Apocalyptic Narratives
As primarily a theoretical speculation, this block seminar intends to survey various narrative forms, from the Book of Revelation to modern accounts of the end of the world, investigating the possibilities through which we can understand and narrate experiences of apocalyptic temporality. ‘The end’ and ‘the world’ are multiplicities, there are ends, and not one end, there are worlds and not a single one, because within the world we live in, various worlds have already ended with mass extinctions, genocides, in the colonized societies throughout the nineteenth and the twentieth-century European imperial expansion and domination, and various worlds continue to end at this exact moment for victims of viruses, wars, transphobia, imaginary state borders, etc. Thus, this course intends to elucidate and historicize the implications in which past, present, and future are unveiled a in histories of the apocalypse. In this course, we will work with diverse materials and formats of sources, such as art, literature, philosophy, and cinema. In the first session, which will be held online, the students will be presented with an introduction of the course and its readings. After a month of online classes
During September our classes will take place online on Wed at noon. We will check how many readings and films the students managed to read/watch during the period. We will discuss topics and ideas for a research project that must be developed and sent in the end of the semester.
The core of the seminar will take place as a block seminar, in presence, with daily sessions between October 2 and October 5, including a presentation session and a field trip to Budapest.