Apocalyptic Visions of the Crisis: The Imaginary of the Flood in Contemporary Spanish Culture

TY - CHAP

T1 - Apocalyptic Visions of the Crisis

T2 - The Imaginary of the Flood in Contemporary Spanish Culture

AU - Picón, Natalia Castro

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Eduardo Ledesma and Luisa Elena Delgado; individual chapters, the contributors.

PY - 2025/1/1

Y1 - 2025/1/1

N2 - Modernity in Spain has been marked by a series of political and economic crises whose cultural representation reinforces an endless and relentless threat of imperial-national dissolution. This persisting menace has merged in recent decades with the debate around historical progress and the apocalyptic culture of late capitalism (Benjamin; Fukuyama; Jameson). Since 2008, the Spanish state experienced the resurgence of a doomsday imaginary as a cultural mechanism for representing the crisis. Early on, critics recognized that the recurrence of apocalyptic discourses served to reinforce and preserve the hegemonic system and culture (Fisher; Garcés; Álvarez-Blanco; Prádanos). However, the inherent principle of eschatological transcendence in the apocalyptic narrative – the emergence of a new, better world rising from the ashes of the old one – has also been mobilized by certain segments of anti-capitalist culture during the crisis. In that case, the imagining of the end of the world is related to, and instigates, a radical revolution. This chapter presents a cultural analysis that contrasts reactionary uses of apocalyptic discourses with those that nurture revolutionary projections and projects. To this end, the author addresses various formulations of the hydraulic catastrophe trope (floods, tidal waves, tsunamis...) that emerge in different spaces, ranging from cultural production to social and countercultural movements – 15M, the Marea Ciudadana (Citizens’ Tide), the Feminist Tsunami and Tsunami Democràtic (Democratic Tsunami).

AB - Modernity in Spain has been marked by a series of political and economic crises whose cultural representation reinforces an endless and relentless threat of imperial-national dissolution. This persisting menace has merged in recent decades with the debate around historical progress and the apocalyptic culture of late capitalism (Benjamin; Fukuyama; Jameson). Since 2008, the Spanish state experienced the resurgence of a doomsday imaginary as a cultural mechanism for representing the crisis. Early on, critics recognized that the recurrence of apocalyptic discourses served to reinforce and preserve the hegemonic system and culture (Fisher; Garcés; Álvarez-Blanco; Prádanos). However, the inherent principle of eschatological transcendence in the apocalyptic narrative – the emergence of a new, better world rising from the ashes of the old one – has also been mobilized by certain segments of anti-capitalist culture during the crisis. In that case, the imagining of the end of the world is related to, and instigates, a radical revolution. This chapter presents a cultural analysis that contrasts reactionary uses of apocalyptic discourses with those that nurture revolutionary projections and projects. To this end, the author addresses various formulations of the hydraulic catastrophe trope (floods, tidal waves, tsunamis...) that emerge in different spaces, ranging from cultural production to social and countercultural movements – 15M, the Marea Ciudadana (Citizens’ Tide), the Feminist Tsunami and Tsunami Democràtic (Democratic Tsunami).

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U2 - 10.4324/9780367810207-54

DO - 10.4324/9780367810207-54

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9780367810207

SP - 613

EP - 624

BT - The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Spain

PB - Taylor and Francis

ER -