Abstract
“Apocalypse,” “the end of the world,” “millennialism,” “millenarianism,” and “fin de siècle” are all terminologies of ending: of life, epochs, the world, and the universe.1 Among these end-related terms, apocalypse in contemporary usage connotes the most complex ideas and violent, decadent, large-scale endings, while the others suggest more specific, limited meanings, often lack destructive elements, and frequently focus on hope for the ultimate renewal of the world; with “apocalypse” what matters is when and how it comes and what triggers the end.
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Notes
The terms millennium in Latin and chilias in Greek signify a period of one thousand years. According to the Judeo-Christian tradition, millenarianism (also millenarism) is the belief by a religious, social, or political movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed in a particular way. Millennialism is a specific form of millenarism based on a one-thousand-year cycle, especially significant for Judeo-Christian tradition. Apocalypse is considered to be a form of millennialism which accompanies the major destruction of the community, the world or the universe. See Yonina Talmon, “Millenarism,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan-Free Press, 1968), 349–350
G. W. Trompf, “Millenarism: History, Sociology, and Cross-Cultural Analysis,” The Journal of Religious History 24, 1 (February 2000), 108.
Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages ( London: Pimlico, 1993 ), 4–20.
Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History, trans. Willard R. Trask ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971 ), 143.
Frank Kermode, The Sense of An Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000 ), 25.
Kusano Takumi, Seikimatsu: Kamigami no shûmatsu monjo ( Fin de Siècle: Apocalyptic Literature by the Gods) (Tokyo: Shin kigensha, 1997 ), 71.
Lucian Boia, Sekai no shûmatsu, trans. Moriya Nobuaki (Tokyo: Papyrus, 1992) (Originally published as La fin du monde), 98.
Nagayama Yasuo, Natsukashii mirai (A Good Old Future) (Tokyo: Chii6 kôronsha, 2001), 9–10.
Ôsawa Masachi, Fukanôsei no jidai ( The Age of Impossibility) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2008 ), 219–220.
Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, and Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), xxiv.
Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” in Postmodernism: A Reader, ed. Thomas Docherty (New York: New York University Press, 1993 ), 62.
As cited in Lee Quinby, Anti-Apocalypse: Exercise in Genealogical Criticism (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1994), xxii.
Jacques Derrida, “Of an Apocalyptic Tone Recently Adopted in Philosophy,” trans. John P. Leavey, Jr., Oxford Literary Review 6 (1984): 3–37.
As cited in James Berger, After the End: Representation of Post-Apocalypse ( Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999 ), 8–9.
Ania Lichtarowicz, “Virtual kingdom richer than Bulgaria,” BBC News Online, Friday, March 29, 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1899420. stm.
Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” The National Interest (Summer 1989): 3–18.
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man ( London/New York: Free Press, 2006 ).
Catherine Keller, Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World ( Boston: Beacon Press, 1996 ), 16–17.
D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse (London/New York: Penguin Books, 1996 ), Introduction.
Quinby, Anti-Apocalypse, Introduction. See also Lee Quinby, Millennial Seduction: A Skeptic Confronts Apocalyptic Culture ( Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1999 ).
Kazama Kenji, “Apocalypse Now,” Eureka: Poetry and Criticism 31, 2 (February 1999): 126–135.
Michele Marra, “The Development of Mappō Thought in Japan (I),” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 15, 1 (1988): 25–54.
H. G. Wells, Taimu mashin, trans. Ishikawa Toshi (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 2002) (Originally published as The Time Machine).
Miyadai argues that the leader and followers of Aum perpetrated the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway because they could not endure endless life without the sense of an ending. See Miyadai Shinji, Owari naki nichijô wo ikiro: Aum kanzen kokufuku manyuaru (Live in the Endless Everyday: The Perfect Manual for Conquering Aum) (Tokyo: Chikuma shoten, 1998 ). Tsurumi’s book begins with the declaration that there will be no big ending in our life. See
Tsurumi Wataru, Kanzen jisatsu manyuaru (The Complete Manual of Suicide) (Tokyo: Ōta shuppan, 1993) for further details.
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© 2014 Motoko Tanaka
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Tanaka, M. (2014). The Trajectory of Apocalyptic Discourse. In: Apocalypse in Contemporary Japanese Science Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137373557_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137373557_2
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