CALL FOR PAPERS
Martyrdom and Transformation of Society
Submission deadline: 31 August 2021
Online symposium: 16 September 2021
A death or deaths remembered for a cause is a familiar feature of religious and political traditions. A common feature of martyrological thinking is to place the worthy death into a wider eschatological scheme and to see such ‘sacrifice’ as enabling or inspiring future transformation. The anticipation of future transformation also opens the possibilities for rethinking social roles in the present and provides challenges to conventional expectations about who participates in acts of violence. But the language of martyrdom has also been used where no obvious death for the cause has taken place and perceptions of suffering can legitimise a given ideology, group, or movement. This online symposium will analyse such ideas in relation to apocalyptic and millenarian thinking and movements. The symposium will consider apocalyptic and millenarian thinking in a broad sense and in a range of historical, cultural, religious, secular, and geographical contexts.
Academics working within these and related areas are invited to propose papers as the basis for discussion within the symposium which will take place online on 16 September 2021.
Paper proposals with a 300-word abstract and details of academic affiliation should be submitted to the organizers, Prof. James Crossley (St Mary’s University, Twickenham) and Dr Alastair Lockhart (University of Cambridge), at conference@censamm.org by 31 August 2021.
The event is organized by the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM) www.censamm.org.
There is no charge for participation.
The CfP in .pdf format is available here.
