After the Apocalypse

Course Description

What happens after the world, as we know it, has ended? Or rather, what do literary representations of religious, economic, and climatological end-times reveal about how humans confront the intractable societal contradictions and challenges they face? In this course, we read a variety of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives to examine the resources such narratives offer for coping with real and imagined existential terror. In the process, we pose several related questions: Where does the idea of the apocalypse originate? Who is the apocalyptic narrator and for what purposes does he or she tell the tale? Does apocalypse have a temporality? Is it always in the future, or might it already have occurred? Using the tools of close reading and historical criticism, the course builds an archive of knowledge about the narrative, visual, and aural features of the literary apocalypse, and the strategies humans imagine for coping with the aftermath of devastation.

Rather than writing standard college essays, students will be guided through the creation of a multimedia portfolio over the course of the quarter, which will be presented in a poster session at the end. No prior experience with creative writing, graphic design, or sound design is required.