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<p>My dissertation explores the counter-histories of trans-Atlantic modernity that surface in contemporary apocalyptic visuality. Framing twenty-first-century apocalypse films and televisual narratives as “new world” fantasies, I argue that British and American visions of The End re-stage the exploitative “contracts” that underwrite capitalist modernity. While contemporary visions of apocalypse predominantly valorize a survivalist ethos premised on claiming territory, annihilating threatening others, and securing reproductive labour, they can also be read for the ethical, affective, and political alternatives that they inadvertently expose. With this in mind, I bring together the fields of transatlantic studies and biopolitical theory in order to accomplish two complementary objectives. The first aim is to critique the gendered, racial, and generational politics of survivalist fantasies, which I read as conducting a neoliberal pedagogy that reanimates histories of racial terror and sexual exploitation. The second is to develop a biopolitical analysis premised on Hannah Arendt’s principle of natality in order to foreground the reproductive and youthful bodies that have been too long marginalized in theories of biopower. Though they are typically relegated to the background of apocalyptic visual culture, women and children figure the unrealized possibilities that haunt survivalist fantasies—possibilities that, I argue, are embedded in the ruined landscapes that they negotiate. Apocalyptic visions of crumbling metropolises, wasted landscapes, and abandoned border sites invite genealogical excavations of the lingering counter-histories embedded in their ruins. Such critical excavations reveal the “now” as a space-time of contestation in which suppressed pasts open onto a multiplicity of possible futures.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The Hortus deliciarum (ca. 1170-ca. 1194, destroyed 1870) was an encyclopedic salvation history created for the canonesses at the Augustinian convent of Hohenburg by their abbess Herrad. Despite the strong role of images in the canonesses’ reception of the manuscript, the Hortus illuminations have thus far not merited a critical consideration. In this thesis, I analyze major individual illuminations in the Hortus as well as the manuscript’s entire structure, and I suggest that Herrad designed the Hortus around contemporary apocalyptic ideas, such as those of Joachim of Fiore, while also illustrating the importance of debate and discussion to the body Christian. The overall composition of the Hortus showed the canonesses that God has chosen to share his knowledge with them. In significant individual images, Herrad expressed that they were to exercise this divine knowledge through debate of theological principles. In the Hortus, debate was shown as originating with Christianity’s Jewish desert predecessors, and the canonesses were encouraged to consider themselves as heirs of this intellectual tradition. Debate appeared as endemic to Christianity and essential to the continued life and prosperity of the Church. In stressing the importance of intellectual activity, while also implying that the canonesses were part of the intellectual elect, the Hortus exerted power that transgressed the library walls and affected the ways the Hohenbourg canonesses performed their faith and understood their responsibility as Christians. / text

This dissertation focuses on the 'theo-political' core of US Christian Zionism and Jewish Religious Zionism. The political militancy characterizing two Millenarian/Messianic movements such as Christian Zionism and Jewish Religious Zionism constitutes a still under-researched and under-theorized aspect that, at present, is paramount to address for its immediate and long terms implications in the highly sensitive and volatile Israeli-Palestinian issue, in the US and Israeli domestic domain, and in the wider international community. Although processes of the 'sacralisation of politics' and 'politicisation of religions' have already manifested themselves in countless forms over past centuries, Christian Zionism and Jewish Religious Zionism are unprecedented phenomena given their unique hybridized nature, political prominence and outreach, mobilizing appeal amongst believers, organizational-communicational skills and degree of institutionalization.

This thesis examines Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Fortitude, 1560, a print from the Seven Virtues series. Fortitude stands out as an anomaly within the cycle because it contains several allusions to the Book of Revelation. The linkage of Fortitude to the writings of St. John is important because it challenges previous iconographic and iconological analyses of the composition. Analysis of Fortitude's compositional elements is provided, along with an examination of the virtue tradition. Additionally, an exploration of sixteenth-century apocalypticism is included, as well as an examination of the artistic influences that may have inspired Bruegel. This thesis concludes that Fortitude's apocalyptic allusions do not seem unusual for an artist familiar with St. John's prophecies, influenced by Hieronymus Bosch, and living in an age of apocalypticism.

Though discovered in 1945, the First Apocalypse of James from Nag Hammadi Codex V, 3 has received very little attention from the scholarly community. This is primarily due to the fragmentary condition of the text. Previous scholarly engagements with the text have led to the conclusion that the purpose of such a revelatory dialogue was to impart instructions for the ascent of the soul to one about to be martyred. The recent discovery of a second copy of the text simply titled “James” as part of the Tchacos Codex has led to not only a greater amount of scholarly interest, but also to different possible interpretations. From NHC V, 3 it was possible to ascertain a pre- and post- martyrdom revelation of Jesus to James, however, the text from Al Minya clearly shows a third revelatory section wherein the martyrdom of James is used as a means of revelation to Addai, the legendary founder of Eastern Syrian Christianity. Chapters one and two answer the question of why James was chosen as the protagonist of the narrative. In chapter one I look in detail at the literary construction of the martyrdom of James and problematize the development of the traditions. Chapter two then turns to a discussion of the figure of James as an authority in the developing Christian community. Chapters three and four are concerned with the literary classification of the text. Chapter three situates the First Apocalypse of James within the overarching genre of apocalyptic literature, and the specific sub-genre of gnostic apocalypses. Chapter four discusses how the text might be understood as a commission narrative while interrogating the lineage of descent beginning with the transmission of the revelation from James to Addai. Following this in chapter five I explore the cosmology of the text with particular attention to the ascent of the soul.

This dissertation focuses on the ‘theo-political’ core of US Christian Zionism and Jewish Religious Zionism. The political militancy characterizing two Millenarian/Messianic movements such as Christian Zionism and Jewish Religious Zionism constitutes a still under-researched and under-theorized aspect that, at present, is paramount to address for its immediate and long terms implications in the highly sensitive and volatile Israeli-Palestinian issue, in the US and Israeli domestic domain, and in the wider international community. Although processes of the ‘sacralisation of politics’ and ‘politicisation of religions’ have already manifested themselves in countless forms over past centuries, Christian Zionism and Jewish Religious Zionism are unprecedented phenomena given their unique hybridized nature, political prominence and outreach, mobilizing appeal amongst believers, organizationalcommunicational skills and degree of institutionalization. / Consortium for Peace Studies at Calgary University

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<p>This thesis argues for the presence of an apocalyptic theological perspective in Søren Kierkegaard’s <em>Practice in Christianity</em> (1848), one that is of a piece with the apocalypticism that a number of contemporary biblical scholars, theologians and philosophers have located in the letters of the Apostle Paul.</p> <p>Though familiar motifs (such as the imminent eschaton or the idea of two ages) may be helpful indicators of an apocalyptic theological perspective in a given work, I take the position that apocalyptic theology is fundamentally a matter of settling the question of ultimate lordship or sovereignty. In a Christian context, therefore, where an author manifests a desire to declare the ultimate sovereignty of God (by way of the intervening act of his incarnation in Christ) over and against any worldly counter-claim to sovereignty, he or she partakes of an apocalyptic theology.</p> <p>I demonstrate that Kierkegaard’s apocalyptic theological perspective is manifested in three ways in <em>Practice in Christianity</em>, namely, with respect to his thinking about temporality, epistemology and politics. The three chapters that make up this thesis take up these themes in turn. In each case, Kierkegaard’s position on these matters is compared with an apocalyptic reading of Paul’s letters. I argue that a concern to declare the ultimate sovereignty of God in these three fundamental areas of human experience is one that Kierkegaard shares with Paul. Insofar as Paul is therefore regarded by his scholarly readers as an apocalypticist, so too, I argue, should Kierkegaard be.</p> <p>Furthermore, just as the identification of Paul’s apocalypticism is alleged to provide a coherent framework for his gospel, so too, I argue, should Kierkegaard’s apocalypticism be understood as the substratum that informs his theo-philosophical project in <em>Practice in Christianity</em>.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Although the ‘death of God’ theology attracted considerable attention during the 1960s, in recent decades it has fallen into neglect. Nonetheless, the issues raised by the ‘death of God’ theology were important ones and it remains an interesting question whether the ‘death of God’ theologians were able to make substantial contributions to them. This thesis re-examines the work of the ‘death of God’ theologians. It argues that the popular view – that the ‘death of God’ theology represented a common tendency, or movement, towards atheism among certain prominent American Protestant theologians – is mistaken. Through a series of detailed studies of Thomas J.J. Altizer (chapters 3 and 4), William Hamilton (Chapter 5), Paul van Buren (Chapter 6), and Harvey Cox (Chapter 7), the thesis shows not only that the significance of the ‘death of God’ theologians has been widely misinterpreted, but that their work contains a number of features which have been under-emphasised or even overlooked. The aim of the thesis is to provide a more balanced contemporary reading of their work. The work of Altizer receives special attention and a case is made for the view that he should be read as a Protestant mystic of a peculiar sort.