First as Tragedy . . .

THE END OF MAN: A FEMINIST COUNTERAPOCALYPSE offers an ironic take on one of the dominant apocalyptic narratives of our times. The prophecy contained in the book’s title ostensibly points to the extinction of the human species, yet it also signals the expiration of the White Christian Man as the key subject of history. Embracing the spirit of the Forerunners: Ideas First series in its speculative mode and lighthearted style, this short book arises out of my recent interventions—conference papers, panel discussions, and artistic engagements—into the planetary crisis that embraces the environment, economy, and politics, as well as life itself. Specifically, The End of Man offers a challenge to the widespread belief that salvation from the current planetary apocalypse will come from a secularized yet godlike elsewhere: an escape to heavens in the form of planetary relocation, or an actual upgrade of humans to the status of gods via Artificial Intelligence (AI). Such solutions from elsewhere are currently being proposed by science and technology but they are also very much part of our political landscape. As well as looking suspiciously at various technocratic promises coming from Silicon Valley, The End of Man interrogates the current rise in populism worldwide, which is evident in the turning to the antiexpert solutions offered by self-proclaimed saviors from outside the political mainstream. In response, the book offers a vision of a “feminist counterapocalypse” that, in adopting precarity as the fundamental condition of living in the global postindustrial world, contests many of the masculinist and technicist solutions to said crisis.