Terminus

In Roman religion, Terminus was an agrarian god who protected boundary markers. Stones were often used to provide an effective means for marking these boundaries, although a stump or a tree sometimes served to demarcate adjacent properties. The need to demarcate boundaries and define ends continues to shape our way of thinking at the most fundamental level. The articles in this book investigate, among other things, developments in literature, film, historiography, and new digital entertainment, to see how they reflect cultural anxieties about 'the end' and/or how they are determined by the need to mark boundaries. The contributions are organized so that they reflect thematic, national, and chronological perspectives. But, they also show that it is possible to identify several threads of continuity in the way that 'the end' has been conceptualized. By examining ideas of culmination, conclusion, closure, finale, and termination - from the perspective of a number of various genres, cultural formations, and historical contexts - these essays on 'terminus' show how endings are carriers of meaning in social and cultural contexts. (Series: Interdisciplinaere Kulturstudier / Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies - Vol. 5)Ã?Â?