Apocalypse: Introduction

Methodologies for the Apocalypse: Unthinking the Thinkable

“…These alternating and shifting time-space dimensions also constitute apocalypse as plural, yet particular. Scholars might ask: “Where is it [apocalypse] happening, and to whom, and by whom?” (Hurley & Sinykin, 2018, p. 453). In addition, the form of apocalypse and apocalyptic methodologies often consists of contradictory sets of affordances, which are always historical.…”

“…. revealing itself to be flexible and active, capable of activating an almost endless array of affects, orientations, narrative logics, political affiliations, and modes of ecological inhabitation” (Hurley & Sinykin, 2018, p. 464). It could also be argued that (methodological) apocalypse may fall somewhere between unmotivated methodological disaster and unthinkable purposelessness.…”

“…Function? Hurley and Sinykin (2018) proposed that apocalypse is not an event but an imaginative practice that might represent a future, but always acts in the present. It is an anticipation, "an aesthetic that does as much as it represents" (p. 451).…”

Revenge Is a Genre Best Served Old: Apocalypse in Christian Right Literature and Politics

“…Recently, Hurley and Sinykin (2018) have argued for "a revaluation of apocalypse in its many aspects: as an aesthetic, a form, a genre, a practice, a structure of feeling, and an orientation" in their introduction to a special issue of ASAP/Journal dedicated to apocalypse (p. 453). While their introduction and the issue itself generally emphasize the valence of apocalypse for contemporary crisis, the structure of feeling for what it means to be in the last days, I want to follow their invitation to think more broadly about a phenomenology of apocalypse as a historical genre that continues to organize and articulate affect, particularly for conservative white American Christians geared for existential combat.…”