Fictions of the Apocalypse: Genre and Meaning

In this essay, I firstly address the question of categories of apocalypse in literature, media and culture. Though the notion of ‘apocalypse’ points to a total end of ‘things as they are,’ what we find in representation, I argue, is degrees of demise. These categories, however, are not simply coldly, formalist groupings of different types of culture texts. I argue that the fact that our culture is characterised by representations of degrees of ‘world’s end’ is deeply suggestive of the actual meaning of these texts. I conclude my talk with a series of reflections upon the meaning of these stories which steers a course away from conservative and pessimistic conclusion about the genre.