REL 260 | The Apocalyptic Imagination

From zombies to hurricanes to the rapture, apocalyptic narratives of how the world ends and what comes after have stimulated literary and religious imaginations for over 2000 years. Often, apocalyptic stories tell us more about the conditions, social fears and anxieties in which they are produced than about any anticipated future. This course explores religious, literary, pop cultural, technological, environmental and catastrophic ideas about the apocalypse and millennium. Why are apocalyptic narratives so enduring in American culture? Why do apocalyptic movements so often employ violence to usher in the end? Finally, what kind of worlds do some forms of apocalyptic thinking imagine? Are they utopias, dystopias or both?