American Apocalyptic: Beliefs, Rituals, and Expressions of Doomsday Culture in the US

Gittinger, Juli L.

ISBN 10: 3031561597 / ISBN 13: 9783031561597

Published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2024

About this Item

2024th edition NO-PA16APR2015-KAP.

Seller Inventory # 26399311240

Bibliographic Details

• Title: American Apocalyptic: Beliefs, Rituals, and Expressions of Doomsday Culture in the US
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3031561597
• ISBN 13: 9783031561597
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

In this book, Juli Gittinger argues that America’s fascination (obsession?) with the apocalypse is a synthesis of religion, popular culture, and politics in a way that is particular to the US and consonant with mythological-historical narratives of America. As a result, we can identify American apocalypticism as a sort of religion in itself that is closely tied to “civil religion,” that has a worldview and rituals that create identifiable communities and connects American mythology to apocalyptic anxieties. Gittinger discusses how various cultures and groups form as a result of this obsession, and that these communities form their own rituals and responses in various forms of “prepping” or survivalist practices.  She lays out an argument for a broad eschatology prevalent in the US that extends beyond traditional religious designations to form an apocalyptic worldview that is built into our narrative as a country, as well as furthered by popular culture and media’s contributionto apocalyptic anxieties. Subsequently, Gittinger uses case studies of apocalyptic events―current or speculative―that reveal how our anxieties about the end of the world (as we know it) inform our culture, as well as religious narratives that emerge from such crises.

About the Author

Juli Gittinger is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Georgia College, USA.