See also:
Katharina Gerstenberger, “Anxiety in the Anthropocene: Climate Change in Literary Fiction”, CenSAMM conference on Climate and Apocalypse (published 6 July 2017), here
Ryan Bird, “Sonic Attunement as a Remedy to Apocalyptic Climate Change Exhaustion”, CenSAMM conference on Climate and Apocalypse (published 6 July 2017), here
Ariel Hessayon, “The linkage between extreme weather events and Parker's thesis of a general crisis”, CenSAMM conference on Climate and Apocalypse (published 6 July 2017)
“That early moderns were living through what we now call a ‘Little Ice Age’ is indisputable. The term itself was coined by the US glaciologist Francois Matthes in the late 1930s and is associated with temperature drops of several degrees below the modern optimum. Once deeply unfashionable, climate change has increasingly become a valid subject for historical study. Indeed, there have been quite a few works dealing with its cultural, social, economic and religious impact during the early modern period, notably by Wolfgang Behringer and Geoffrey Parker. In this paper I want to explore the linkage between extreme weather events and Parker's thesis of a general crisis, specifically with reference to early modern England. By extension I will also deal with manifestations of apocalyptic thought precipitated by extreme weather events during the period. These included prolonged periods of drought leading to harvest failure and famine, and the freezing of rivers which paralysed trade and communication networks as well as stymying military campaigns. Contemporaries interpreted these events as the judgement of a vengeful God punishing them for their sins. Accordingly, they scapegoated outsiders; moderated their behaviour; preached sermons exhorting repentance; and prepared for the coming apocalypse. At the same time, they also adapted - most significantly through changes in clothing, hairstyles and architectural design; not to mention local and national legislation designed to stockpile provisions in times of food and medical emergencies.”
Tristan Sturm, “Competing Environmental Apocalypses: Post-Politics and the Possibility of a Radical Apocalyptics”, CenSAMM conference on Climate and Apocalypse (published 6 July 2017)
“Drawing on the post-political literature, contemporary environmental apocalyptic discourses are being mobilized by a populist politics to legitimize and stabilize the anti-democratic consensus of contemporary neoliberal capitalism. This article examines three environmental apocalyptic discourses: evangelical, secular eco-activists and scientists, and radical social theorists. In our examination of these three apocalyptic discourses we find a greater degree of heterogeneity, competition, and polarization than the characterization of ‘post-political’ would suggest. We also find the post-politicization that occurs in each of these discourses differs from the others in discursive strategy and political intent. Most importantly for us, we find evidence in each of these three apocalyptic discourses of authors or groups of authors crafting systematic critiques of capitalism, championing causes of radical socio-environmental justice, and collectively contributing to the emergence of a paradigm of radical apocalyptic discourse and politics. We conclude by proposing the eco-precariat as a possible name for this emancipatory subject and with a brief summary of what we consider are the main principles of a radical environmental apocalypticism.”
Tom Albrecht, “Interdependencies of Christian eschatology and global environmental change in American Evangelicalism: An analysis of eschatological discourses”, CenSAMM conference on Climate and Apocalypse (published 6 July 2017)
“Eschatologies, the visions of the future and particularly of “the end of times”, are one important element of Christianity and especially present in American Evangelicalism. Keeping the large influence of American Evangelicalism on the American culture and politics in mind, eschatologies have the ability to shape American attitudes, including the perception of the environment as well as environmental relevant actions. However, religious narratives such as eschatology not only influence environmental attitudes as many scholars have discussed, but conversely the rising presence of environmentalism in the public discourse can change understandings, beliefs and performances of Christian eschatology. Especially since the end of the Cold War environmental discourses have become a part of the larger assemblage of American Evangelical eschatological narratives and through that, a part of Christian religion itself. A large number of American Evangelical authors have started to interpret environmental change as signs of “the end of times” and put an emphasis on environmental change in fictional and non-fictional millennialist literature. Moreover, internet blogs like for instance raptureready.com see environmental degradation as a precursor for the Rapture and even use environmental hazards as indicators to form a Rapture Index. The research on eschatology and environmental change has largely been concerned with how these beliefs and practices have influenced adherent’s engagement with the social world. Contrasting this, this paper will discuss at the relationship of environmental change and Christian eschatologies as two mutually affecting discourses. Climate and Apocalypse conference.”
Richard Irvine, “Dust: on climate fatalism”, CenSAMM conference on Climate and Apocalypse (published 6 July 2017)
“The focus of this paper is our contemporary fascination with ruin, and the growing sense of ruination as historical inevitability. The background to this is what I term a 'convergence of catastrophisms'. Over the past two centuries we have seen a divergence of two narrative frames of time; one describing gradual and continuous processes over deep time, the other, cataclysmic events in time as shaping forces in history. Uniformitarianism aligned with a sense of the earth's continuity, Catastrophism aligned with rupture, and in this came to be associated largely with religious perspectives that emphasised rupture and 'end-time' thinking with regards to time. Yet the recognition of the role of mass extinction events in earth history, and debates surrounding the Anthropocene (a geological epoch of our own making) and the sixth mass extinction event, constitute, if not a return of the repressed, then certainly a revived 'neocatastrophism' within the earth sciences. In this way, models of geological time come into alignment with other catastrophic registers. The anticipation of ruin leaving its mark in time becomes a shared narrative frame where the 'end times' are not purely a narration of biblical understanding but are manifest in apparently 'secular' domains too, such as fears of techno-apocalypse and, of course, environmental crisis. What I want to explore here are the social effects of such end-time thinking, and how prophecies of ruin can prevent humans from taking responsibility for our active role in environmental harm: indeed, how our fascination with ruin even seems to titillate us with the fantasy of a world-without-us.”
Graham Harvey, “Between trauma and justice: Indigenous knowledges of Climate Change”, CenSAMM conference on Climate and Apocalypse (published 6 July 2017)
“The anthropogenic end of the world has already happened and continues to happen daily. This being so, world-(re)making is a primary activity of Indigenous communities, scientists and activists globally. Indigenous peoples — and their larger-than-human kin-based ecologies — have faced and continue to face the apocalypse of climate change in ways that mark the Anthropocene as more than a technological problem. It requires attention to justice. This presentation employs the work of two Indigenous scholars, and my research alongside two rivers in Indigenous communities, to consider the apocalypse of climate change and Indigenous responses. Larry Gross’ Anishinaabe Ways of Knowing and Being (2014) examines the stresses caused by the trauma of settler colonialism. It unfolds perspectives on how customary practices or traditional cultures aid Indigenous people to deal with such traumas. Kyle Whyte’s work ‘focuses on the problems and possibilities Indigenous peoples face regarding climate change, environmental justice, and food sovereignty’ (http://kylewhyte.cal.msu.edu/#...). Forced displacement and ecocidal over-exploitation are associated prongs of settler colonialism. Thus, it is no poetic exaggeration to state that Indigenous people have already experienced anthropogenic climate change at its extreme — and continue to do so. Nonetheless, Indigenous people are finding significant resources in their world-making traditions for facing the continuing and escalating impacts. These revelatory endeavors require an unsettling of “most-colonial” business-as-usual in which environmental justice for Indigenous people and the wider-than-human community must take priority.”
Michael Ruse, “The Gaia Hypothesis: Is It Really Such a Silly Idea?”, CenSAMM conference on Climate and Apocalypse (published 6 July 2017)
