After the End: Apocalypse, Authority, and the Moral Imagination in Contemporary Culture

In this roundtable, four established scholars will engage in structured conversation around the question of what happens when the theological structures of apocalypse (divine judgment, cosmic conflict, the suspension of ordinary moral order, the radical remaking of the world) migrate into contemporary popular culture and take up residence there. From Nazi-victory counterfactuals and feminist dystopias to angelic and godlike artificial intelligences, the texts examined here are not merely borrowing religious imagery for decorative effect. They are, the speakers will argue, doing genuine theological work: restructuring moral imagination, redistributing authority, and negotiating the terms on which endings, and what comes after them, can be conceived.