Left Behind, Left Below: Parodies of the Apocalypse in Popular Culture (Religions and Theology Seminar Series) - Andrew Crome
| Dates: | 26 September 2013 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 17:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Adults, Alumni |
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The massive success of the "Left Behind" novels in 2000s America helped to cement the idea of the "rapture" as a key part of US popular culture. In recent years a number of parodies on the substance of "Left Behind"''s theology have appeared - from TV shows such as "The Simpsons" and "American Dad", to comic books "Chronicles of Wormwood" and "Battle Pope" and recent Seth Rogen movie "This is the End". This paper examines a range of these popular parodies, looking at the way in which they reinvent dispensational interpretations of prophecy in a complex, theological manner. Introducing us to a world of talking rabbits, paranoid prophets, magical mutations, sexualised demons and questionable exegesis, this paper asks whether the parodies might not be a lot closer to the world of "Left Behind" than we might initially imagine...
This is the first in the Religions and Theology seminar series for 2013/14. Andrew Crome is Lecturer in the History of Modern Christianity at the University of Manchester.
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