The End of the World as We Know It: Social Science for the Twenty-First Century

2004 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 324
Author(s):  
Axel van den Berg ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
First Century ◽  
The World ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

Slavery and the Trumpocene: It's Not the End of the World

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-50
Author(s):  
Claire Colebrook
Keyword(s):  
Living System ◽  
Racial Violence ◽  
First Century ◽  
The West ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Geological Period

There is something more catastrophic than the end of the world, especially when ‘world’ is understood as the horizon of meaning and expectation that has composed the West. If the Anthropocene is the geological period marking the point at which the earth as a living system has been altered by ‘anthropos,’ the Trumpocene marks the twenty-first-century recognition that the destruction of the planet has occurred by way of racial violence, slavery and annihilation. Rather than saving the world, recognizing the Trumpocene demands that we think about destroying the barbarism that has marked the earth.

scholarly journals The Great Displacement: Reading Migration Fiction at the End of the World

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben De Bruyn
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
First Century ◽  
Margaret Drabble ◽  
The World ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Climate Fiction

This paper examines how contemporary works of fiction and nonfiction reflect on anticipated cases of climate dislocation. Building on existing research about migrant agency, climate fiction, and human rights, it traces the contours of climate migration discourse before analyzing how three twenty-first-century novels enable us to reimagine the “great displacement” beyond simplistic militarized and humanitarian frames. Zooming in on stories by Mohsin Hamid, John Lanchester, and Margaret Drabble that envision hypothetical calamities while responding to present-day refugee “crises”, this paper explains how these texts interrogate apocalyptic narratives by demilitarizing borderscapes, exploring survivalist mindsets, and interrogating shallow appeals to empathy.

Sacrificing youth for a fabricated humanity: Governance, youth, and onto-theology in the cabin in the woods

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-263
Author(s):  
Andrea E. Mayo
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Well Being ◽  
First Century ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The World ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

This paper analyzes Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon's recent film, Cabin in the Woods (2012), using Thomas J. Catlaw's Fabricating the People (2007), to illustrate the precarious position of youth at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The author argues that just as the film requires young people to sacrifice themselves for the good of humanity, recent political events ask young people to sacrifice their well-being for the sake of neo-liberalism. Throughout the film, youth refuse the sacrificial logic of the Director, choosing instead a “logic of subtraction.” While the film seemingly ends with the nihilistic end of the world, when viewed through the lens of Fabricating the People it may also offer a hopeful suggestion for how young people can resist and change oppressive systems of governance.

Twenty-First-Century Fiction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Berthold Schoene
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
First Century ◽  
Wealth Accumulation ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
Global Relations

This chapter looks at how the contemporary British and Irish novel is becoming part of a new globalized world literature, which imagines the world as it manifests itself both within (‘glocally’) and outside nationalist demarcations. At its weakest, often against its own best intentions, this new cosmopolitan writing cannot but simply reinscribe the old imperial power relations. Or, it provides an essential component of the West’s ideological superstructure for globalization’s neoliberal business of rampant upward wealth accumulation. At its best, however, this newly emergent genre promotes a cosmopolitan ethics of justice, resistance. It also promotes dissent while working hard to expose and deconstruct the extant hegemonies and engaging in a radical imaginative recasting of global relations.

Human Rights and 21st Century Challenges

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
First Century ◽  
World Population ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Relative Share ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

The world faces significant and interrelated challenges in the twenty-first century which threaten human rights in a number of ways. This book examines the relationship between human rights and three of the largest challenges of the twenty-first century: conflict and security, environment, and poverty. Technological advances in fighting wars have led to the introduction of new weapons which threaten to transform the very nature of conflict. In addition, states confront threats to security which arise from a new set of international actors not clearly defined and which operate globally. Climate change, with its potentially catastrophic impacts, features a combination of characteristics which are novel for humanity. The problem is caused by the sum of innumerable individual actions across the globe and over time, and similarly involves risks that are geographically and temporally diffuse. In recent decades, the challenges involved in addressing global and national poverty have also changed. For example, the relative share of the poor in the world population has decreased significantly while the relative share of the poor who live in countries with significant domestic capacity has increased strongly. Overcoming these global and interlocking threats constitutes this century’s core political and moral task. This book examines how these challenges may be addressed using a human rights framework. It considers how these challenges threaten human rights and seeks to reassess our understanding of human rights in the light of these challenges. The analysis considers both foundational and applied questions. The approach is multidisciplinary and contributors include some of the most prominent lawyers, philosophers, and political theorists in the debate. The authors not only include leading academics but also those who have played important roles in shaping the policy debates on these questions. Each Part includes contributions by those who have served as Special Rapporteurs within the United Nations human rights system on the challenges under consideration.

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