America's Fascination with the Apocalypse

This month Atheist Advocates of SF features a talk by writer Kel Munger on America's fascination with the apocalypse.

While the idea of apocalypse dates to before the Christian era, Americans have refined it to a gory, glorious epic-and then exported it to the rest of the world, with implications for the environment and international relations, not to mention the economy. What is it that leads Americans to apocalypse, why do we tend to favor a pessimistic version of the "End of Days," and why are we so hung up on the destruction of the world?

This presentation offers a brief history of apocalypse in Western thought (with special attention to the American additions), as well as a few hypotheses on why Americans are exceptionally fascinated with Armageddon.

Kel Munger is a writer and editor at the Sacramento News & Review, where she covers books, theater, religion, GLBTQ and feminist issues. Her journalism has won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association, and she is also a prize-winning poet and fiction writer. Her fascination with apocalypse dates to her upbringing as a Jehovah's Witness.