2nd Global Conference Apocalypse: Imagining the End will be held Wednesday 10th July – Friday 12th July 2013 at Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom.
From Christian concept of the ‘Apocalypse’ to the Hindu notions of the Kali Yuga, visions of destruction and fantasies of the ‘end times’ have a long history. In the last few years, public media, especially in the West, have been suffused with images of the end times and afterward, from the zombie apocalypse (the AMC series The Walking Dead) to life after the collapse of civilization (the NBC series Revolution.) Several popular television series and video games (Deep Earth Bunker) are now based on preparing for and surviving the end of the world. Once a fringe activity, ‘survivalism’ has gone mainstream, and a growing industry supplies ‘doomsday preppers’ with all they need to the post-apocalyptic chaos. One purpose of the conference is to explore these ideas by situating them in context — psychological, historical, literary, cultural, political, and economic. The second aim of conference is to examine today’s widespread fascination with the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic thought, and to understand its rising appeal across broad sections of contemporary society around the world. More details on the conference, a detailed call for papers, and contact details are available at the conference website.
The organizers invite 300-word abstracts by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013.