CFP: 2nd Global Conference: Apocalypse: Imagining the End

Wednesday 10th July–Friday 12th July 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations:

From Christian concept of the ‘Apocalypse’ to the Hindu notions of the Kali Yuga, visions of destruction and fantasies of the ‘end times’ have a long history. In the last few years, public media, especially in the West, have been suffused with images of the end times and afterward, from the zombie apocalypse (the AMC series The Walking Dead) to life after the collapse of civilization (the NBC series Revolution.) Several popular television series and video games (Deep Earth Bunker) are now based on preparing for and surviving the end of the world. Once a fringe activity, ‘survivalism’ has gone mainstream, and a growing industry supplies ‘doomsday preppers’ with all they need to the post-apocalyptic chaos. One purpose of the conference is to explore these ideas by situating them in context — psychological, historical, literary, cultural, political, and economic. The second aim of conference is to examine today’s widespread fascination the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic thought, and to understand its rising appeal across broad sections of contemporary society around the world.

This interdisciplinary project welcomes presentations from all disciplines and research areas, including anthropology, psychoanalysis, political economy, psychology, area studies, communal studies, environmental studies, history, sociology, religion, theology, and gender studies.

Presentations,papers, performances, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to (but not limited to) the following themes:

- Decline, Collapse, Decay, Disease, Mass Death
- Survivalism and Doomsday Preppers
- Revolution
- Theories of Social Change
- Peak Oil, Resource Depletion, Global Warming, Economic Collapse
- The Second Coming/Millenarianism/Rapture
- The Hindu Kali Yuga
- Sex and Gender at the End of Time
- Ironic and/or Anti-Apocalyptic Thinking
- Utopia and Dystopia
- Intentional Communities as Communities of the End Times
- Selling the Apocalypse, Commodifying Disaster, and Marketing the End Times
- Death Tourism and Disaster Capitalism
- The Age of Terror
- Zombies, Vampires, and Werewolves in Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
- Disaster Fiction/Movies/Video Games
- History as Apocalypse
- Remembering and Reliving the Collapse of the Western Roman Empire

What to send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.

E-mails should be entitled: Apocalypse2 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs:

Charles W. Nuckolls 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the ‘Ethos’ series of research projects, which in turn belong to the Critical Issues programmes of ID.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be published in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a themed dialogic ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the conference, please click here. 

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

CFP: 1st Global Conference: Apocalypse: Imagining the End

Thursday 19th July – Saturday 21st July 2012

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Papers:

From Christian concept of the “Apocalypse” to the Hindu notions of the Kali Yuga, visions of destruction and fantasies of the “end times” have a long history. One purpose of the conference is to explore these ideas by situating them in context – historical, literary, cultural, political, and economic (to name a few). However, the modern period is especially marked by a mixed sense of concern and fascination with apocalypse, and today we are surrounded by scenarios of imminent destruction and annihilation. The second aim of conference is therefore to examine today’s widespread fascination the apocalyptic thought, and to understand its appeal across broad sections of contemporary society around the world.

Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to (but not limited to) the following themes:

* Decline, Collapse, and Decay

* The Second Coming

* The Hindu Kali Yuga

* Sex at the End of Time

* Ironic and/or Anti-Apocalyptic Thinking

* Utopia, Redemption and Rebirth

* Intentional Communities as Communities of the End Times

* Selling the Apocalypse, Commodifying Disaster, and Marketing the End Times

* Death Tourism and Disaster Capitalism

* The Age of Terror

* Global Warming and Its Denial

* Zombies, Vampires, and Werewolves in Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

* Disaster Fiction/Movies

* History as Apocalypse

* 2012

* Remembering and Reliving the Collapse of the Western Roman Empire

* Technology and Mass Destruction

This project will run concurrently with our project on Monstrous Geographies we welcome any papers considering the problems or addressing issues on Apocalypse: Imagining the End and Monstrous Geographies for a cross-over panel. We also welcome pre-formed panels on any aspect of tmonstrous geographies or in relation to crossover panel(s). Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 17th February 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be
submitted by Friday 23rd May 2012. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.

E-mails should be entitled: Apocalypse Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Charles W. Nuckolls
Department of Anthropology,
Brigham Young University,
USA

Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader, Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

The conference is part of the ‘Ethos’ series of research projects, which in turn belong to the Critical Issues programmes of ID.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and
interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be published in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for
publication in a themed dialogic ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the project, please click here.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.