PhD: Apocalyptics
Contemporary Apocalyptics: crisis and revelation in the sphere of public imagination. Case-studies in journalism and popular culture in a post-September 11 environment.
My thesis examines a number of political, journalistic and popular culture texts in the context of what film maker Tom Tykwer (in Maher 2002) has called the “aesthetic memory” of September 11. These texts include, the speeches of President George W. Bush, elements of popular evangelical culture, daily news and investigative journalism, the television series 24 and several mainstream and independent films produced or released in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. It explores the way these texts relate to deeply embedded Western cultural narratives of the apocalyptic and identifies some of the ways this apocalyptic myth is being reimagined in contemporary cultures and particularly how it has contributed to a new “war on terror” discourse.
The contemporary apocalyptic is a dynamic hybrid form that can best be understood as a set of dialectical relations across a number of cultural sites, forms and modes of representation and is most likely to emerge not as a stand alone mythic form but as part of a cluster of mythic stories. The apocalyptic is not merely a vision, myth or narrative form but it draws its evocative power from a unique interaction between its symbolic and material forms. The apocalyptic is “a network of discourses and practices in social and political use and circulation” (Stewart & Harding 1999: 290) and it is made visible in places and bodies.
This thesis argues that an apocalyptic “system” or set of political strategies is both the underpinning and product of apocalyptic mythic traditions and that both the apocalyptic vision and the apocalyptic system are constructed through particular symbolic and physical geographies or zones. This investigation is framed as an investigation of contemporary spheres of public imagination a term which acknowledges that the dynamics of contemporary mediascapes (Appadurai 1996) have moved beyond the purely rationalist Habermassian model of public discussion.
The hybrid, baroque structure of the apocalyptic calls for a particular approach to textual analysis: a nomadic reading (Braidotti 1994) that privileges intertextuality and connections across texts, genres and forms. Although the dynamics of the contemporary apocalyptic narrative and its connections to a war on terror discourse can most acutely be seen in the Bush era, the apocalyptic narrative remains a powerful part of contemporary media and political cultures in the post-Bush era. It remains both a way of thinking that is strategically deployed by a range of politicians, creative producers, and religious communities.
Key Publications
O'Donnell, M., 2015. Children of Men's ambient apocalyptic visions. The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 27(1), pp.16-30.
Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men (2006) is part of the long stream of films that respond vividly to social crisis and the hovering threat of human annihilation and that have sought to reimagine the Judeo-Christian apocalyptic myth. But I will argue that it represents a unique take on this popular genre that I call the ambient apocalyptic. The film's sense of pervasive crisis is not linked to a singular apocalyptic event and it redraws the tropes of many popular post-apocalyptic films. Cuarón intricately builds into nearly every scene referential signals to specific current political realities. He does this, however, without overburdening his film with either apocalyptic literalness or undisturbed certainty. He uses a layered referential style that seeks to create a kind of visionary realism.
O’Donnell, Marcus (2014) “”If you can hold on…”: counter-apocalyptic play in Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales,” Journal of Religion & Film: Vol. 18: Iss. 2, Article 10.
Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales (2006) presents a dystopic, post-apocalyptic, near-future through an aesthetic, which fuses contemporary postmodern screens with the phantasmagorical of traditional apocalyptic visions. This article argues that Southland Tales is an example of what feminist theologian Catherine Keller calls the “counter-apocalyptic” (Keller 1996:19-20). Through strategies of ironic parody Kelly both describes and questions the apocalyptic and its easy polarities. In situating the film as counter-apocalyptic the paper argues that the film both resists the apocalyptic impulse however it is also located within it. In this sense it produces a unique take on the genre of the post-apocalyptic film and a powerful fluid critique of the post 9/11 security state.
O’Donnell, M., 2008, “Stories of Jack: myth, media and the law,” Law, Text, Culture, 12, pp 188-213.
ABSTRACT This paper identifies three interacting narrative strands in the Australian media coverage of “Jihad” Jack Thomas. The character story of Jack interacts with a broader story of law and the story of the war on terror. Secondly it argues that a set of mythic motifs emerge in the texts and these are read against a set of news and popular culture events and figures. This second part of the paper focuses on the figure of the “sleeper” which became one of the key ways of describing Jack Thomas during the trial. This figure of the sleeper is linked to an ongoing set of figures in popular culture and to traditional mythic motifs such as the trickster.
O’Donnell M 2008 ‘Jack Bauer: The Smart Warrior’s Faustian Gift,’ Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy, No. 128.
Abstract:Jack Bauer of the television series 24 is a highly charged contemporary mythic character who exists in powerful relationship to past and present real world and fictional figures. If Rambo was a classic Reagan era cinematic “hard body” (Jeffords 1994) Jack is the archetypal Bush “smart warrior,” in a post-Patriot-Act-era. However like Rambo, Reagan’s displays of bravado were decisive and successfully staged but George Bush has faced a multiplying set of uncertainties. This sets up a more complex set of relations between Jack, George W. Bush and contemporary masculinities than those presented by the Reagan era. Jack is both an emblem of unimpeded presidential will and a parable of its Faustian consequences.
O’Donnell, M., 2004, ““Bring it on”: the apocalypse of George W. Bush,” Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy, No 113.
ABSTRACT: This article examines a number of cinematic, literary and journalistic texts in the context of what film maker Tom Tykwer calls the “aesthetic memory” of September 11. In particular it explores the way these narratives relate to deeply embedded Western cultural myths of the apocalyptic. The apocalyptic language of American Christian fundamentalism and the heroic narratives of Hollywood film are explored as twin influences on a powerful civil religion dubbed by Jewett and Lawrence (2003) “The Captain America complex”.