PhD | The End of Days: The Doomsday Clock, chronology, and scale

PhD-Candidate: Ian Kenny | University of Amsterdam | Supervisors: Niall Martin, Boris Noordenbos

The End of Days: The Doomsday Clock, chronology, and scale
Amsterdam 2020-2024 | Supervisors: Niall Martin and Boris Noordenbos

This thesis asks how far “mythological thinking” can assist in the peculiar challenges presented in the Anthropocene. Can myths provide a conceptual and imaginative resource in understanding phenomena to which factual discourse appears inadequate? How might we comprehend the scales and timelines involved in anthropogenic climate change, and how might mythological thinking help translate those problematics to a recognizable scale? Mythological thinking provides the framework necessary to make the mediation of the Anthropocene understandable. I will develop mythological thinking in regard to various timely objects that bid us to engage with the Anthropocene to a variety of ends as a sort of “bricolage”, including a contemporary video game, indigenous art, parasocial interactions, and speculative fiction.