HSY3600 - Cults and the end of time: A history of millenarian discourse

Leader(s): Peter Howard

Offered

Not offered in 2009

Synopsis

This unit exlores the allure of ideas of apocalypse and the advent of a new age, either catastrophic or utopian. It will investigate the origins of such millenarian thought in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world, before surveying how and why the images therein evoked caught not only the medieval imagination but also how end-of-time discourse plays out amongst modern thinkers (Marx, Fukyama, Derrida etc.) and is represented in literature, media and film. Special attention will be given to charting the complex relationship of apocalyptic/eschatalogical traditions to religious, social and political change, and therefore to dissent, revolution, and rhetorics of new world orders.

Objectives

Upon successful completion of this unit students will have:

1. Acquainted themselves with and evaluated the considerable body of knowledge that has built up on the subject of millenarianism in recent years.
2. Reflected on the complex relationship of apocalyptic traditions to religious, social and political change, and therefore to dissent and revolution, between 100 CE and today.
3. Thought about questions of millenarian concepts of time, history and numerology, as well as the contextual and conceptual nuances of millenarian, apocalyptic, eschatological and utopian designations.
4. Thought comparatively and applied their developing understanding to analyses of specific situations and contexts, examples of which they will have engaged during the course.
5. Continued the acquisition of critical and analytical skills, and the ability to communicate them verbally and in writing. These skills include, with specific reference to this course:
   1. developing the habit of thinking and reading critically;
   2. displaying both precision and imagination in presenting an historical argument;
   3. being able to develop an historical topic of one's own for investigation; and
   4. being able to think self-consciously about history as a form of knowledge, and being willing to entertain a multi-disciplinary approach to its study.
6. Third year students, in addition, will have acquired a greater degree of analytical skills and a greater understanding of the key conceptual and methodological issues involved in using different kinds of literary and historical works in the context of social history.

Assessment

Tutorial preparation and participation: 10%
Essay related work: 65%
Class test: 25%

Contact hours

2 hours (1 lecture and 1 tutorial) per week

Prerequisites

A first-year sequence in History or permission

Prohibitions

HSY2600