Heaven after the Loss of Heaven

Abstract

The chapter analyzes American pop-cultural constructions of heaven as attempts to deal with the symbolic loss of the traditional (biblical, Jewish, and Christian) conceptions of heaven. Accordingly, American pop-cultural heavens take the following forms: (1) heaven as the place for protagonists to “relearn the world” and so reestablish identity and achieve self-fulfillment following loss; (2) heaven as apotheosis of dominant ideologies such as the American Dream or neoconservative militarism, and so paradoxically both retaining and transforming our symbolic bonds with the ethereal realm; (3) heaven as intrinsically relational, a place of reunion with family and pets; (4) heaven made immanent on earth via near-death experiences, mind uploading, and virtual reality; (5) satirical and blasphemous heavens, combining resentment and anger at heaven’s irrevocable loss with an impossible desire for its renewal.