Publication: “Left Behind: Futurist Fetishists, Prepping and the Abandonment of Earth” w/ Sarah Roberts
This essay has been peer-reviewed by “The New Extremism” special issue editors (Adrienne Massanari and David Golumbia), and the b2o: An Online Journal editorial board.
“You know, I hear all these rich guys, for some reason they love space. So they’re rich. I said, ‘let them send the rockets up. What the hell do we have to do it, right?'”
— US President Donald Trump, Aug 15 2019 campaign rally,
Manchester NH (quoted in FOXBusiness 2019)
1. Preppers, the Rapture and on Being “Left Behind”
At the turn of the millennium, an unexpected success took the mainstream publishing industry completely off-guard. A series of science fiction novels published by a tiny Christian press and depicting the end of the world from a distinctly Christian fundamentalist perspective became a massive, best-selling hit (McAlister 2003). Its themes of survival following a catastrophic global event were not foreign to the universe of science fiction literature; doomsday scenarios resulting in flight from one’s home planet to a celestial otherworld via space travel have served as plot devices in countless books, films and video games. Yet something about the Left Behind series (LaHaye and Jenkins 1995) was distinct.
