Humanities@Home: Beginning at the End: Andrew Krivak’s The Bear and Postapocalyptic Fiction in the American Century
Virtual
The “American Century” – the period marked by United States’ global dominance following WWII and corresponding fears about its decline – saw the proliferation of post-apocalyptic novels being published. While these novels may begin at a moment of catastrophe, they are not about the end of the world. In this talk, Dr. Brent Bellamy, using The Bear as an example, will explore how post-apocalyptic novels use endings and the persistence of things to represent cultural conflicts and hopes for a better world. Sometimes these catastrophic stories tell us something new about places and relationships taken for granted.
NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
About the presenter: Brent Ryan Bellamy is an interdisciplinary humanities scholar who specializes in cultural studies, popular fictions, and environmental humanities. His research blends narratology and ecocriticism through a critical focus on storyworlds and worldbuilding. His teaching in these areas has been recognized by an award for excellence in online teaching. He has published three books: Remainders of the American Century (2021), An Ecotopian Lexicon (2019), and Materialism and the Critique of Energy (2018).
