Ends of Time: Apocalypses Ancient and Modern (MLA 2011)

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Classics and Modern Literature Discussion Group, MLA
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This panel, organized by the Classics and Modern Literature Discussion Group, will explore the ways and means of eschatological pronouncements from antiquity to the present. The apocalypse is an ultimatum that both threatens and consoles; the etymology of the word ("uncovering") points toward future and past alike. The apocalypse marks time while disrupting its continuity; it holds the present hostage to a final aim, which gains reality from what is adjourned or lost in anticipation. How does the apocalypse give voice to the oppressed? How does it militate for revenge? Under what circumstances does the apocalyptic event arise and by what detours does it, as a performance, pass from a symbolic sphere into fulfillment? We invite papers that investigate specific articulations of the idea of apocalypse with reference to particular texts (verbal, visual, ancient, modern).
Please send 300-word abstracts to Erik Butler (hbutle2@emory.edu) by March 1, 2010.