The End of the World: Contemporary Philosophy and Art (Future Perfect: Images of the Time to Come in Philosophy, Politics and Cultural Studies)

"The 'end of the world' opens up philosophical questions concerning the very notion of the world, which is a fundamental element of all existential, phenomenological, and hermeneutical philosophy. Is the 'end of the world' for us 'somebody's' death (the end of 'being-in-the-world') or the extinction of many or of all (the end of the world itself)? Is the erosion of the 'world' a phenomenon that does not in fact affect the notion of the world as a fundamental feature of all existential-ontological inquiry? This book examines the present state of these concerns in philosophy, film, and literature. It presents a philosophical hermeneutics of the present state of the world and explores the principal questions of the philosophical accounts of the end of the world, such as finality and finitude. It also shows how literature and cinema have ventured to express the end of the world while asking if a consequent expression of the end of the world is also an end of its expression"--Back cover. Introduction / Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback and Susanna Lindberg -- Part I. The ends in the world. Technologies of the end of the world / Susanna Lindberg A conversation on the end of the world / Achille Mbembe and Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback -- Part II. Philosophizing the end of the world. Kant and the end of all things / Sven-Olov Wallenstein Hegel: the end of history is not the end of the world / Susanna Lindberg End and/or beginning: the world as one-time event in Heidegger and Dōgen / Krzysztof Ziarek Putting an end: Derrida and the death penalty / Laura Odello -- Part III. After the end of the world. The end of the world after the end of finitude: on a recently prominent speculative tone in philosophy / Jussi Backman Expansion of the end: on Friedrich Hölderlin's geo-poetics / Esa Kirkkopelto Fragments of a place called The end of the world / Dan Karlholm -- Part IV. Thinking from the end. The energy of the end / Michael Marder Every day, the end of the world / Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback -- Part V. Images and words of the end. The ends of the world in Lars von Trier's Melancholia / Martta Heikkilä Coming to the end (Günther Anders, Maurice Blanchot) / Gisèle Berkman The language of the end and the language of the world in the Poem of the end by Marina Tsvetaeva / Tora Lane After the end of the world: Panorama / Irina Sandomirskaja Viktor Pelevin's postmodern apocalypsis / Artemy Magun Immersion: harmony, variety, and fragmentation -- Index -- About the authors. The 'end of the world' opens up philosophical questions concerning the very notion of the world, which is a fundamental element of all existential, phenomenological and hermeneutical philosophy. Is the 'end of the world' for us 'somebody's' death (the end of 'being-in-the-world') or the extinction of many or of all (the end of the world itself)? Is the erosion of the 'world' a phenomenon that does not in fact affect the notion of the world as a fundamental feature of all existential-ontological inquiry? This volume examines the present state of these concerns in philosophy, film and literature. It presents a philosophical hermeneutics of the present state of the world and explores the principal questions of the philosophical accounts of the end of the world, such as finality and finitude. It also shows how literature and cinema have ventured to express the end of the world while asking if a consequent expression of the end of the world is also an end of its expression. Omnipresent in popular culture, especially in film and literature, the theme of the 'end of the world' is often rejected from contemporary philosophy as hysterical apocalyptism. This volume attempts to show that it is vital that we address the motif of the 'end' in contemporary world – but that this cannot be done without thinking it anew.