Postapokalipsy ekologiczne jako ćwiczenie wyobraźni apokaliptycznej

• Authors: Lech Nijakowski

Title variants

EN

Ecological post-apocalypses as exercises in apocalyptic imagination

Abstracts

EN

This article explores the topic of ecological post-apocalypse in popular culture. Conclusions are drawn based on an analysis of the purposive sample of 308 films (from short animated films to multiple-season series analysed as single items) and 200 novels and short stories. Different genres of ecological post-apocalypse are discussed along with the origins of a specific subgenre, climate post-apocalypse, which emerged at the turn of the 21st century. The films, novels and stories are characterised in terms of the world depicted in them. Based on this, ecological post-apocalypses from the 1970s and 1980s are juxtaposed with those from the 21st century. The texts are also analysed in terms of the social function they perform. Strongly embedded in popular culture, their ideas about the apocalypse are hardly realistic. As such they seem to be exercises in apocalyptic imagination. The worlds they depict resemble thought experiments where mechanisms of our world become denaturalised. As a result, new ethical constructs come to being, for example when a need arises to stretch our moral obligations in space and time. Post-apocalypses also undermine the neoliberal discourse on the strength and agency of middle classes.

Keywords

PL

kultura popularna; postapokalipsa; apokalipsa ekologiczna; apokalipsa klimatyczna; wyobraźnia apokaliptyczna

EN

popular culture; post-apocalypse; ecological apocalypse; climate apocalypse; apocalyptic imagination

• Publisher: Narodowe Centrum Kultury
• Journal: Kultura Współczesna. Teoria. Interpretacje. Praktyka
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 109
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 98-112

Contributors

author

Lech Nijakowski

• https://orcid.org/0000000301776305

Identifiers

DOI

10.26112/kw.2020.109.07

Biblioteka Nauki

1857288