The End of the World:

Syllabus

January 22                     Introduction

January 27                    Apocalypse as genre

• Time Magazine, “The Bible and the Apocalypse” July 1, 2002

•  Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More:  Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture.  Harvard University Press, 1992, ix-45.

•  The Book of Daniel

January 29                    The Messianic Idea in Judaism

•   "Toward an Understanding of the Messianic Idea in Judaism."  in Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism.  New York :  Schocken Books, 1971.  pp. 1-36.

Feb 3                           Contemporary Jewish Messianism

•  William Shaffir, “Lubavitch Millenialism” in The Jewish Journal  of Sociology, Vol. 36 No. 1 (June 1993)

•  Lis Harris, Holy Days:  The World of a Hasidic Family.  Ch. 3

Feb 4                           Christian Revelation

•  The Book of Revelation

•  "Apocalypse, a History of the End of the World"  in Philip Lamy, Millennium Rage:  Survivalists, White Supremacists, and the Doomsday Prophecy.  New York :  Plenum Press, 1996, pp. 31-62.

•  PropheZine:  internet pages on the mark of the beast

Feb 10                         Myth, Narrative, Americanism

•  McCutcheon, “Myth,” 190-208.

•  Conrad Cherry, God's New Israel :  Religious Interpretations of American Destiny, Englewood Cliffs, NY:  Prentice Hall, 1971.  pp. 1-30

Feb 12             The Rise of Premillennial Dispensationalism

•  Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More:  Prophecy Belief in American Culture.  ( Cambridge :  Belknap Press of Harvard)   pp. 80-100

•  Paul Benware, "The View of Premillennialism" in Understanding the End Times.  Chicago :  Moody Press,  1995.

Feb 17             Christian Fundamentalists:  An Ethnography 

•  Nancy Ammerman, Bible Believers:  Fundamentalists in the Modern World.  New Brunswick :  Rutgers U Press, 1987.  Intro through Ch. 6.

Feb 19             The Politics of Apocalyptic Language

•  Susan Harding, “Imagining the Last Days:  The Politics of Apocalyptic Language.”

•  Nancy Ammerman, Bible Believers:  Fundamentalists in the Modern World.  Ch. 8-11

Feb 24                         Interpreting Waco

•  David Koresh, "The Seven Seals of the Book of Revelation"  in Tabor and Gallagher, Why Waco ?  Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America .  LA:  U of California Press, 1995.

Feb 26                         Filmic Representations

•  In-class screening/discussion of 1991 film “The Rapture.”

•  Paper One Due in my box in the Religion Department Friday Feb 28 by 4:00

March 3                                   Nuclear Secular Apocalypse  

•  Daniel Wojcik, "Secular Apocalyptic Themes in the Nuclear Era."  in The End of the World As We Know It:  Faith, Fatalism and Apocalypse in America .  New York :  NYU Press, 1997, pp. 97-132.

March 4           8:00 Film:  Bladerunner

March 5                                   Post-Apocalypse Science Fiction

• Discuss Bladerunner

Spring Break

March 24                     Futuristic Feminist Post-Apocalypse

• Octavia Butler, The Parable of the Sower  (novel)

March 31         Christian Nuclear Visions

•  Hofstater,  "The paranoid style of mind" in David Brion Davis, ed.,  The Fear of Conspiracy: Images of Un-American Subversion from the Revolution to the Present.  Ithaca :  Cornell University Press. *To be handed out *

•  Hal Lindsey, Late Great Planet Earth 

•  Discuss Dr. Strangelove

April 2  Apocalyptic Utopia   

• David Chidester, Salvation and Suicide, An Interpretation of Jim Jones, the People’s Temple , and Jonestown

Paper Two due in my box in Religion by 4:00 on Friday April 4

April 7  African American Apocalyptics

•  Albert J. Raboteau, "African Americans, Exodus, and the American Israel ."  in Hackett, Religion and American Culture, esp. 81 to end.

•  Elijah Muhammed, selected writings

•  Martha F.  Lee, The Nation of Islam:  An American Millenarian Movement.  Syracuse :  Syracuse University Press, 1996, ch. 2, 6.

April 9                          Dread Judgement

•  Joseph Owens, "Dread Judgment" and "Dread Zion " in Dread:  The Rastafarians of Jamaica .  London :  Heinemann Educational Books, 1976 pp. 188-242.

April 16            Critical Feminists and the End Times           

•  Catherine Keller, "The Breast, the Apocalypse, and the Colonial Journey."  in Strozier and Flynn, The Year 2000:  Essays on the End.  pp. 42-58

•  Susan J. Palmer, "Woman as World Savior:  The Feminization of the Millennium in New Religious Movements."  in Robbins and Palmer, eds.  Millennium, Messiahs and Mayhem.  New York :  Routledge Press, 1997.  pp. 159-171

•  Discuss Dogma

April 21            Masculinity and the Christian Right

•  Ann Burlein, Lift High the Cross:  Where White Supremacy and the Christian Right Merge.  “Michemarketing the Apocalypse” and “Remembering the 60s,”  75-157

April 23                        Apocalypse as Best Seller

•  Tim LeHaye, Left Behind  (novel)

April 28             Theories of Religious Violence:  the people

•  Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God, esp.  Chs 1, 2, 4,

April 30            Theories of Religious Violence:  the Schema

•  Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God. Esp. Chs 8, 9, 11.    

May 5                          The apocalypse beat

•  Discussion of end times themes in popular music