Media and the Apocalypse

Responding to a plethora of media representing end times, this anthology of essays examines pop culture-s fascination with end of the world or apocalyptic narratives. Essays discuss films and made-for-television movies - including Deep Impact, The Core, and The Day After Tomorrow - that feature primarily [hu]man-made catastrophes or natural catastrophes. These representations complement the large amount of mediated literature and films on religious perspectives of the apocalypse, the Left Behind series, and other films/books that deal with prophecy from the Book of Revelation in the Bible. This book will be useful in upper-level undergraduate/graduate courses addressing mass media, film and television studies, popular culture, rhetorical criticism, and special/advanced topics. In addition, the book will be of interest to scholars and students in disciplines including anthropology, history, psychology, sociology, and religious studies.

The Editors: Kylo-Patrick R. Hart received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and is Chair of the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Plymouth State University. He is the author or editor of several books about media, including The AIDS Movie: Representing a Pandemic in Film and Television, Film and Sexual Politics, and Film and Television Stardom. Annette M. Holba is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Plymouth State University. She has published Philosophical Leisure: Recuperative Praxis for Human Communication; Lizzie Borden Took an Axe or Did She?; Philosophies of Communication: Implications for Everyday Experience; and numerous articles on topics pertaining to philosophy of communication.

Contents: Annette M. Holba/Kylo-Patrick R. Hart: Introduction - Terri Toles Patkin: The Day After the End of the World: Media Coverage of a Nonevent - Gary Baines: Apocalypticism in American Folk Music - Jason T. Clemence: Empty All Along: Eraserhead , Apocalypse, and Dismantled Masculine Privilege - Jörn Ahrens: How to Save the Unsaved World? Transforming the Self in The Matrix , The Terminator , and 12 Monkeys - Kylo-Patrick R. Hart: Diversity, The Doom Generation , and the Apocalypse - Annette M. Holba: Occultic Rhetoric in the Buffyverse: Apocalypse Revisited - Christian Lundberg: The Pleasure of Sadism: A Reading of the Left Behind Series - Mark J. Porrovecchio: Apocalypse Documented: An Audiovisual Representation of September 11, 2001 - Brent Yergensen: Exploring Science as Salvation in Apocalyptic Films - Terence McSweeney: Apocalypto Now: A New Millennial Pax Americana in Crisis? - Corey Anton: Futuralness as Freedom: Moving toward the Past that Will-Have-Been.