,Y2K' - Millenniarismus zwischen digitaler und gesellschaftlicher Apokalyptik

Abstract

In the wake of an increasing international interest in the so called "Millennium Bug" (Y2K-Problem) the crucial question arises about the preconditions responsible for this inflationary cultural vehicle: How can we analyze the respective myths and images within a comparative study? How can we interprete the intervening and intersecting fields of the digital-technological and cultural-apocalyptic manifestations of Y2K? And how can we achieve a rational reconstruction of the correlation between real problems and imagined constructions of millennarianism? A tentative solution is suggested through an interdisciplinary, historico-sociological interpretation in an international perspective employing a historiography of mentality in the wider context of transdiciplinary research on the problem of time.