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Crisis, Apocalypse and Millenarianism in the Contemporary World

A Workshop on Ernesto de Martino

Organized by Martin Zillinger & Dorothy Zinn

University of Cologne | 30 November 2021 | 14:00-19:00 CET

This workshop has been inspired by the work of Italian anthropologist Ernesto de Martino, whose posthumous book La fine del mondo (2019[1977]) draws on a wide range of scholarship to reflect on the nature of apocalyptic thought. In the parts of the book most concerned with the actuality of the period of his writing in the mid-1960s, de Martino addresses apocalypse in terms of critical recent events in modern humanity: the Holocaust, the threat of nuclear annihilation in the Cold War, and the then-ongoing processes of decolonization. With de Martino’s interest in comparativism in mind, the workshop will bring together scholars working on issues of crisis, apocalypse and millenarianism today. It invites contributions that bring the work of De Martino into focus and that share ongoing research on the mobilizing force of end of time imaginaries and forms of millenarian resistance in the Mediterranean and beyond.

Contact: Fabian Lüke flueke1@uni-koeln.de