The female body has been an object of oppression and control throughout history. 'Gender and Apocalyptic Desire' exposes the often-hidden links between the struggles of women and the conflict of good versus evil. The essays examine the collisions between feminist and apocalyptic thought, the ways in which apocalyptic belief functions as bodily discipline and cultural practice, and how some currents of apocalyptic desire can enable women's equality. A wide range of issues are examined, from anti-abortion terrorism to the stigmata of Christ and visions of Mary.

The female body has been an object of oppression and control throughout history. 'Gender and Apocalyptic Desire' exposes the often-hidden links between the struggles of women and the conflict of good versus evil. The essays examine the collisions between feminist and apocalyptic thought, the ways in which apocalyptic belief functions as bodily discipline and cultural practice, and how some currents of apocalyptic desire can enable women's equality. A wide range of issues are examined, from anti-abortion terrorism to the stigmata of Christ and visions of Mary.

In a time when struggles over the place of women are paralleled by struggles over Good versus Evil, this volume exposes the often-veiled links between these two systems of meaning. The essays collected here highlight the intertwining desires of gender stability and apocalyptic truth even as they show that these desires are often internally combustible, a clearing out of the old to make way for new forms. Contributors explore both collusion and collisions between feminist and apocalyptic thought, the various ways in which apocalyptic belief functions as bodily discipline and cultural practice, and finally, the means by which some currents of apocalyptic desire can enable women's equality.

This innovative study of the use of gender in the Apocalypse of John pushes against the boundaries of feminist biblical interpretation. Based on sociopolitical and literary readings of texts, it presents a challenging new way of reading the Apocalypse. Using the concept of catharsis, Tina Pippin focuses on two themes central to the Apocalypse—death and desire. She examines the role of the female in fantastic literature and reviews the social construction of gender and of the female body. In this interdisciplinary investigation, Pippin incorporates fantasy theory and the function of the female in the fantastic to expose the Apocalypse’s ambiguous representation of women.

Marguerite Duras is France's best-known and most controversial contemporary woman writer. Duras' influence extends from her early novels of the 1950's to her radically innovative experimental autobiographical text of the 1980's The Lover Leslie Hill's book throws new light on Duras' relationship to feminism, psychoanalysis, sexuality, literature, film, politics, and the media. Feted by Kristeva, and Laca who claimed her as almost his other self, Duras is revealed to be a profoundly transgressive thinker and artist. It will be a must for all concerned with contemporary writing, writing by women, recent European cinema, film and literature.

It is the not-too-distant future, and the rapture has occurred. Every born-again Christian on the planet has, without prior warning, been snatched from the earth to meet Christ in the heavens, while all those without the requisite faith have been left behind to suffer the wrath of the Antichrist as the earth enters into its final days. This is the premise that animates the enormously popular cultural phenomenon that is the Left Behind series of prophecy novels, co-written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins and published between 1995 and 2007. But these books are more than fiction: it is the sincere belief of many evangelicals that these events actually will occur--soon. Plotting Apocalypse delves into the world of rapture, prophecy, and tribulation in order to account for the extraordinary cultural salience of these books and the impact of the world they project. Through penetrating readings of the novels, Chapman shows how the series offers a new model of evangelical agency for its readership. The novels teach that although believers are incapable of changing the course of a future that has been preordained by God, they can become empowered by learning to read the prophetic books of the Bible--and the signs of the times--correctly. Reading and interpretation become key indices of agency in the world that Left Behind limns. Plotting Apocalypse reveals the significant cultural work that Left Behind performs in developing a counter-narrative to the passivity and fatalism that can characterize evangelical prophecy belief. Chapman's arguments may bear profound implications for the future of American evangelicalism and its interactions with culture, society, and politics.

Olivia Stewart Lester examines true and false prophecy at the intersections of interpretation, gender, and economics in Revelation, Sibylline Oracles 4-5, and contemporary ancient Mediterranean texts. With respect to gender, these texts construct a discourse of divine violence against prophets, in which masculine divine domination of both male and female prophets reinforces the authenticity of the prophetic message. Regarding economics, John and the Jewish sibyllists resist the economic actions of political groups around them, especially Rome, by imagining an alternate universe with a new prophetic economy. In this economy, God requires restitution from human beings, whose evil behavior incurs debt. The ongoing appeal of prophecy as a rhetorical strategy in Revelation and Sibylline Oracles 4-5, and the ongoing rivalries in which these texts engage, argue for prophecy's continuing significance in a larger ancient Mediterranean religious context.

This book offers analyses of the roles of race, gender, and sexuality in the post-apocalyptic visions of early twenty-first century film and television shows. Contributors examine the production, reproduction, and re-imagination of some of our most deeply held human ideals through sociological, anthropological, historical, and feminist approaches.

This interdisciplinary collection of essays focuses on critical and theoretical responses to the apocalypse of the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century cultural production. Examining the ways in which apocalyptic discourses have had an impact on how we read the world’s globalised space, the traumatic burden of history, and the mutual relationship between language and eschatological belief, fifteen original essays by a group of internationally established and emerging critics reflect on the apocalypse, its past tradition, pervasive present and future legacy. The collection seeks to offer a new reading of the apocalypse, understood as a complex – and, frequently, paradoxical – paradigm of (contemporary) Western culture. The majority of published collections on the subject have been published prior to the year 2000 and, in their majority of cases, locate the apocalypse in the future and envision it as something imminent. This collection offers a post-millennial perspective that perceives "the end" as immanent and, simultaneously, rooted in the past tradition.

Apocalyptic Bodies traces the biblical notions of the end of the world as represented in ancient and modern texts, art, music and popular culture, for example the paintings of Bosch. Tina Pippin addresses the question of how far we, in the late twentieth century, are capable of reading and responding to the 'signs of the times'. It will appeal not only to those studying religion, but also to those fascinated with interpretations of the end of the world.