John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern

Call For Papers: SESSION ONE: On September 25, 2011, New York Times Op-Ed contributor, Matthew A. Sutton wrote: "THE end is near — or so it seems to a segment of Christians aligned with the religious right. The global economic meltdown, numerous natural disasters and the threat of radical Islam have fueled a conviction among some evangelicals that these are the last days. While such beliefs might be dismissed as the rantings of a small but vocal minority, apocalyptic fears helped drive the antigovernment movements of the 1930s and ’40s and could help define the 2012 presidential campaign as well." The 2012 SBL Annual Meeting is situated to begin eleven days after the November 6, Presidential Election. The juxtaposition of these two events provides the John’s Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern Section a privileged vantage point to assess the deployment of political and apocalyptic rhetoric employed on both the religio-political right and the left. This session invites proposals that will engage and critically-assess the religious and politically strategic invocation of biblical apocalypticism most prominently in the 2012 national election but will also consider other deployments of politically charged apocalyptic rhetoric in other moments of U.S. history. SESSION TWO: The section invites submissions for an open session on John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts, Ancient and Modern. We especially welcome papers that offer new perspectives on the text, including papers that approach the text from specific hermeneutical contexts (e.g. African-American, Latino/ Latina, Asian, Pacific Islander), employ innovative approaches to the Apocalypse (e.g. spatial theory, cognitive linguistics, social-economic analysis), and/ or offer new perspectives on enduring questions.

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