THEATER OF APOCALYPSE
Judeo-Christian Apocalyptic Tradition
We study the ideas of apocalypse in the Western philosophical tradition starting with Revelation by John of Patmos, written in the 1st century CE, and moving though Dante Alighieri's Inferno, and several other works of art and influences on these primary texts. What we found in John of Patmos, not to be confused with St. John the Apostle, was that Revelation was written as an extremely volatile political rally call to the bishops of the near eastern Mediterranean to reject "paganism" of old Rome, the worship and memory of African goddess traditions that had prevailed in popular belief despite persecution. To combine the Revelation text to that of the apostles in editions of the bible, was also a political move to consolidate power in the Church to further purge these beliefs that threatened the hold on power by the bishops. Dante's Inferno consolidated the spatial mapping of up=heaven, and down=hell, with punitive measures for those who do not literally climb the ladder as depicted in the image above in the Ladder of Divine Ascent. Thus, apocalypse was always an order of the 'chosen' few who were deemed to avoid a tortuous 'fall' from grace based on their compliance with religious and later secular law.
About the Syllabus
We read, listened, discussed material from the syllabus together in class twice a week, and on our own, we also watched film, studied popular social media, television, and discourse. Throughout the semester, we moved towards collectively defining and complicating concepts of time, space, and symbols of apocalypse. We also studied the concepts of "reveal," death, salvation, transcendence, and the reorganizing principles of crisis. Last, we questioned the production of crisis and its relationship to economic and political systems of power.
Students engaged in active discussion, shared note taking, and writing of final paper projects taking up one of the themes that we discussed during the class. Prompts and other discussion questions were shared in advance. Our conversations in class drove the assignments, leading us to interrogate new ways of thinking about the world we inhabit and sustain.
The syllabus concentrates readings among writers in the American hemisphere.
Assignments include—among other in-class activities—two short written response papers, a midterm exam and a final 10-12 page paper/exam or creative project. This is a reading and writing intensive course with opportunities for performance practice
Maya Quiché, Mexica Aztec Nahua Philosophy
As integral to our class, we read excerpts of the Popol Vuh, the Maya-Quiché "Book of the People," Aztec Philosophy by James Maffie, plays by indigenous playwrights in South, Central, and North America, and spoke with people in our community about Native American philosophical traditions. This material--especially in the first time this course was offered in 2012-- helped to dispel the false expectations of the "end of the Mayan calendar," and ground us in the closer to home realities of time, renewal, and the manifestations of a constantly changing universe. The result of studying different lineages of cultural production on a theme of apocalypse became clearer over the course of the semester: to de-authorize the universality of Euro-centric eschatological claims on the collective consciousness.
While living within the onslaught of catastrophe and doom, we sought to unravel a deeper story of cultural production that surrounds the Northern European idea of end of times in popular media, and in particular film produced in the United States. We asked critically why, when we are working from in a region of the world where cultural, spiritual, social, and political beliefs of renewal and continuity among human and non-human existence have circulated for thousands of years, why does the cultural industry of the United States (in a relatively short time since occupation) continue to produce understandings of so-called "apocalypse" based on Eurocentric and Judeo-Christian interpretations?
The answer led us to consider that we are under a continual enterprise of "conquest" that masks itself in discrete notions of past, final, and future time in an attempt to reorder and control its own perpetuity. The time of our class, while under militarized border control, is no exception. The work of our class, therefore, became an endeavor to expose these cultural underpinnings to the deep stories of enclosure and liberation. We found that these stories of "culture" undergird and shape judicial practices/law, health, climate, and the purpose of knowledge and technologies of our age.