Srećko Horvat - After the Apocalypse

1 Cover

2 Title Page After the Apocalypse Srećko Horvat polity

3 Copyright Page

4 Acknowledgements

5 Epigraph Note

6 Introduction: Nine Theses on Apocalypse The Apocalypse already happened Apocalypse as revelation The struggle for meaning Post-apocalyptic melancholy ‘Normalization’ of the Apocalypse Eschatological tipping points Extinction is ‘supraliminal’ Time beyond ‘progress’ Another end of the world is still possible Notes

7 1 Climate Crisis: Back to the Future Mediterranean On the importance of wind Solastalgia for the Mediterranean ‘Normalization’ of the Apocalypse Death of Venice Notes

8 2 The Nuclear Age: ‘Enjoy Chernobyl, Die Later’ ‘Cloud that stopped at the border’ The obsolescence of ‘ruin value’ Commodification of the Apocalypse Supraliminal radioactivity Notes

9 3 The Collision: Marshall Islands Are Everywhere ‘The ontological Garden of Eden’ The collision of the nuclear age and climate crisis The twenty-first-century pyramids Time beyond progress Notes

10 Postscriptum: ‘Revelation’ of COVID-19 ‘Wuhan is everywhere’ Eschatological tipping points The revolution of breathing Notes

11 Soundtrack

12 End User License Agreement

1 Introduction: Nine Theses on ApocalypseFigure 1: Graffiti in Minneapolis, May 2020 (photo by Aren Aizura)

2 Chapter 1Figure 2: Italy in 2100. Jay Simons, 2012Figure 3: #NoEsFuegoEsCapitalismo, by Elijo Dignidad (www.elijodignidad.org)

3 Chapter 2Figure 4: Cologne in ruins after Allied bombings, 1944Figure 5: T-shirt being sold in the Chernobyl ‘Exclusion Zone’

4 Chapter 3Figure 6: Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll, ‘Castle Bravo’, 1954Figure 7: Nuclear waste warnings; concept art by Michael Brill, Sandia National ...

5 Postscriptum: ‘Revelation’ of COVID-19Figure 8: Graffiti on a wall in Toronto, May 2020

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Srećko Horvat

polity

Copyright © Srećko Horvat 2021

The right of Srećko Horvat to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2021 by Polity Press

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

101 Station Landing

Suite 300

Medford, MA 02155, USA

The author wishes to thank KTH Centre for the Future of Places (CFP) and Director Dr. Tigran Haas for the research grant for the project.

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4007-5

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4008-2 (pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Horvat, Srećko, author.

Title: After the apocalypse / Srecko Horvat.

Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: “A rollercoaster ride through the world after the Apocalypse with a simple message: either we change course or we face mass extinction”-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020039921 (print) | LCCN 2020039922 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509540075 | ISBN 9781509540082 (pb) | ISBN 9781509540099 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Civilization, Modern--21st century. | Regression (Civilization)

Classification: LCC D862.3 .H67 2021 (print) | LCC D862.3 (ebook) | DDC 909.83/2--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039921

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039922

by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NL

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

To write a book about the Apocalypse even as it is in the process of unfolding makes an already difficult task even harder. We are all living through it, deeply entangled and personally shaken by its ‘revelations’, engulfed by its warnings and, yet, the attempt to imagine the unimaginable, to grasp the ‘supraliminal’, needs to be taken if we are to understand what is at stake, namely extinction. This book is not only an attempt to bridge these two tensions – overwhelming reality and the reality that is to come – it is, like every book, also a product of these times. I started to write it on the island of Vis, as a sort of continuation of my previous book