At the End of the World Newsletter – 15 December 2024
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This is the eighth newsletter for the At the End of the World research program, housed at Lund University. It is the final newsletter from our second year of activity. If you’re receiving this email, it’s because you’ve subscribed to our mailing list. Below, we’ll fill you in on some upcoming events for the spring of 2025, and also what we've been up to since the last newsletter. |
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Upcoming Webinar VII – With God on Our Side: Apocalyptic Motifs and the Struggle for Social Justice, 16:00-17:30, 4 March 2025To attend the webinar, please register by filling out a short webform at https://forms.gle/iH9jGyJNUQQhAzmS7. You'll receive a link to the Zoom room via email about 24 hours before the webinar. For the seventh webinar of the At the End of the World research program, the researchers Patrik Fridlund and Aaron James Goldman will host invited guest Lisa M. Bowens for a conversation about Martin Luther King, Jr., apocalyptic theology, and social justice. Abstract: The apocalyptic literary genre, as well as its images and motifs, have been wielded by theologians and political actors to help achieve a variety of goals. What is it about apocalypse – as a genre, as a constellation of images and ideas – that makes it so ripe for social and political struggle? This webinar features Lisa M. Bowens, Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. Taking her 2023 article “Martin Luther King, Jr. and Apocalyptic Thought” as our point of departure, this webinar will explore some of the ways apocalypse can either motivate or stymie political action. Lisa M. Bowens is Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary (USA). Her research interests include Paul and apocalyptic literature, Pauline anthropology, Pauline epistemology, discipleship in the gospels, African American Pauline Hermeneutics, and New Testament exegesis and interpretation. Patrik Fridlund is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion and a senior lecturer at Lund University's Centre for Theology and Religious Studies. Aaron James Goldman is a research fellow in Philosophy of Religion at Lund University's Centre for Theology and Religious Studies. Allan Burnett will chair the webinar. |
Recent publications and media appearances by our team |
Marie Cronqvist gave her installation lecture on 2 October for her new position as Professor of Modern History at Linköping University. You can view her lecture – titled “Beredskapstid och framtidsfrid. Samtidshistorisk forskning i en orolig värld” – on her Linköping University webpage. For The Conversation, Cronqvist authored a piece inspired by recent state-driven emergency preparedness procedures, titled “‘Keep nine litres of water in storage’: how Baltic and Nordic countries are preparing for a crisis or war.” Cronqvist also gave a lecture on 19 November at Lund University's Sound Environment Centre titled “The Acoustemology of Sirens: A Century of Urban Communication Infrastructures of Fear and Public Sonic Warnings in Sweden.” David Dunér authored a piece for Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund. Årsbok2024 titled "Anatomiska intriger. Johan Jacob Döbelius 1674–1743. Biografi och bibliografi." Patrik Fridlund published an article for Dagens Arena titled “Folkutbytet som konspirationsteori och politik.” Aaron James Goldman published an article titled “Exceptions (to exceptions) and decisions (about decisions) in Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology” for the edited volume Political Violence: Historical, Philosophical and Theological Perspectives (eds. Panu-Matti Pöykkö, Pamela Slotte Russo & Viljami Salo). On 14 October Goldman was member of a panel titled “America votes - will Gen Z swing the election?” organized by Debatt i Lund, in which he, alongside interviewer Karin Arbsjö and panelists Michael Bossetta, Rakel Chukri, and Sanna Torén Björling, discussed possible outcomes of the US Presidential election. The panel can be viewed on Youtube. Goldman was interviewed by Tornike Metreveli for the Religion in Praxis conversation series podcast about the intersection of wrestling, kayfabe, and Trump's political style in an episode titled “Politics as Performance: Trump, Kayfabe, and the Wrestling of American Beliefs.” He was also interviewed about similar topics by Jeppe Grandahl for the piece “Donald Trump og Hulk Hogan: Amerikansk politik og wrestling” in the Danish magazine POV International. Mia-Marie Hammarlin discusses, among other topics, her involvement with At the End of the World in an episode, titled “Researcher Vulnerability and Physical Impacts,” of the podcast The Exchanges Discourse. Hollie Sherwood-Martin published a review in The Lancet Infectious Diseases of the volume – co-edited by Lars Borin, Hammarlin, Dimitrios Kokkinas & Fredrik Miegel – titled Vaccine hesitancy in the Nordic countries: Trust and distrust during the COVID-19 pandemic (Routledge, 2024). Tormod Johansen published an article titled “Concepts of justice beyond suum cuique: Equivalence, law, righteousness, and love” in Studia Theologica - Nordic Journal of Theology. In the 6th episode of the affiliated End of Law podcast, titled “Potentia and Dual State,” Johansen and Leila Brännström interview Bas Schotel, assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam. Amanda Lagerkvist wrote a piece titled "Slow Bearings in the Dark: Waiting and the Ethics of Carefully Attending in the Digital Limit Situation" for the The Handbook of Communication Ethics, 2nd edition (eds. A. Pinchevski, P. M. Buzzanell & J. Hannan). Lagerkvist also published “Yearning for a You: Faith, Doubt and Relational Expectancy in Existential Communication with Chatbots in a World on Edge,” in Mediekultur: Journal of Media and Communication Research. Jayne Svenungsson wrote an article titled “The Future of Christianity in Western and Northern Europe” for the volume Christianity in Western and Northern Europe (eds. Kenneth R. Ross, Annemarie C. Meyer & Todd M. Johnson). On 22 October Svenungsson gave the 2024 distinguished lecture at CAPAS (The Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies) in Heidelberg, titled “Political Theologies at the End of the World.” You can view the lecture on Youtube. Cecilia Wassén authored an article titled “Halakhah at the End of Days: A Comparison between Jesus’s Teaching and the Dead Sea Scrolls” for the volume Qumran and the New Testament (ed. Jörg Frey). On 25 September, Wassén was a virtual panelist at the Enoch Seminar about the use of Israel’s scriptures in the New Testament with Matthias Henze and David Lincicum, the editors of Israel's Scriptures in Early Christian Writings: The Use of the Old Testament in the New (Eerdmans, 2023). |
Other Upcoming Events |
On 23 January 2025, Marie Cronqvist will give a talk at the Air Force Museum (Flygvapenmuseum) in Linköping, titled “Om krisen eller kriget kommer.” The talk is part of the Museum's conversation series, and will take place 17.30–19.00. Please note that you need to purchase tickets in advance in order to attend. On 23 January 2025, Lena Liepe will give a presentation titled Kropp och kyrka/kyrkan som kropp: det medeltida kyrkorummet som multisensorisk sändare in conjunction with Academia Lundensis Medii Aevi (ALMA). The seminar will begin at 18.15 (Swedish time) in Room B339 of Lund University's LUX Building. In the paper Liepe will present a model for how to analyze a medieval church space phenomenologically, with the aim of exploring the space as such as a communicative instrument. In case you happen to be in Germany, she will also give this presentation a few days earlier, on 20 January, under the title “The Medieval Church as a Medium” for the series Das skandinavische Mittelalter und seine Medien, organized by the Institut für Skandinavistik, Frisistik und Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel. On 28 Janaury 2025, Amanda Lagerkvist will give a lecture at Seniorverksamheten Immanuelskyrkan titled ”AI-apokalypsen. Går vi mot undergången eller det mänskligas pånyttfödelse i maskinen?” On 7 February 2025, Lagerkvist will be involved in a conference at Färgfabriken Konsthall in Stockholm titled Relational Technologies, Technological Relations – An interdisciplinary assembly on existential challenges of AI and biometrics. (See link for further details.) On 10 February 2025, David Dunér is giving a presentation titled “Swedenborg” at Senioruniversitetet in Stockholm. For 12 February 2025, Patrik Fridlund, Aaron James Goldman, and Rickard Andersson have organized – in conjunction with the affiliated Beyond Truth and Lies project – a webinar on Zoom with Marisa Žele titled "A Deal with the Devil – On the Question of Trickery, Truth and Lying." The webinar will run from 16.15 until 18.00 (Swedish time). The link contains details, including instructions for how to join the webinar. 3–4 March 2025, Blaženka Scheuer will speak at a symposium she has co-organized titled AI and Religion. The symposium will take place at Lund University's LUX building. |
AnnouncementsPostdoc callout in Biblical Reception with specialization in Religion and Law Lund University's Centre for Theology and Religion has an available postdoc position, which is part of a research environment focused on the project “Scripture and Secularism: Mapping the Impact of the Bible on Conceptualizations of Europe,” a reception critical investigation into the way uses of scripture support and challenge notions of the “secular.” The position is part of a collaboration between this research environment and the Law, Theology and Culture group at the Faculty of Law. The project is distinct from At the End of the World, though is led by Hannah Strømmen and includes Samuel Auler, Joel Kuhlin, Hanna Liljefors, and Frida Mannerfelt. More information on the position, including how to apply, is accessible on this page. Apocalyptica: Experiences of apocalypse and post-apocalypse as they unsettle the past, present, and future Our partner, the Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies at Heidelberg University (CAPAS), publishes Apocalyptica: an interdisciplinary, international, open-access, double blind peer-reviewed journal. The journal, published biannually, explores the many competing sides of apocalyptic thinking in order to investigate the (post-)apocalyptic imaginary and to examine experiences of apocalypse and post-apocalypse as they unsettle the past, present, and future. Visit here for more information, calls for papers, and access to the latest issues. |
Program websiteAs a reminder, the program’s website is located at https://www.endoftheworld.lu.se/. The website logs each newsletter. Happy holidays and see you next year! |