Apocalyptic Immanence and Anthropocene Time
Abstract
This article explores the cultural influence of Frank Kermode’s description of apocalyptic immanence in The Sense of an Ending (1966). I focus on Kermode’s claim that human subject formation and human conceptions of cosmic time are mutually constituted through expectations of the End. I claim that a version of this dynamic is at play in the Anthropocene debate, where attention to planetary-scale agency has reoriented social routines and cognitive and affective configurations, and has extended the temporal dimensionality of epistemic practices. I pay specific attention to the positions of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) and to the work of historians Dipesh Chakrabarty and François Hartog. I suggest that Kermodian apocalyptic immanence can be effective where it serves to achieve political momentum. Also, at the level of conceptual analysis, it can help us make sense of the juxtaposition of geological, historical, and autobiographical timescales in Anthropocene thinking. However, its humanistic emphasis on the transhistorical self-sameness of the autological subject makes it a problematic conceptual tool.
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