Co(s)mic Pessimism: From Fantastic End to Subjective Humor Cover Image

Ко(с)мическият песимизъм: от фантастичния край до субективния хумор
Co(s)mic Pessimism: From Fantastic End to Subjective Humor

Author(s): Maria Kalinova
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Институт за литература - БАН
Keywords: apocalypse; comic pessimism; postmodernism; repetition; anthroponegative seduction; subjective humor

Summary/Abstract: The article explores how postmodern philosophy and contemporary pessimistic thought transform the apocalypse from a singular catastrophic event into a repetitive structure. Special attention is devoted to the early visions of the end of the world in the works of Karel Čapek and Andrey Platonov, where the issues of technology, labor, exhaustion, and the language of revolutionary eschatology become connected to a broader anthroponegative temptation. This temptation is one that acquires new dimensions in contemporary speculative fiction through the work of Liu Cixin. The central thesis of the article is that, through the postponement and repetition of the end, a specific form of subjective humor emerges, in which human extinction begins to acquire the structure of a joke, while the apocalypse itself turns into a comic mode of existence.

  • Issue Year: 69/2026
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 147-158
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: Bulgarian
Toggle Accessibility Mode