Julie’s talk is called “The Last Man on Earth: A New Myth for a New Trauma“
Science fiction literature is a relatively new invention. Born from the traumas of the French Revolution, the quite literal killing of King and God, the genre started as a secular retelling of the End of Times. Apocalyptic narratives thus appear as the shape science fiction took at its very inception, the fantasized, non-prophetic story of the Last Man on Earth. The Last Man, this lone figure standing on the ruins of civilization, becomes an extremely popular type through the 19th century; its ubiquity is the sign it was a needed myth, welcome prism through which to look at the modern world.
Following James Berger’s study of catastrophe and trauma and my own work on early Apocalyptic literature, I will present this obsessive retelling of the end of the world as a way to process the brutal changes brought by the social, political and personal upheavals of the time. Far from para-literature or pure fantasy, science fiction is both a sign of trauma and the means to heal from it, and the archetype of the Last Man the guide to walk us through grief. The versatility of the genre, and its helpfulness in allowing us to take control of the narrative, haven’t abated since its creation.
About Julie
Julie Hugonny earned her Ph.D. in French literature from New York University in 2014. Her dissertation, The Last Man: Apocalyptic science fiction literature from the nineteenth century to World War I, deals with disasters, epidemics, devolution and the end of the world. Her teaching and research interests are: nineteenth-century French and English literature, science fiction in literature and film and depictions of monsters in popular culture. She is currently a lecturer at the University of Stirling.