BA Modern History with Economics

This course provides knowledge and analytical tools to understand and assess apocalyptic movements, the use of apocalyptic ideas and imagery in contemporary culture, and the effects of apocalyptic thought in politics and elsewhere. The course runs from examination of the biblical roots of much apocalyptic thought, via analysis of a range of historic apocalyptic groups, to present-day culture and politics.

·         To explore and analyse texts and movements that focus beliefs or expression either on the end of the world or on other dramatic events conceptualised in end-of-the-world terms

·         To analyse how movements, texts and uses are expressed in ‘apocalyptic’ vocabulary and imagery

·         To explore and analyse cultural, social and political uses and effects of the above

To provide an opportunity for researching and presenting on the above. 

By the end of this course unit you should normally be able to

·         Discuss the term ‘apocalyptic’ and describe typical features of apocalyptic ideas, texts and images

·         Describe a range of movements that have focused on end-of-the-world ideas or language

·         Discuss and contextualise key apocalyptic texts from biblical and other sources

Describe a range of current or recent uses or effects of apocalyptic ideas or imagery

·         Analyse apocalyptic movements, especially through contextualising them and understanding patterns and sources of apocalyptic ideas and related practices

·         Analyse use of apocalyptic ideas and imagery in cultural artefacts such as films and books

Analyse biblical apocalyptic texts, especially by putting them in the context in which they were written

·         Extract evidence of apocalyptic elements in cultural artefacts such as films or books

·         Extract evidence of apocalyptic elements in reports of movements and groups

Make clear presentations of results of research on apocalyptic movements or cultural artefacts

·         analyse films, reports and other sources

·         discuss in groups on controversial topics

·         engage empathetically with beliefs and actions of groups that are sharply different from mainstream society

engage empathetically with beliefs and actions of societies, or sections of societies, that proceed on assumptions sharply different from yours.

John J. Collins, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014

Stephen D. O’Leary and Glen S. McGhee, eds. War in Heaven, Heaven on Earth: Theories of the Apocalyptic. London: Equinox, 2005

Arthur H. Williamson. Apocalypse Then: Prophecy and the Making of the Modern World. Westport: Praeger, 2008

John Hall. Apocalypse: From Antiquity to the Empire of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity, 2009

Crawford Gribben. Writing the Rapture: Prophecy Fiction in Evangelical America. Oxford: OUP, 2009

James Aston and John Walliss, eds. Small Screen Revelations: Apocalypse in Contemporary Television. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013

Adele Reinhartz. Bible and Cinema: An Introduction. Routledge, 2013

The Bible (preferably New Revised Standard Version, with Apocrypha)