Apocalypticism

Similarities in the apocalyptic narrative of Beckett and McCarthy

- by Dylan Burns
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- Gnosticism, Patristics, New Testament, Apocalypticism

Nell'era dell'istantaneità digitale in cui le cose, romanzi compresi, invecchiano più rapidamente che nel passato, anche una forbice cronologica relativamente breve può determinare la percezione di una distanza, di un anacronismo rispetto al presente. Un'eccezione in questo senso sembra provenire da quella narrativa che ancora una volta scava in una regione più profonda della contemporaneità, riuscendo a mettere a fuoco delle dinamiche primarie, espressioni di un paradigma da cui scaturiscono fenomeni di lunga durata. Rumore bianco è una riflessione sull'ipnosi collettiva tardocapitalista che ha come coordinate l'iperconsumismo e il progresso tecnologico. Allo stesso tempo è un compendio delle nevrosi che tratteggiano la normalità di una famiglia americana media, come miniatura di tutta la società: Jack Gladney, titolare di una cattedra di studi hitleriani, Babette, la sua quarta moglie dipendente dai farmaci, i numerosi figli avuti dai precedenti matrimoni. La vita dei personaggi viene presentata, non senza ironia, all'interno di una nicchia protettiva, emblematizzata dalla collocazione in provincia e dal campus universitario in cui lavora Jack. Questi, infatti, ha costruito la sua posizione di studioso su un gigante della storia mondiale, ripescato dai detriti della cultura contemporanea e rivestito di un'aura che supera i confini del personaggio storico, divenendo esso stesso un mondo: Adesso Hitler è una cosa tua, l'Hitler di Gladney. […] Attorno a questa figura storica hai sviluppato un intero sistema, una struttura con innumerevoli sottostrutture e correlati ambiti di studio, una storia nella storia. Un'impresa che considero formidabile. Magistrale, sottile e favolosamente anticipatrice. La narrazione assume presto i toni di un'allucinazione iperrealistica, dove la coscienza del soggetto sembra polverizzarsi nella proiezione esterna verso oggetti inutili, detriti, accumuli. La stessa realtà della merce su cui si riversa la compulsività umana tradisce un vuoto di significato, motivo per cui gli oggetti vengono investiti di un'aura sacrale, come risulta evidente in questo passaggio che si svolge in un centro commerciale: Comperavo con abbandono incurante. Comperavo per bisogni immediati ed eventualità remote. Comperavo per il piacere di farlo, guardando e toccando, esaminando merce che non avevo intenzione di comprare ma che finivo per acquistare. […] Cominciai a crescere in valore e autoconsiderazione. Mi espansi, scoprii nuovi aspetti di me stesso, individuai una persona della cui esistenza mi ero dimenticato. Mi trovai circondato di luce. (p.104) La vite eterodirette portate all'estremo di Jack, Babette, i loro ragazzi, vengono esemplificate a livello narrativo con una persistente tendenza dell'Io a venire assorbito dalla pluralità schizofrenica del reale, che deborda nel testo attraverso l'inclusione di divagazioni tratte da stralci di talk show, conversazioni radio, letture dettagliate di opuscoli e giornali: Poi prese un altro tabloid. […]-Squadre di ufo invaderanno Disney World e Cape Canaveral. Con uno sbalorditivo voltafaccia, la suddetta pagina 1 / 4

Embodiment of apocalyptic imagination has been a major theme in which many writers have pointed it out especially from the midst of twentieth century onwards. Earth today is vulnerable and would be so dangerous for future generation from now on. Although, J. G. Ballard's narrations do not create an ordinary apocalyptic apprehension of human abolition, but he enters the core of the apocalyptic theme by intertwining our world with an altering people's psyche who try to develop a new relationship with nature. This paper examines Ballard's The Drowned World (1962) from the view of the human psyche in an apocalyptic setting. It follows and analyzes the characters of Dr. Robert Kerans (a biologist) and his team in which they are transformed in the story – both mentally and physically.

- by ALI MIRENAYAT
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- Sociology, Climate Change, Science Fiction, Apocalypticism In Literature
- by Dmitry Antonov
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- Semiotics, Religion, Cultural History, Cultural Studies
- by Alberto Cadili
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- Religion, History, European History, Eastern European Studies
- by Joerg Trempler
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- Apocalypticism, Apocalypticism In Literature, Movies, The Postapocalypse

Syllabus for ENGL 390/FILM 390, first taught at Whittier College in Spring 2015