Chapter 1 Acknowledgements Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 Chapter One: Sentient Vegetable Claims End is Near! The Graphic Novels of Alan Moore Chapter 4 Chapter Two: Blue-footed Boobies and Other Witnesses to the End: Kurt Vonnegut's Change of Heart Chapter 5 Chapter Three : A Tortured State of Mind: Terry Gilliam's New Jerusalem Chapter 6 Chapter Four: Apocalypse Reloaded:The Matrix Trilogy Chapter 7 Chapter Five: Willingly Believing Fiction: Robert Coover and Apocalypse as Metafiction Chapter 8 Chapter Six: A Sense of the Ending: Don DeLillo's Apocalyptic Novels Chapter 9 Epilogue Chapter 10 Works Cited
Elizabeth K. Rosen is a visiting assistant professor at Lafayette College.
Apocalyptic Transformations: Apocalypse and the Postmodern
Imagination is a fine example of why literature and literary
criticism matter in today's world. Elizabeth Rosen demonstrates the
continuing relevance in postmodern fiction, film, and graphic texts
of that grandest of all grand narratives, Apocalypse. In lucid and
engaging prose, Rosen details how contemporary writers and
filmmakers have modified the story of Apocalypse in the aftermath
of the death of God. Examining the work of some of the most
respected American authors of the second half of the twentieth
century as well as popular forms such as the Matrix films and comic
books, Rosen illuminates the persistence of Apocalypse in the
contemporary imagination. In their efforts to rescript the end of
the world and what might follow it, she convincingly argues,
contemporary apocalyptists offer hope, a way of seeing beyond the
end, and a way out of the world view in which devastation by
nuclear war or some other disaster is unavoidable. Apocalyptic
Transformations is important in showing that postmodern narratives
offer an alternative path to that mapped by the fatalistic,
self-fulfilling prophecy of traditional Apocalypse.
*Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society*
Elizabeth K. Rosen understands more of my work than I do.
*Terry Gilliam*
Rosen offers an impressive review of previous criticism on selected
works without resorting to specialized jargon, thus producing a
book that is refreshingly readable. Her approach is unique . . . .
Helpful endnotes accompany each chapter . . . . Recommended.
*CHOICE, August 2008*
One of the most enjoyable books I have read in awhile. I
appreciated the diversity of cultural sources that Rosen drew upon
in consideration of apocalypse, including graphic novels, books,
and film. A solid consideration of how differing visions of the New
Jerusalem speak to the late modern imagination.
*Morehead's Musings*
We cannot fully appreciate contemporary art without acknowledging
its apocalyptic dimension. Elizabeth K. Rosen’s interpretation of
major works of postmodern literature and film is an important guide
to the unchartered territory where fear and hope, eternity and
immediacy, the finite and the infinite all come together in the
unfulfillable desire to comprehend the end before it comes.
*Zbigniew Lewicki, University of Warsaw*
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