Image(s) of the World’s End from Archtexts to Popular Culture (Example-Based Exposition)

Methodologically connecting the experience- and interpretation-based aesthetic approach to popular culture (Juraj Malíček) and the pragmatist aesthetics (Richard Shusterman) on one hand and the views of what is called arch-textual thematology (Mariana Čechová) on the other, the paper seeks to observe the ties between arch-texts, in particular the final book of the New Testament — the Book of Revelation, and ‘pop-texts,’ i.e. such popcultural works of art (films, TV series, literary texts, comics etc.), within the frame of which the end of the world images appear in one way or another and which can be labelled with the agnomen ‘pop.’ Various appearances of a reanimation of the apocalypse-theme in various (popcultural) works of art become in the paper, an example-based exposition of the topic, referentially object of interest — from catastrophic films directed by Roland Emmerich and the post-apocalyptic comic book series Y: The Last Man written by Brian K. Vaughan to TV series like, for instance, Ragnarok (from 2020) and literary works like the pre-apocalyptic novel trilogy written by Ben H. Winters or other iconic genre fiction (for example, Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road).