Michael Robbins Writes Cover Story for Harper’s Magazine
Posted in: English Department, Homepage News and Events
Michael Robbins, Associate Professor of English, wrote the cover story for the Harper’s Magazine December Issue about the end of the world, or what he calls today’s “apocalyptic structure of feeling.” The essay, “Apocalypse Nowish,” combines personal history, Marxist and environmental theory, meditations on popular culture and readings of the Book of Revelation.
An excerpt of Robbins’ essay is below. Visit Harper’s Magazine to read the full essay.
“And yet. Perhaps it is my early grounding in eschatology and the counterculture that allows me to see—not hope, not at all, but opportunity. Is it not when things are darkest, when all hope is lost, that one fights with abandon, shamelessly shoots for utopia? For then there is nothing left to lose. And I have heard that another word for nothing left to lose is freedom.”