Imagining the Apocalypse: Art and the End Times

What are the politics of picturing the end times? This panel discussion will celebrate the launch of Imagining the Apocalypse: Art and the End Times with Courtauld Books Online. The online and open-access essay collection explores how art and visual culture has imagined Armageddon across the globe from the eighteenth century to the present. The book considers the ways in which apocalypticism has been contested by social conservatives and progressives, drawn on to perpetuate or challenge structures of power. Contributors discuss homophobia and queer utopias, climate change and nuclear anxieties, folk monsters and fears of revolt, imperial violence and anti-colonial imagination, the staging of conflict and disaster, popular culture and fascism, faith and denial in church congregations. Each reveal how a series of contradictions underpin the end times: beginnings and endings, annihilation and revelation. Speakers Lucy Byford is a doctoral candidate at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on the print culture and performance of Berlin Dada. Edwin Coomasaru is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. His research considers gender, sexuality, and race in Northern Irish, British, and Sri Lankan art. Theresa Deichert is a doctoral candidate at Heidelberg University. Her research studies contemporary art and ecology in Japan after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Kate Pickering is an artist, writer and doctoral candidate at Goldsmiths. Her experimental writing and performances explore notions of embodiment, belief, and sacred space through research into American megachurch evangelicalism. Organised by Dr Edwin Coomasaru (University of Edinburgh) and Theresa Deichert (Heidelberg University)