1. Basics of Apocalypticism Introduction to Multimedia Composition Spring 2011

2. Origin

Genre of prophetic works written in early centuries after Jesus

• A new kind of prophecy

Classic example: Revelation, in the Christian scriptures 3. Predecessor in the Hebrew Bible: Daniel

4. Definitions

The word "apocalypse" means revelation, or unveiling 5. Refers to the disclosure of a hidden order or plan

• Often presented specially to the writer

6. Classical

"A genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world" (J. Collins)

7. Doomsday

The Christian apocalypse reveals catastrophes that will lead to the end of the world

• Tribulations 8. Armageddon 9. The millennium

Our world ends in destruction 10. It is replaced by a perfect, permanent one

11. Pessimistic?

Written at desperate time

• Persecution and oppression for early Church

Suggests no hope for change in this world

• But to wait for salvation and endure suffering

12. Optimistic?

The millennium is 1000 years of peace on Earth

• Unclear when it will occur, or if it already has begun

The world to come is perfect

• But only for believers

13. Narrative

In the Christian tradition, the hidden plan is historical 14. Thus the apocalypse becomes anarrative--a story, a plot, or a sequence in time

• About the future 15. Adaptable

16. Rhetoric

Revelation's influence has gone beyond literal interpretations of events 17. A widely used framework for speaking and writing

• About present problems 18. About the future

"A mode of thought and discourse that empowers its audience to live in a time of disorientation and disorder by revealing to them a fundamental plan" (Brummett)

19. Conventional

"A kind of discourse having to do with the end of the world, with cataclysm and change, that both energizes audiences and is used by many people 20. "[About] the end, of final things ... [also about] the sense of disaster or crisis ... [and] the sense of a transition from this world, era, or state of being to another one" (Brummett)

21. Secularization

Apocalypticism may underly non-religious ways of thinking about time, change, and conflict

• Progress 22. Revolution 23. Absolutism

24. The 20th Century

"World" wars: 1914-18, 1939-45 25. Cold War: 1945-1991

• Nuclear arms race

Environmental movement: since 1960s 26. Progress?

27. Today

Many real, serious threats to contemporary Western way of life

• US in decline? 28. Environment? 29. Technology?