Apocalypse Now: Reading End-of-the-World Narratives in American Literature

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The world is ending, and, surprisingly, has ended multiple times throughout history. Terrible events have occurred, and are occurring as we move through climate change, the Covid pandemic, and international wars. Yet, in the moment of apocalypse that, as James Berger notes, “burns away layers of habits of perception,” our perception is made anew and we begin to create new histories, narratives, and futures through the debris of trauma. This course will look into literary and cinematic representations of apocalypse that reflect, annihilate, revolutionize, or reconfigure the economic, social, demographic changes in US society. We will begin by discussing how (post)apocalyptic narratives reinforce the traditional binaries of Global North and South, self and other, by illustrating contact with the non-white race – both physical and psychological - as “the End.” We will then move on to see how other writers like Toni Morrison and Gloria Anzaldua rework this genre as they revisit the traumatic sites of history to identify the cultural symptoms and allow the unmourned ghosts to speak.