Apocalypse in American Literature and Culture Cambridge Themes in American Literature and Culture Series

The idea of America has always encouraged apocalyptic visions. The 'American Dream' has not only imagined the prospect of material prosperity; it has also imagined the end of the world. 'Final forecasts' constitute one of America's oldest literary genres, extending from the eschatological theology of the New England Puritans to the revolutionary discourse of the early republic, the emancipatory rhetoric of the Civil War, the anxious fantasies of the atomic age, and the doomsday digital media of today. For those studying the history of America, renditions of the apocalypse are simply unavoidable. This book brings together two dozen essays by prominent scholars that explore the meanings of apocalypse across different periods, regions, genres, registers, modes, and traditions of American literature and culture. It locates the logic and rhetoric of apocalypse at the very core of American literary history.

Introduction. The United States of apocalypse John Hay; Part I. America as Apocalypse: 1. The apocalypse of settler colonialism and the case for the americocene Jared Hickman; 2. Apocalyptic violence in visual media Mark Noble; 3. Revelation, secret knowledge, and 9/11 conspiracy theory Lindsey Michael Banco; 4. Decolonial eschatologies of native American literatures Adam Spry; Part II. American Apocalypse in (and out of) History: 5. The puritans prepare for the second coming Lindsay DiCuirci; 6. The American revolution as extinction and rebirth Christen Mucher; 7. Race, American enlightenment, and the end times Mark Alan Mattes; 8. Sentimental premonitions and antebellum spectacle Melissa Gniadek; 9. Antebellum anticipations of annihilation Gordon Fraser; 10. The apocalyptic fury of the civil war Timothy Donahue; 11. Apocalyptic form in the American Fin de Siècle Jane Fisher; 12. The ruins of American modernism Alastair Morrison; 13. Mutually assured destruction in cold war/postwar America Jacqueline Foertsch; 14. Postmodern American literature at the end of history Timothy Parrish; 15. Ecology, ethics, and the apocalyptic lyric in recent American poetry Jennifer Ashton; 16. Disaster response in post-2000 American apocalyptic fiction Heather J. Hicks; Part III. Varieties of Apocalyptic Experience: 17. New history for a new earth Kevin M. Modestino; 18. W. E. B. Du Bois's apocalyptic ambivalence Autumn Womack; 19. The empty cities of urban apocalypse Nick Yablon; 20. The planetary futures of eco-apocalypse Ursula K. Heise; 21. The last laughs of doomsday humor Frances McDonald; 22. The catastrophic end-games of young adult literature Claire P. Curtis; 23. Apocalyptic trauma and the politics of mourning a world Irene Visser; 24. Posthuman postapocalypse Matthew A. Taylor; Further reading.

John Hay is Associate Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he specializes in nineteenth-century American literature. He is the author of Postapocalyptic Fantasies in Antebellum American Literature (2017) and a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies.