SCHL 280MHistories of the Apocalypse

Catalog

This course will examine how people have thought about the end of the world/extinction of humanity, particularly from circa 1500 to the present. It will cover what particular "doomsday" fears have been entertained, and how we can situate them historically. Students will analyze the impact these fears have on concepts of a meaningful life, as well as how they have encompassed religious debates about human agency and political debates about human responsibility towards others. This course will use an expansive definition of doomsday, so as to include individual acts such as suicide as symptomatic of a collective problem. The context will primarily be Western, though the colonial/imperial sphere and its legacies will also be addressed.