Download or read book The End All Around Us written by John Walliss and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Apocalypse or end times are a recurrent theme within contemporary popular culture. 'The End All Around Us' presents a wide-ranging exploration of the influence of the apocalypse within art, literature, music and film. The essays draw on representations of the apocalypse in heavy metal music, science fiction, disaster movies and anime. The book examines key apocalyptic texts, focusing on their relevance to today. It will be invaluable to all those interested in the religious and cultural impact of apocalyptic thought.
Download or read book Apocalypse Culture written by Adam Parfrey and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ""Apocalypse Culture" is compulsory reading for all those concerned with the crisis of our times. An extraordinary collection unlike anything I have ever encountered. These are the terminal documents of the twentieth century."-J.G. Ballard
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature written by John Joseph Collins and published by Oxford Handbooks. This book was released on 2014 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Apocalypticism arose in ancient Judaism in the last centuries BCE and played a crucial role in the rise of Christianity. It is not only of historical interest: there has been a growing awareness, especially since the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, of the prevalence of apocalyptic beliefs in the contemporary world. To understand these beliefs, it is necessary to appreciate their complex roots in the ancient world, and the multi-faceted character of the phenomenon of apocalypticism. The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature is a thematic and phenomenological exploration of apocalypticism in the Judaic and Christian traditions. Most of the volume is devoted to the apocalyptic literature of antiquity. Essays explore the relationship between apocalypticism and prophecy, wisdom and mysticism; the social function of apocalypticism and its role as resistance literature; apocalyptic rhetoric from both historical and postmodern perspectives; and apocalyptic theology, focusing on phenomena of determinism and dualism and exploring apocalyptic theology's role in ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism. The final chapters of the volume are devoted to the appropriation of apocalypticism in the modern world, reviewing the role of apocalypticism in contemporary Judaism and Christianity, and more broadly in popular culture, addressing the increasingly studied relation between apocalypticism and violence, and discussing the relationship between apocalypticism and trauma, which speaks to the underlying causes of the popularity of apocalyptic beliefs. This volume will further the understanding of a vital religious phenomenon too often dismissed as alien and irrational by secular western society.
Download or read book Pop Apocalypse written by Lee Konstantinou and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-05-12 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States and its Freedom Coalition allies are conducting serial invasions across the globe, including an attack on the anti-capitalist rebels of Northern California. The Middle East—now a single consumerist Caliphate led by Lebanese pop singer Caliph Fred—is in an uproar after an attack on the al-Aqsa Mosque gets televised on the Holy Land Channel. The world is on the brink of a total radioactive, no-survivors war, and humankind's last hope is Eliot R. Vanderthorpe, Jr., celebrity heir, debauched party animal, and Elvis impersonation scholar. But Eliot's got his own problems. His evangelical dad is breeding red heifers in anticipation of the Rapture. Eliot's dissertation is in the toilet. And he has a doppelgänger. An evil doppelgänger.
Download or read book Broken Mirrors written by Joe Trotta and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dystopian stories and visions of the Apocalypse are nothing new; however in recent years there has been a noticeable surge in the output of this type of theme in literature, art, comic books/graphic novels, video games, TV shows, etc. The reasons for this are not exactly clear; it may partly be as a result of post 9/11 anxieties, the increasing incidence of extreme weather and/or environmental anomalies, chaotic fluctuations in the economy and the uncertain and shifting political landscape in the west in general. Investigating this highly topical and pervasive theme from interdisciplinary perspectives this volume presents various angles on the main topic through critical analyses of selected works of fiction, film, TV shows, video games and more.
Download or read book Apocalypse and Heroism in Popular Culture written by Katherine E. Sugg and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2022-02-25 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stories of world-ending catastrophe have featured prominently in film and television. Zombie apocalypses, climate disasters, alien invasions, global pandemics and dystopian world orders fill our screens--typically with a singular figure or tenacious group tasked with saving or salvaging the world. Why are stories of End Times crisis so popular with audiences? And why is the hero so often a white man who overcomes personal struggles and major obstacles to lead humanity toward a restored future? This book examines the familiar trope of the hero and the recasting of contemporary anxieties in films like The Walking Dead, Snowpiercer and Mad Max: Fury Road. Some have familiar roots in Western cultural traditions yet many question popular assumptions about heroes and heroism to tell new and fascinating stories about race, gender and society and the power of individuals to change the world.
Download or read book Everyday Apocalypse written by David Dark and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2002-12 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mining popular media, Dark redefines the term apocalypse as a more honest, watchful way of being in the world and higlights how the imagination can expose our moral condition.
Download or read book The End Will be Graphic written by Dan W. Clanton and published by Sheffield Phoenix Press Limited. This book was released on 2012 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection is based on the premise that apocalyptic imagery and themes pervade not only cultural products that employ specifically biblical imagery but are also found in media that do not purport to impart biblical or even religious messages. Comic books and graphic novels are the focus here because, it is suggested, they are the medium that comes the closest to the imaginative malleability found in the history of biblical interpretation. In Part One, the focus is on Indie/Creator-owned works. Emily Laycock demonstrates the overwhelming influence of Herbert W. Armstrong and his apocalyptic Worldwide Church of God on Basil Wolverton's work, especially his biblical art. Aaron Kashtan then introduces us to Kevin Huizenga's short story, 'Jeepers Jacobs', in which the title character-a theologian whose main area of research is the Christian doctrine of Hell-tries to convert an acquaintance with odd and fatal results. In her chapter, Diana Green examines Alan Moore's Promethea, a character whose purpose is to initiate an Apocalypse but whose journey is much more complicated. Finally, A. David Lewis engages humorous and profane examples of apocalyptic imagery in the recent Indie comics Battle Pope and The Chronicles of Wormwood. Part Two examines more mainstream works and begins with Terry Ray Clark's adroit examination of how Kingdom Come utilizes both the functions and forms of ancient apocalyptic literature. Greg Stevenson then analyses a variety of texts- including X-Men: The Age of Apocalypse and issues 666 of Superman and Batman-to discern the way(s) in which the mythological language of apocalyptic and the mythology of superheroes interact. And finally, Greg Garrett provides a broad and thoughtful rumination on the two most widely read mainstream comics that deal with the End of Days: Kingdom Come and Watchmen.
Download or read book Apocalypse in American Literature and Culture written by John Hay and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of America has always encouraged apocalyptic visions. The 'American Dream' has not only imagined the prospect of material prosperity; it has also imagined the end of the world. 'Final forecasts' constitute one of America's oldest literary genres, extending from the eschatological theology of the New England Puritans to the revolutionary discourse of the early republic, the emancipatory rhetoric of the Civil War, the anxious fantasies of the atomic age, and the doomsday digital media of today. For those studying the history of America, renditions of the apocalypse are simply unavoidable. This book brings together two dozen essays by prominent scholars that explore the meanings of apocalypse across different periods, regions, genres, registers, modes, and traditions of American literature and culture. It locates the logic and rhetoric of apocalypse at the very core of American literary history.
Download or read book Zombies in Western Culture written by John Vervaeke and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2017-06-15 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why has the zombie become such a pervasive figure in twenty-first-century popular culture? John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro and Filip Miscevic seek to answer this question by arguing that particular aspects of the zombie, common to a variety of media forms, reflect a crisis in modern Western culture. The authors examine the essential features of the zombie, including mindlessness, ugliness and homelessness, and argue that these reflect the outlook of the contemporary West and its attendant zeitgeists of anxiety, alienation, disconnection and disenfranchisement. They trace the relationship between zombies and the theme of secular apocalypse, demonstrating that the zombie draws its power from being a perversion of the Christian mythos of death and resurrection. Symbolic of a lost Christian worldview, the zombie represents a world that can no longer explain itself, nor provide us with instructions for how to live within it. The concept of 'domicide' or the destruction of home is developed to describe the modern crisis of meaning that the zombie both represents and reflects. This is illustrated using case studies including the relocation of the Anishinaabe of the Grassy Narrows First Nation, and the upheaval of population displacement in the Hellenistic period. Finally, the authors invoke and reformulate symbols of the four horseman of the apocalypse as rhetorical analogues to frame those aspects of contemporary collapse that elucidate the horror of the zombie. Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis is required reading for anyone interested in the phenomenon of zombies in contemporary culture. It will also be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience including students and scholars of culture studies, semiotics, philosophy, religious studies, eschatology, anthropology, Jungian studies, and sociology.
Download or read book The Walking Dead and Philosophy written by Wayne Yuen and published by Open Court Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Walking Dead" is both a hugely successful comics series and a popular TV show. This epic story of a zombie apocalypse is unique. It focuses on the long-term individual, social, and moral consequences of survival by small groups of humans in a world overrun by infected zombies. Guns, chainsaws, and machetes are not enough for survival: humans also need agreement on rules of conduct. Can equality or fairness have any polace in the post-apocalyptic world? Do theft or even assault and murder become okay under desperate circumstances? Who should be recognized as having political authority? What about eating human flesh? Should survivors have children?
Download or read book The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture written by Paul Arthur Cantor and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2012-11-05 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular culture often champions freedom as the fundamentally American way of life and celebrates the virtues of independence and self-reliance. But film and television have also explored the tension between freedom and other core values, such as order and political stability. What may look like healthy, productive, and creative freedom from one point of view may look like chaos, anarchy, and a source of destructive conflict from another. Film and television continually pose the question: Can Americans deal with their problems on their own, or must they rely on political elites to manage their lives? In this groundbreaking work, Paul A. Cantor explores the ways in which television shows such as Star Trek, The X-Files, South Park, and Deadwood and films such as The Aviator and Mars Attacks! have portrayed both top-down and bottom-up models of order. Drawing on the works of John Locke, Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, and other proponents of freedom, Cantor contrasts the classical liberal vision of America -- particularly its emphasis on the virtues of spontaneous order -- with the Marxist understanding of the "culture industry" and the Hobbesian model of absolute state control. The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture concludes with a discussion of the impact of 9/11 on film and television, and the new anxieties emerging in contemporary alien-invasion narratives: the fear of a global technocracy that seeks to destroy the nuclear family, religious faith, local government, and other traditional bulwarks against the absolute state.
Download or read book The End written by Laura Barcella and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines fifty films, books, songs, artworks, and plays that have been created about the apocalypse, and includes information about each apocalyptic theory and an explanation about why each work is important in popular culture.
Download or read book Apocalypse Cinema written by and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Late Great Planet Earth written by Hal Lindsey and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impact of The Late Great Planet Earth cannot be overstated. The New York Times called it the "no. 1 non-fiction bestseller of the decade." For Christians and non-Christians of the 1970s, Hal Lindsey's blockbuster served as a wake-up call on events soon to come and events already unfolding -- all leading up to the greatest event of all: the return of Jesus Christ. The years since have confirmed Lindsey's insights into what biblical prophecy says about the times we live in. Whether you're a church-going believer or someone who wouldn't darken the door of a Christian institution, the Bible has much to tell you about the imminent future of this planet. In the midst of an out-of-control generation, it reveals a grand design that's unfolding exactly according to plan. The rebirth of Israel. The threat of war in the Middle East. An increase in natural catastrophes. The revival of Satanism and witchcraft. These and other signs, foreseen by prophets from Moses to Jesus, portend the coming of an antichrist . . . of a war which will bring humanity to the brink of destruction . . . and of incredible deliverance for a desperate, dying planet.
Download or read book Shakespeare and the Apocalypse written by R M Christofides and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-06-14 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By connecting Shakespeare's language to the stunning artwork that depicted the end of the world, this study provides not only provides a new reading of Shakespeare but illustrates how apocalyptic art continues to influence popular culture today. Drawing on extant examples of medieval imagery, Roger Christofides uses poststructuralist and psychoanalytic accounts of how language works to shed new light on our understanding of Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear. He then links Shakespeare's dependence on his audience to appreciate the allusions made to the religious paintings to the present day. For instance, popular television series like Battlestar Galactica, seminal horror movies such as An American Werewolf in London and Carrie and recent novels like Cormac McCarthy's The Road. All draw on imagery that can be traced directly back to the depictions of the Doom, an indication of the cultural power these vivid imaginings of the end of the world have in Shakespeare's day and now.
Download or read book Pop Culture and the Dark Side of the American Dream written by Paul A. Cantor and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The many con men, gangsters, and drug lords portrayed in popular culture are examples of the dark side of the American dream. Viewers are fascinated by these twisted versions of heroic American archetypes, like the self-made man and the entrepreneur. Applying the critical skills he developed as a Shakespeare scholar, Paul A. Cantor finds new depth in familiar landmarks of popular culture. He invokes Shakespearean models to show that the concept of the tragic hero can help us understand why we are both repelled by and drawn to figures such as Vito and Michael Corleone or Walter White. Beginning with Huckleberry Finn and ending with The Walking Dead, Cantor also uncovers the link between the American dream and frontier life. In imaginative variants of a Wild West setting, popular culture has served up disturbing—and yet strangely compelling—images of what happens when people move beyond the borders of law and order. Cantor demonstrates that, at its best, popular culture raises thoughtful questions about the validity and viability of the American dream, thus deepening our understanding of America itself.
