Brest, 8-10 March 2017
Imag(in)ing the Apocalypse
«When Armageddon takes
place, parking is going to be a major problem»,
J.G. Ballard, Millenium People (2003)
This conference,
‘Imag(in)ing The Apocalypse’, is the second
in a series dedicated to “Forms of the Apocalypse” and has a specific focus on screen
culture (Gervais, 2009) and screen society (Lipovetsky and Serroy, 2007). The aim
of the series, organised by three research centres (at the University of Paris 8
Vincennes/St Denis, the University of Western Brittany, and the University of Montpellier)
is to explore representations of apocalypse, of cataclysm, armageddon and beyond
(if the beyond can be imagined).
Since the turn
of the last century, the End of the World has once again become a salient topic
in various expressions of popular culture, from fiction to social media to on-screen
texts, both big and small. A resurgence of representations of the apocalypse tends
to occur in periods of ontological and epistemological crisis (Seed, 1999). Visions
of the end of the world, and/or the end of the human race (not necessarily the same
thing) are currently taking centre stage in the collective imagination and in visual
media, resulting in a proliferation of “apocalypse” discourses in a range of contemporary
contexts. These discourses find expression in fictional rhetorics of decadence and
degeneration, but can also take on a political dimension, creating oppositions between
Self and Other in which normative identities are confronted with otherness as menace
or as evil, as well as in survival narratives of preparations for/life in a post-apocalyptic
world.
As the notion
of apocalypse increasingly ‘contaminates’ the mediated spaces of popular culture,
it gives rise to a profusion of lexical, textual and visual forms of ‘end-of-the-world’
discourses, at times playful (witness the birth of portmanteau words featuring -pocalypse
and -geddon) as well as ironic (we can also note the commercialisation of the apocalypse
in franchise films and in TV series, where the end of the world can often seem never-ending).
In addition to its omnipresence on the big and small screen, representations of
the apocalypse also permeate discourse genres such as advertising, online game scenarios,
and many other virtual/physical interactional spaces.
We invite contributions
to the conference in Brest which explore this rich multimodal discursive seam through
the theoretical prisms of film, television, media and cultural studies. Amongst
others, possible topics could therefore include:
·
The
characteristics of apocalyptic discourse in contemporary digital society
·
The
role of the screen (digital/cinematic) in diffusing end-of-the-world discourse
·
Transmediality
and the Apocalypse
·
Apocalypse
and reception
·
Apocalypse
and commodification
·
Forms
of “Apocotainment”
·
Vampire
and Zombie culture as apocalyptic tropes
·
The
apocalypse in online gaming scenarios
·
Digital
spaces in apocalyptic hyper-reality
·
Playing
with the apocalypse (wordplay, parody, etc.)
·
Cashing
in on the apocalypse (advertising, marketing, etc.)
·
Politics,
politicians and the apocalypse
·
Apocalypse,
dystopia and surveillance societies
·
Imagining
the end: (un)representability of the apocalypse
The closing
date for submitting proposed papers is 30th October 2016.
Indicative
references:
Agamben, Giorgio,
Qu'est-ce qu'un dispositif ?, Paris, Rivages,
2014.
Barker, Chris
and E. Jane, Cultural Studies: Theory and
Practice (5th Ed.)London: Sage, 2016. Baudrillard, Jean, Simulacre et simulation, Paris, Galilée,
1981
Benoit Eric
& Rabaté, D., Nihilismes ? Revue Modernités, n° 33, Bordeaux, PU de Bordeaux,
2012. Chassay, Jean-François et al., Des Fins
et des temps, Les limites de l'imaginaire, Figura, n° 12, UQAM, 2005.
Engelibert,
Jean-Paul, Apocalypses sans royaume, Paris,
Classiques Garnier, 2013
Fœssel, Michaël,
La privation de l’intime - Mises en scène
politiques des sentiments. Paris : Seuil, 2008
Fœssel, Michaël,
Après la fin du monde, critique de la raison
apocalyptique, Paris, Seuil, 2012. Flusser, Vilèm, Into the Universe of Technical Images, Nancy Ann Roth tr., Electronic Mediations, vol. 32, Minneapolis,
AZ et Londres, GB : University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
Foster, Gwendalyn,
Hoarders, Doomsday Preppers and the Culture
of Apocalypse. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014.
Gervais, Bertrand,
http://oic.uqam.ca/fr/conferences/sommesnousmaintenantisitnowreflexionssurle contemporainetlaculturedelecran
Gervais, Bertrand,
L'imaginaire de la fin, Logiques de l'imaginaire Tome III, Montréal,
Le
Quartanier,
2009.
Hubner, Leaning
and Manning (2015) (eds) The Zombie Renaissance
in Popular Culture, Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan ;
Jenkins, Henry,
The Wow Climax : Tracing the Emotional Impact
of Popular Culture, New-York, NYU Press, 2006.
Lipovetsky,
Gilles, Jean Serroy, L’écran global : culture-médias et cinéma à l’âge hypermoderne.
Paris, Éd. Le Seuil, coll. La couleur des idées, 2007.
Ermakoff,
C, Fins du monde, Revue de cinéma Vertigo, n° 43, été 2012.
Seed, David,
Imagining Apocalypse, Studies in Cultural
Crisis, Basingstoke, McMillan, 1999. Weiss and Taylor: (2014) (eds) The Cultural Un/Life of Zombies, Journal of Cultural and Religious Theory,
13 (2).
Rehill, Annie,
The Apocalypse Is Everywhere: A Popular History
of America's Favorite Nightmare
Westport: Greenwood
Press, 2009.
Ritzenhoff,
Annie, The Apocalypse in Film: Dystopias,
Disasters, and Other Visions about the End of the World, Langham: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2015.
Roth, Nancy
Ann tr., Into the Universe of Technical Images,
Electronic Mediations, vol. 32, Minneapolis, MN, et Londres, GB : University
of Minnesota Press, 2011.