UNBINDING PROMETHEUS TO BUILD THE NEW JERUSALEM: MILLENNIALISM, POWER AND TECHNOLOGY
Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University
November 3-6, 2001
To register for the entire conference, contact Information: Beth Forrest, 617.358.0226 or email: bforrest@bu.edu
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2001
Sargent College, 635 Commonwealth Ave., Room 101
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
7:30 PM
Apocalyptic Terrorism & American Responses
| Robert J. Lifton | Professor Emeritus, John Jay College, CUNY | Apocalyptic Terrorism & American Responses |
| Round Table Responses: | ||
| Shahla Haeri, Chair | Boston Univesity | |
| Richard Landes | Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University | Apocalyptic Nodes: One Person's Messiah is Another's Antichrist |
| David Cook | Rice University | Millennial Islam: Israel and America as Apocalyptic Enemies |
| Charles Cameron | Independent Scholar | Apocalyptic Reactions on the Web: The Rapture Index Spikes |
| David Redles | Cuyahoga Community College | Reactionary Antimodernism: When Those Who Fear Modernity Master its Technology |
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2001
Sargent College, 635 Commonwealth Ave., Room 101 (PLENARY SESSIONS)
8:30 - 9:00 Registration, Coffee & Continental Breakfast
9 - 9:30 Richard Landes, Welcome
9:30 - 11:00 NON-TRIVIAL PURSUITS
| Chair: Richard Landes | Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University | |
| Tom Idinopulos | Miami University, Ohio | Millenarianism and Nazism: The Fateful Consequence |
| Brenda Brasher | Mount Union College | Genesis to Matrix: AI, VR, CMC--Computer-Related Millennial Technologies and the Postmodern West |
| Charles Cameron | Independent Scholar | The Glass Bead Game |
11:30 - 1:00 THE MILLENNIAL CHAT ROOM
| Chair: | Hillel Schwartz | Independent Scholar |
| Rob Howard | University of Wisconsin - Madison | When Millennialists Talk-Back: Debate, Authority, and the End Times On-Line |
| Chip Berlet | Political Research Associates | Plots and Plans: How the Internet promotes apocalyptic conspiracism among left-wing millennialists |
| Michael Ian Borer | Boston University | Postmodern Millennialism and the Reification of Cyberspace |
Lunch 1:00 - 2:30
2:30 - 4:00 KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Religious Egalitarianism and Economic Growth
Robert Fogel, University of Chicago
Response Roundtable:
| Brenda Brasher | Mount Union College |
| Charles Lindholm | Boston University |
| Stephen O'Leary | University of Southern California |
| Hillel Schwartz | Independent Scholar |
4:30 - 6:00 GLOBALYPTIC!
| John Reilly | Independent Scholar | Spengler's Future: The World after Modernity |
| Kenneth Keulman | Loyola University | The Mask of Anarchy |
| Chris Smith | University of Wisconsin-Madison | The New Economy and the Culture of Freedom |
6:30 - 8:00 PROTESTANT MILLENNIALISM AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM: A ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
Denis Crouzet, Universite de Paris, Sorbonne
| Round Table Responses | ||
| Chair: Thomas Glick | Boston University | |
| Liah Greenfeld |
Boston University
|
|
| Stephen Karlberg | Boston University | |
| Richard Landes | Boston University |
Followed by the Director's Reception at the home of Richard Landes
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2001
George Sherman Union, 775 Commonwealth Ave. Rooms 315 & 320
9:00 - 9:30 Coffee & Continental Breakfast
9:30 - 11:00 (SELF?) APPOINTED MESSIAHS & MESSENGERS
| Thomas Nesbit, Jr. | Boston University | Secular Messiahs: The Millennial Visions of William Blake and Henry Miller |
| Scott Lupo | University of Nevada at Reno | The Perils of Modernity: Herbert W. Armstrong, Technology, and Millennialism |
| Kenneth G.C. Newport | Liverpool Hope University College | "A King to Rule over Us": The Identity and Function of David Koresh in Branch Davidian Theology |
THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY: MILLENNIALISM IN MODERN AFRICA
| Leslie R. James | DePauw University | Confronting the Apocalypse: Pan-Africanism and the Modern World |
| Rosalind Hackett | University of Tennessee/Harvard University | Not Even Buttons or Bicycles: the Millennialism and Anti-Modernism of Nigeria's Maitatsine Movement |
| Anthony Egan | Weston Jesuit School of Theology | Douglas Thompson and the Romance of Revolutionary Modernism: A South African case study in Christian Enthusiasm for Marxism |
11:30 - 1:00 BOOKS OPRAH PROBABLY WON'T PICK: MODERN APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE
| David Cook | Rice University | Muslim apocalyptic writers and Christian evangelicals: the Internet connection |
| Joshua Eyler | University of Connecticut | "Science is the strongest thing there is": Technology and the Atheist's Millennium in Kurt Vonnegut's 'Cat's Cradle' |
| Tom Doyle | Independent Scholar | Premillennialist Apocalyptic Fiction and Technology: Co-option and Confrontation |
NEW ECONOMIES OF APOCALYPTIC PRODUCTION: THE WAYS AND MEANS OF GLOBAL TECHNOCULTURE
| Chair: Lee Quinby | Hobart and William Smith Colleges | |
| Lee Quinby | Hobart and William Smith Colleges | Technomillennial Subjects: Atavists, Avatars, and Netizens |
| Chris Smith | University of Wisconsin-Madison | Of Playas and Prophets: Bearing Witness to the End Under the Sign of the New Economy |
| Susan Napier | University of Texas at Austin | Anime Apocalypse: Conveying the Unconveyable at the End of the 20th Century |
LUNCH 1:00 - 2:30
2:30 - 4:30 MID-LIFE CRISIS: MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN MILLENNIALISM
| Chair: Al Baumgarten | Bar Ilan University | |
| E. R. Truitt | Harvard University | Ubi Naturam Vincebat Opus: The Triumph of Technology over Nature |
| Andrew Gow | University of Alberta, Edmonton | Printing, Prognostication and the Flood of 1524: Astrology and Apocalyptic Angst in the later Middle Ages and Reformation |
| Andrew Thomas | University of Arizona | The Metaphysics of Messianic Manifestations: The Quaker leader George Fox's Perspective on Jews and Judaism |
| Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan | University of Paris IV-Sorbonne |
Strength and limits of the eschatological imaginary in the late medieval Italy : the case of Venice |
2: 30 - 4:00 TALKING ABOUT A REVOLUTION, WELLÉ.
| Chair: Daniel Resnick | Carneigie Mellon University | |
| Jim Block | De Paul University | Millennial Modernism and the Subversion of Change: Post Revolutionary America as the New Established Order |
| Jason D. Martinek | Carnegie Mellon University | "The WorkingmanÕs Bible": Robert BlatchfordÕs Merrie England And American Socialism, 1895-1900 |
| Thomas Beebee | Penn State University | Golden Flying Saucers: Ernesto Cardenal and Millennial Ufology |
4:30 - 6:00 VISION, SPIRIT AND MILLENNIALISM
| Chair: Stephen O'Leary | Univesity of Southern California | |
| Geoffrey McVey | Syracuse University | Arcanum arcanorum: The Hermetic manufacture of gods and souls |
| Cathy Gutierrez | Sweet Briar College | The Ghost in Millennial Machines: Spiritualism and the Quest for Objectivity |
| Carol S. Matthews | University of Kansas | I Meant to Be That: Post-Millennial (bio)spiritual identity (re)construction in a New Age Community |
5:00 - 6:00 THE WRITING'S ON THE WALL: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE PROPHECIES
| James van Pelt | Yale University | Prometheus and the Tower: Prehistoric Prophecies of Technology as Apocalyptic Catalyst |
| Roger Brown | Independent Scholar | Promoting the Good Life for All: The Challenge to Develop Appropriate Technology |
6:00 Cocktail Hour Faculty Dining Room,GSU
7:00 Banquet
8:00 Keynote Speaker: David Noble, York University
Technology and Religion
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2001
George Sherman Union, 775 Commonwealth Ave. Rooms 320
9:00 - 9:30 Coffee & Continental Breakfast
9:30 - 11:00 LEARNING THE POLITICS OF PARADISE
| Chair: David Redles | Cuyahoga Community College | |
| John Turner | Norwich University | The Hegemony of the Social and Its Impact on Higher Education: An Adaptation of the Theories of Hannah Arendt |
| Eric Zuesse | Independent Scholar | Nazi Holocaust as Restoration of Paradise |
| Susan Palmer | Dawson College | Falungong's Satyagraha: Political Activism or Millenarian Activity? |
11:30 - 12:30 MILLENNIAL MOGULS
| Jerome Shapiro | Hiroshima University | "The Power of Hollywood" Vs. the Powerlessness of Academia: Apocalyptic and Millennial Rhetoric in the Power-Struggle over the Bomb, the Cinema, the Culture, and Our Very Souls |
| Dan Noel | Pacifica Graduate Institute | When Epistemology Fails: Millennial Belief Meets Media Credulity |
| Ginger Hanks Harwood | La Sierra University | "Like The Leaves of Autumn:" The Utilization of the Press to Maintain Millennial Expectations in the Wake of Prophetic Failure |