SWEET IN THE MOUTH, BITTER IN THE STOMACH:
APOCALYPTIC DISAPPOINTMENT AND ITS MILLENNIAL MUTATIONS
NOVEMBER 2-4, 2002
BOSTON UNIVERSITY, BOSTON MA
November 2, 2002
Sargent College of Allied Health, 635 Commonwealth Ave., Room 101
7:30 PM
Greater Israel, Oslo and the aftermath: case study of extravagant hope and disappointment
Gershom Gorenberg, The Jerusalem Report
Motti Inbari, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Moshe Halberthal, the Hartman Institute, Hebrew University
David Cook, Rice University
November 3, 2002
Sargent College of Allied Health, 635 Commonwealth Ave., Room 101 and 102
8:30 - 9:15 Coffee and Registration
9:15 - 9 :45
Welcome -- Richard Landes, Director, Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University
10:00 - 11:30
ANALYZE THIS
Social Psychological Theories and the Failure of Prophesy
Leslie Downing, SUNY - Oneonta, NY
A Cultural History of Dissonance Theory
Glen McGhee, GCCC
The Anti-mutational Impulse of Nomonic Representation: an Evolutionary View of Nihilistic Optimism
David Kydd, Pacifica Graduate Institute
PRINTED EPHEMERA, ON THE BIG SCREEN, ON THE SMALL SCREEN
Don't Worry, The End Is Still Near: The Eternal Apocalypse of the Tabloids
Amelia Carr, Allegheny College
The Left Behind Series: Apocalyptic as Polemic
Heath Carter, Georgetown University
Apocalyptic Exhaustion on the Cusp of the New Millennium in the Films Bulworth and Shitsurakuen
Jerome Shapiro, Independent Scholar
11:45 - 12:45
SEPTEMBER 11TH
Chair: Carol Delany, Stanford University
Apocalyptic Interpretations of 9/11
Michael Christensen, Drew University
The Paradox of Paradigmatic Plasticity: On-line End-times Discourse After September 11, 2001
Robert Howard, University of Wisconsin, Madison
2:15 - 3:45
RIGHT WING
Chair: Lee Quinby, William and Hobart College
Waiting for God, Oh:
Hell; there's no fury like scorned
Millennialists
Chip Berlet, Political Research Associates
Paul’s Failed Prophecy: Rewriting the End Times of Abortion
Carol Mason, University of Pittsburgh
To Be Or Not To Be: Evaluating the Linkage of Apocalyptic Disappointment to Fundamentalism
Brenda Brasher, Independent Scholar
APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE
Kingdoms of This World: Defeated Millennium, Pseudo-Millennium, and Dystopic Millennium in Fiction of the Americas
Thomas Beebee, Penn State University
Time for Premillennialist Apocalyptic Fiction
Tom Doyle, Independent Scholar
A "conspiracy leveled against the animate world": Postmillennial Despair in Contemporary American Fiction
James Hewitson, University of Toronto
4:00 - 5:00
ANTISEMITIC ATTITUDES
Jews and Judaism in Christian End-Time Scenarios: Hard-wired Hatred or Irenic Itineraries?
Andrew Gow, University of Alberta
Millennial Dreams and Restoration Realities: A Study of the Quaker George Fox's
use of Jewish Customs to Criticize English Society in Restoration England
Andrew Thomas, Purdue University
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
The Beast and its Image: Adventist Apocalyptic Theology after the ‘Great Disappointment’
Annie Parker, University of Iowa
Time and Again: Postponing the Apocalypse in Mormon Scripture
Cathy Guiterrez, Sweet Briar College
6:00 KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Eli Sagan, Professor Emeritus, Brandies University
The French Revolutionary Terror: Betrayal By and Rage At the Failure of
Impossible Millenarian/Utopian Expectations
7:30 -- Director's Reception
Monday
GEORGE SHERMAN UNION, 745 COMMONWEALTH AVE., THIRD FLOOR
8:30 - 9:00 coffee
9:00 - 10:30
MILLENNIALISM IN YOUR BACK YARD
Millennialism and Century's End in New York State
Nezka Pfeifer, Cooperstown Graduate Program for Museum Studies
Breaching the Millennial Threshold: Century21 and the "Battle in Seattle"
Michelle Dent, New York University
Whatever happened to Pre-Millennial Tension? Why apocalyptic believers ignored the year 2000
Damian Thompson, London School of Economics
Not Too Terribly Disappointed: From Millennium 73 to Y2K and Beyond
Charles Cameron, Independent Scholar
SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY
The Free Energy Movement and Millennial Technology
Fred Nadis, University of Texas
The Pharmakon of the Apocalypse
Patrick Fuery, Curtin University, Western Australia
Kelli Fuery, Curtin University, Western Australia
The Deflating Power of Progress: A Nietzschean View of the Millennial Promise of Science
John Turner, Norwich University
10:45 - 11:45
LEGACIES of the GODDESS and of the MESSIAH
Millennialist Wicca: A Look into the Future
Shawn Arthur, Boston University
‘Transformed By Truth’: How the Worldwide Church of God Dealt With the Prophetic Legacy of Herbert W. Armstrong
Scott Lupo, California State University
MEDIEVAL MILLENNIALISM
The Triumph of the Apocalypse in Beowulf
Amy Tector, University of Western Ontario
The Saint Who Was Wrong: Vincent Ferrer's Failed Apocalyptic Prophecy in the Fifteenth-Century Imagination
Laura Smoller, University of Arkansas, Little Rock
12:15 - 1:15
Remembering Dan Noel
Daniel C. Noel, a regular attendee of these conferences, died suddenly on August 21st, at his home in Summerland, California, as he was preparing to fly to Vermont to spend time with friends and family. Please bring a brown bag lunch and join John and his daughter as we celebrate Dan's life and life's work.
The Pleasures of Intellectual Friendship
John R. Turner
The Nature and Future of Belief: Dan's Work In Progress
Rebecca R. Noel
1:30 - 2:30
ATTITUDE OF JEWS and MUSLIMS
Translating the End: It Ain't Over Yet
Leonard Greenspoon, Creighton University
The Recovery of Radical Islam in the Wake of the fall of the Taliban"
David Cook, Rice University
The Oslo Accords and the Temple Mount: A Case Study of the Movement for the Establishment of the Temple
Moti Inbari, Hebrew University
MILLER'S CROSSING
"Prophecies shall fail" (1 Cor 13.8): Davidians, Branch Davidians and (dis)confirmation of Belief
Kenneth Newport, University of Liverpool
Millenarian Disappointment and Adventist Appointment: Developing a Taste for the Here and Now
Ginger Harwood, LaSierra University
2:30 - 4:00
GLOBALIZATION AND A SPECIFIC PLACE ON THE GLOBE
For Better or For Worse: The Culture of Globalization and the Apocalyptic Tradition
Leslie James, DePauw University
A Genealogy of the Countdown of Time
Hai Ren, Bowling Green State University
When the End is a Beginning: Contemporary Apocalyptic Representations
Maria Leppaakari, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
From radical puritan to Baptist dissent: English nonconformity and the Experience of Defeat
Crawford Gribben, Trinity College, Dublin
Francis Bacon: An Archetypical Mutation
Steve Matthews, University of Florida
In the Shadow of 1600
Geoffrey McVey, Miami University, Ohio
4:30 - 6:00
THE INTERSECTION OF POLITICS AND RELIGION
After the Third Age: Eschatological Elements of International Postwar Fascism
John Reilly, Independent Scholar
"I will today again be a prophet…" Hitler’s 1939 Extermination Prophecy and The Timing of the Final Solution in 1941: a Millennial Studies’ Approach
David Redles,
Alternative Apocalyptic Narratives of the Alevi religious community in Turkey
Aykan Erdemir, Harvard University
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
Old Believer Calculations of the Endtime in 17th-Century Russia
Michael Pensenson, Bowdoin College
From Sweet Rapture to Bitter Reality: The Ronsdorf Zionists and their Impact on Millennialism
Claus Bernet, Free University of Berlin
Apocalytpic Disappointment and Theatre -- the Case of Wierszalin
Mariusz Czaja, Jagiellonian University, Poland
6:00 Cocktail Reception/Banquet -- Faculty Dining Room, George Sherman Union, 5th Floor
Stephen O'Leary, Co-Founder, Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University & University of Southern California
TUESDAY
CMS Seminar Room/Library -- 704 Commonwealth Ave. Room 102Round table discussion of Millennial Studies