Our culture is obsessed with the apocalypse. Today, more than ever, we are bombarded with countless post-apocalyptic films, TV shows, and video games. Political and environmental activists warn with increasing fervor the potential for extinction through nuclear annihilation or climate change. Constantly, we are asked to imagine various scenarios for human extinction—climate catastrophe, nuclear annihilation, alien invasions, zombie infestations, disease outbreaks, robot uprisings, human infertility, and more. The driving question of this course is why have we become so obsessed with the apocalypse? What does this anxiety with our extinction reveal about our society today? We will use this genre about the end of the world to explore fundamental philosophical questions about human existence in the modern world: the dangers of science and progress, the problem of evil, the legitimate forms of political and moral authority, and ultimately, what it means to be human and have purpose in one’s life.