Rethinking Environmentalism and Apocalypse: Anamorphosis in The Book of Enoch and Climate Fiction

Simone Kotva,Eva-Charlotta Mebius

doi:10.3390/rel12080620

Abstract

Biblical apocalypse has long been a source of contention in environmental criticism. Typically, ecocritical readings of Biblical apocalypse rely on a definition of the genre focused on eschatological themes related to species annihilation precipitated by the judgement of the world and the end of time. In this article, we offer an alternative engagement with Biblical apocalypse by drawing on Christopher Rowland and Jolyon Pruszinski’s argument that apocalypse is not necessarily concerned with temporality. Our case study is The Book of Enoch. We compare natural history in Enoch to Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenological analysis of Biblical apocalypse as a way of seeing the world that worries human assumptions about the nature of things and thereby instigates an “anamorphosis” of perception. Following Timothy Morton’s adaptation of Marion’s idea of anamorphosis as an example of the ecological art of attention, we show how apocalypse achieves “anamorphic attention” by encouraging the cultivation of specific modes of perception—principally, openness and receptivity—that are also critical to political theology. In turn, this analysis of anamorphic attention will inform our rethinking of the relationship between environmentalism and apocalyptic themes in climate fiction today, with special reference to Megan Hunter’s The End We Start From.

Highlights

Biblical apocalypse has long been a source of contention in environmental criticism (Garrard 2001; Garrard 2012, pp. 94–116)
Ecocritical readings of Biblical apocalypse rely on a definition of the genre focused on eschatological themes related to species annihilation precipitated by the judgement of the world and the end of time
We offer an alternative engagement with Biblical apocalypse by drawing on Christopher

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Principally, openness and receptivity—that are critical to political theology This analysis of anamorphic attention will inform our rethinking of the relationship between environmentalism and apocalyptic themes in climate fiction more broadly. 2018, 2021) while investigating this movement’s emphasis on temporality To this end, we draw on alternative approaches to apocalypse in Biblical scholarship and the philosophy of religion. Form-critical approaches to revelation have argued that apocalypse is not necessarily temporal and have questioned whether eschatology is the main theme of Biblical apocalypse. We show that environmental theology encourages selective readings of apocalypse by focussing on temporal themes to the exclusion of the genre’s formal features. We try to answer the question: why read Enoch today? we indicate how, in our contemporary climate fiction, we may already be reading Enoch

Reclaiming Apocalypse

Anamorphic Attention in Enoch’s “The Book of the Watchers”

Apocalyptic as the Medium of Realist Imaginaries in Climate Fiction