Before the End: Extinction, Anticipation, and Mourning in 21st-Century American Fiction

这个项目将21世纪的美国灭绝小说视为对生态灾难的生存威胁的预期哀悼的表达。我调查了叙述、思考和悲伤人类灭绝的困难，并认为这些文本与以前关于启示录的神学叙述以及最近关于全球灾难的后启示录想象有很大的不同。该项目将重点关注理解气候灾难及其独特的悲伤反应的认识论困难。我确定了用来处理这种悲伤的代表性策略，以及它们的失败，认为缺乏令人满意的结束，需要对环境威胁承担责任和采取行动。

This project considers 21st-century American extinction novels as articulations of anticipatory mourning thatrespond to the existential threat of ecological catastrophe. I investigate the difficulty of narrating,considering, and grieving human extinction, and argue that these texts diverge significantly from previoustheological narratives of apocalypse, and recent post-apocalyptic imaginings of global disaster. The projectdirects crucial attention to the epistemological difficulties of comprehending climate catastrophe and itsdistinctive grief responses. I identify the representational strategies used to process this grief, and theirfailure, arguing that the absence of satisfactory closure solicits the need for responsibility and action againstenvironmental threat.