A Philosophy of Climate Apocalypticism by Kowalewski, Jakub;

Short description:

Drawing on a wide range of sources and theoretical traditions from ecological works and radical pamphlets, through political theology and continental philosophy to ancient and medieval apocalypses, the book sheds a comprehensive light on the concepts, processes, and experiences  around the figure of the environmental end of the world.

Long description:

This book offers a long-overdue analysis of the ubiquity of eco-apocalypticism in current discourses on the climate crisis.

Drawing on a wide range of sources and theoretical traditions from ecological works and radical pamphlets, through political theology and continental philosophy to ancient and medieval apocalypses, the book sheds a comprehensive light on the concepts, processes, and experiences which circulate around the figure of the environmental end of the world. Importantly, this book argues that apocalypticism can provide a productive philosophical framework for addressing the climate catastrophe, enabling us to propose a distinctive answer to the fundamental question which haunts progressive ecological projects: how can we defend the world we find indefensible?

Appealing to students, academics, and researchers in philosophy, political theology, and environmental humanities, this book is a timely intervention which hopes to demonstrate that, when all else fails, it is the end of the world which may save the planet.

From Noah to Italian Marxism to Planet of the Apes, Kowalewski assembles a dizzying array of philosophical, theological and cultural texts in order to analyse our responses to eco-catastrophes. The resulting argument for an apocalypticism of the everyday contains no easy answers – only challenges to think and act differently.

Tommy Lynch, Reader in Political Theology, University of Chichester, UK

Backed by a thorough study of the apocalyptic tradition, from Paul through Joachim da Fiore and Taubes to contemporary discourse of eco-apocalypse, Kowalewski proposes an aporetic apocalypticism as the only thought capable of taking us out of the current double bind in which the reproductive means of humankind’s survival begin to endanger this very survival.

Agata Bielik-Robson, Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Nottingham, UK 

Resisting tired tropes and familiar narratives, Kowalewski brings together ancient and contemporary apocalypticisms into an exciting and provocative account of eco-politics in a time of crises.

Marika Rose, Senior Lecturer in Philosophical Theology, University of Winchester, UK

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgements. Introduction and initial hypotheses. Chapter 1: The answer is ideology!. Chapter 2: The conceptual orbit of apocalypticism. Chapter 3: Why being is on nobody’s side: The politics and ontology of climate apocalypse. Chapter 4: The shapes of eco-apocalyptic time. Chapter 5: A requiem for a world built on sand: Landscapes and the ambivalence of ruins. Chapter 6: When the world ends, I will move to Paris: Anxiety, apathy, and activism. Chapter 7: Antinomianism and spectral laws. Index.