How do human societies imagine their own demise? The question is inescapable in an age beset with environmental catastrophe and the collapse of political systems on a global scale. What sense of the future survives the fraying of modern utopias that promised freedom and equality for all? Exploring the apocalyptic imagination in philosophy, religion, and anthropology, this course asks about the ethics of living in end times. The course focuses on two of the central issues of our time: environmental devastation and perpetual war. We will ask how our conventional ways of imagining justice, courage, and compassion falter in the face of these catastrophes. Students will learn how to analyze narratives of social failure, crisis, and collapse. We will study how such narratives arise among different communities, including those who have been historically marginalized. Finally, we will explore modes of thinking - speculative, imaginative, religious - that open new ways of understanding the unthinkable. No prior knowledge in these topics is required to take this course - only a curious and open mind.
3 units · Letter (ABCD/NP) · GER: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
How do human societies imagine their own demise? The question is inescapable in an age beset with environmental catastrophe and the collapse of political systems on a global scale. What sense of the future survives the fraying of modern utopias that promised freedom and equality for all? Exploring the apocalyptic imagination in philosophy, religion, and anthropology, this course asks about the ethics of living in end times. The course focuses on two of the central issues of our time: environmental devastation and perpetual war. We will ask how our conventional ways of imagining justice, courage, and compassion falter in the face of these catastrophes. Students will learn how to analyze narratives of social failure, crisis, and collapse. We will study how such narratives arise among different communities, including those who have been historically marginalized. Finally, we will explore modes of thinking - speculative, imaginative, religious - that open new ways of understanding the unthinkable. No prior knowledge in these topics is required to take this course - only a curious and open mind.
Offered in Spring 2027 at Stanford University.