The End : Surviving the World Through Imagined Disasters

The Greek root of apocalypse means to reveal or uncover. In 2020 we saw how a global pandemic can reveal economic and welfare inequalities - throughout history, apocalypse fiction has explored social injustice through fantasy, sci-fi and religious imagery, but what can we learn from it?

THE END studies apocalypse fiction and its role in how we manage, manifest and imagine social, economic and political disaster and crises. What do apocalypse narratives tell us about how we imagine our place in history? Why do we fantasise about the end of the world? What does this all unveil about our contemporary anxieties?

Popular apocalypse fiction in literature, film and games, from War of the Worlds to The Handmaid’s Tale, is put under the microscope to explore different aspects of the imagined apocalypse, from nuclear warfare to global pandemics, to the climate crisis, seeking answers in the midst of our fictional destruction.