Abstract
Through an examination of the planetary disaster organizing Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia, this essay probes both the stakes of depicting the end of the world and the competency of those in the humanities to undertake such analysis. At bottom, the following draws on Jacques Derrida’s 1984 “No Apocalypse, Not Now (Full Speed Ahead, Seven Missiles, Seven Missives),” as well as more contemporary discussions of Melancholia, in order to accentuate the singularity of the film’s ending, the “necessary” fictional status of the total apocalypse, and the capacity of those who study the expansive literary archive to engage with “real-world” matters.
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Notes
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I am here using the term “source” as it relates to act of believing that Derrida (1998) argues is intrinsic to scientific knowledge and religion. For a meticulous reading of “Faith and Knowledge” and its connection to Derrida’s oeuvre, the history of philosophy, and the teletechnical mediascape, see Naas (2012).
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On the deployment of numeric assessments as a systematic effort to eliminate belief in post-secondary education, see Kamuf (2007).
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Shaviro (2012, 29) additionally notes the reverberations with “chaos reigns” from Antichrist as it encapsulates the imagery that Justine chooses to replace John’s display of modernist art.
References
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———. 2007. No Apocalypse, Not Now (Full Speed Ahead, Seven Missiles, Seven Missives). Trans. Catherine Porter and Philip Lewis. In Psyche: Inventions of the Other I, eds. Peggy Kamuf and Elizabeth Rottenberg, 387–410. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
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———. 2010. Competent Fictions: On Belief in the Humanities (working paper).
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Holland, T. (2019). Melancholia’s End. In: Haro, J., Koch, W. (eds) The Films of Lars von Trier and Philosophy. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24918-2_8
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