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

该项目认为，21世纪的美国灭绝小说表达了对生态灾难的生存威胁的预期哀悼。我调查的困难，叙述，考虑，和悲伤的人类灭绝，并认为这些文本显着偏离previoustheological叙事的启示，和最近的后启示录的全球灾难。该项目将重点放在理解气候灾难及其独特的悲伤反应的认识论困难上。我确定了用于处理这种悲伤的代表性策略，以及他们的失败，认为缺乏令人满意的关闭要求对精神威胁的责任和行动的需要。

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.