
- UCAS course code
- V136
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Course unit details:
End of the World and Apocalypticism
Unit code | RELT21082 |
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Credit rating | 20 |
Unit level | Level 2 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 2 |
Available as a free choice unit? | Yes |
Overview
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.
Pre/co-requisites
Available on which programme(s)? | BA Religions and Theology BA Philosophy and Religion (BA Theological Studies in Philosophy and Ethics) BA Comparative Religion and Social Anthropology |
Aims
· 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.
Knowledge and understanding
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
Intellectual skills
· 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
Practical skills
· 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
Transferable skills and personal qualities
· 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.
Employability skills
- Other
- This course helps prepare students to work in contexts where they encounter beliefs and practices that may be sharply alien to them (or which, conversely, may be taken for granted by them). It prepares students to engage with, assess and produce reports on such beliefs and practices in an empathetic but analytical and effective manner.
Assessment methods
Presentation and outline for report/portfolio | formative |
Report/portfolio | 50% |
Exam | 50% |
Feedback methods
Feedback method | Formative or Summative |
peer and seminar leader oral feedback on presentation | Formative |
written feedback on report/portfolio outline and bibliography | Formative |
Written feedback on report/portfolio | Summative and formative |
Written feedback on examination | Summative and formative |
Recommended reading
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)
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
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Lectures | 22 |
Seminars | 11 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 167 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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Peter Oakes | Unit coordinator |