We have always been obsessed with the looming apocalypse — the final, cataclysmic catastrophe that will end the world as we know it. It’s a question that has preoccupied humanity seemingly forever, from biblical Revelations to zombie flicks. But increasingly, the apocalypse doesn’t feel so far away. We’ve all gotten accustomed to our current “unprecedented times,” but everything seems a little too… precedented. How do we deal with the end of the world when it feels like it’s happening right in front of us? How do we reckon with the cultural phenomenon of the apocalypse when we’re living through it? Sometimes it feels like we’re walking towards our certain doom on a road with billboards still trying to convince us everything is fine. This B-Side walks that road and examines how art is dealing with the concept of the apocalypse, both real and imagined.
— Emilia Ferrante, Senior Arts Editor
Women own the void of dystopia by Daily Arts Contributor Ava Burzycki
It’s clear that the state of women in literature is transient — women are not allowed to consistently occupy space. The void exists in literature, both metaphorically and literally. The void of female characters shows itself as either the profound flatness and emptiness written into those characters, or the literal lack of women written at all. Female characters can be rare, and female authors even rarer. If fiction exists as a reflection of the real world or as a way to gain personal understanding, this patriarchal novelistic norm does not paint an adequate picture of women. If anything, it only reflects the extreme way in which society denies women personhood. The emptiness of literature is the void in the lives of real women.
Read more here.
Phoebe Bridgers knows the end, but how do we deal with the ending? by Daily Arts Contributor Serena Irani
With “I Know The End,” Phoebe Bridgers closes her sophomore album, Punisher, with not only a bang but also a whimper. She plunges straight into the depths of the murky waters of inevitability, life after death and how we as human beings cope with the ending of things big and small. Bridgers watches the final scenes of intimate relationships in her life play out and encapsulates her ironic refusal to revel in the downtime, to make the most of staying at home doing nothing after months of longing for just that. (Yes, her pre-quarantine predictions were eerily spot-on and you can do with that what you will.)
Read more here.
Our current apocalypse can’t be escaped in fiction by Daily Arts Writer Erin Evans
While deciding to write this for The Michigan Daily, I realized that I needed to think of a book that had saved me. A book that had felt both meaningful and worthwhile and been truly energizing to read — fun in a non-depressing way. I knew that I must have read such a book during this time, and finding it was the logical conclusion to this piece. Racking my brain, thinking of every piece of fiction I read in the last two years, I could not find anything that fit the bill.
Read more here.
The apocalyptic setting of ‘The Last of Us’ provided strange comfort during the pandemic by Daily Arts Writer Mitchel Green
For many of us, the pandemic has been a very isolating time. Particularly in the early stages of 2020, being shut off from people and places we care about was incredibly difficult to process. While many returned to lighter, more comforting art to help them process and get through some tough times, I personally preferred to consume darker, heavier art. I didn’t want art that distracted me; I wanted something that could help me deal with what I was feeling.
Read more here.
The unfolding of the apocalypse: climate change, death and art by Cecilia Duran
Why wait for a sudden death when you can avoid death altogether, by impeding the world from looking like this, or this or this? Science fiction, alas! Perhaps the following seem more conceivable: Evidence of Hades’ wrath in a wildfire in Madera County, Calif. Remnants of what used to be a seaside neighborhood in Mexico Beach, Fla. ‘Highway River’ AKA a morning commute to Detroit with the wrong means of transportation — boats weren’t on offer that Friday.
Read more here.
‘Beta Testing the Ongoing Apocalypse’ and other reflections on the end of the world by Daily Arts Writer Isabella Kassa
Our apocalypse might be similar to the makings of our best science fiction writers, but it certainly won’t have the glamor. To be completely honest, the end of the world doesn’t really strike the kind of fear in me I think it probably should. In place of this fear is more of a passive understanding that what’s to come is out of my control. Maybe I should be angrier about the world’s looming climate change disasters or the ongoing threat of a major global conflict that has the capacity to wipe out life on Earth.
Read more here.
Life lessons from Rick Grimes and his zombie apocalypse by Daily Arts Contributor Connor Jordan
We turned into Walkers ourselves, desperate to feast on any Walking Dead content we could get our hands on. Thanks to my mother’s Netflix subscription and the DVD section of my hometown’s public library, this hunger engulfed our summer with an intensity akin to infatuation. Now, years later, I am both proud and embarrassed to say that I have watched 10 seasons of “The Walking Dead,” six seasons of the spinoff-prequel series, “Fear the Walking Dead” and (unfortunately) one season of “The Walking Dead: World Beyond.”
Read more here.
Poetry to get you through the 2020s (and your 20s) by Daily Arts Writer Brenna Goss
Poetry has the ability to give us strength in our darkest times and reflect our joy in our happiest moments. For evidence, just look at the outpouring of gratitude for Amanda Gorman — President Biden’s inaugural poet — and the virality of her poem “The Hill We Climb.” The line “For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it,” seemed to encompass both the despair and the hope so many Americans were feeling on that day, just two weeks after armed rioters stormed the capitol. That is the power of poetry. So if you feel like you’re living through an apocalypse — the seemingly never-ending COVID-19 pandemic, political turmoil, deep divides in American society, threat of war, climate change, police brutality, a collective mental health crisis or whatever other calamity you can think of — here’s some poetry to help carry you through.
Read more here.