The End of the World -- Again: Why the Apocalypse Meme Replicates in Media, Science, and Culture

Barry Vacker

ISBN 10: 0979840465 / ISBN 13: 9780979840463

Published by Center for Media and Destiny (edition 1st), 2012

About this Item

It's a well-cared-for item that has seen limited use. The item may show minor signs of wear. All the text is legible, with all pages included. It may have slight markings and/or highlighting.

Seller Inventory # 0979840465-8-18

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The End of the World -- Again: Why the Apocalypse Meme Replicates in Media, Science, and Culture
• Publisher: Center for Media and Destiny (edition 1st)
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0979840465
• ISBN 13: 9780979840463
• Binding: Perfect Paperback
• Edition: 1st.
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Doomsday scenarios. They proliferate in our culture, from economics to ecology, theology to technology, biology to cosmology, James Bond to Slavoj Zizek, Plato's Atlantis to Lars von Trier's Melancholia. With creativity and critical insight, Barry Vacker shows why apocalyptic memes replicate and have built-in survival advantages. He also explains how the doomsdays reveal the deeper challenges facing human existence -- the philosophical apocalypse effected by our lack of cosmic meaning in the vast universe. Have we really embraced our true existence on Spaceship Earth floating in the cosmos of the new millennium? Our calendars say we have passed the year 2000, but have we really entered the new millennium? The End of the World -- Again offers an original, exciting, and (for some) terrifying critique of culture in 2012 and beyond.

About the Author

Barry Vacker teaches media and cultural studies at Temple University (Philadelphia), where he is an associate professor and faculty teaching mentor in the School of Media and Communication. Vacker is the author of many articles and books on art, media, science, technology, and culture. His most recent books include the innovative text anthology, Media Environments (San Diego: Cognella 2010), and the text for Peter Granser's Signs (Stuttgart: Hatje Cantz and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Photography 2008). He earned his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 1995.

Vacker's most recent academic articles include: 1) Yearning to be the center of everything when we are the center of nothing: Parallels and reversals in Chaco, Hubble, and Facebook, in Telematics and Informatics, Volume 30, 2013, presenting a mind-bending critique of how Facebook is our existential consolation for the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope; 2) Black holes in the electronic galaxies, in The Unconnected: Social Justice, Participation and Engagement in the Information Society (Peter Lang Press, 2013), presenting a radical new theory of media resistance as digital disappearance.