Through a Glass Darkly VII: Symposium on Apocalyptica returns in person on 14-16 October 2022, and for the first time will take place in beautiful Montréal, Quebec, co-hosted by the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University and the School of Religious Studies at McGill University. Lorenzo DiTommaso, Colin McAllister, and Gerbern Oegema are the conference organisers. This year’s theme is: ‘Revelation Rebooted: The Commentary Tradition on the Revelation of John’.

The study of humankind’s fascination with the apocalyptic worldview is a vast field which has increased in interest over the last three decades with the approach and passing of the start of a new millennium. It is a subject that spans cultures, religions, time, and space, and one that resists easy categorical definition. In Through a Glass Darkly, scholars and artists gather each year to deliver presentations and engage in dialogue.

Through a Glass Darkly was founded in 2015 and is directed by Colin McAllister from the Department of Visual and Performing Arts. In 2018, Lorenzo DiTommaso of Concordia University Montréal joined as Co-Director. Through a Glass Darkly has been generously underwritten by the UCCS Humanities Program, the Heller Center for Arts & Humanities, the UCCS Department of Visual and Performing Arts, the UCCS Department of History and the UCCS Center for Religious Diversity and Public Life.

The 2022 edition is made possible by a generous grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada / Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada. The presenters include:

Jonathan Brent (University of Toronto)
Jarrett Carty (Concordia University Montréal)
Peter Darby (University of Nottingham)
Lorenzo DiTommaso (Concordia University Montréal)
Victoria Flood (University of Birmingham)
Karlyn Griffith (Cal Poly Pomona)
Francis X. Gumerlock (Colorado College)
Brandon W. Hawk (Rhode Island College)
Harry O. Maier (Vancouver School of Theology)
Colin McAllister (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs)
Katie Menendez (University of King’s College)
Maria Nenarokova (Rossíiskaya akadémiya naúk)
Gerbern S. Oegema (McGill University)
Salvador Rubio Real (Universidad de Huelva)
Jean-Michel Roessli (Concordia University Montréal),
Thomas Schmidt (Fairfield University)
Felicitas Schmieder (Fernuniversität-Hagen)
Sabine Schmolinsky (Universität Erfurt)
Veronika Wieser (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
Andrea Worm (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen)

I’ll be delivering a paper entitled “The Apocalyptic Other: Nostos, Gog and Magog, and Revelation in the Age of Covid,” as part of the panel ‘Past and Future: The Fate of Institutions, Historiography, and the Apocalyptic Other’ chaired by David Rozema (University of Nebraska-Kearney).

Abstract: Ranging from Homer’s Odyssey to the enigmatic poetry of holocaust survivor Paul Celan in a presentation that combines historical essay and elegy, I review our recent experiences as scholars of apocalyptic thought living through what felt like an apocalyptic moment, in the process drawing into my discussion Gog and Magog, two demons of the eschatological imagination, and their presence in Revelation commentaries of the mediaeval period. At the end of a journey of terror, trauma, isolation, and loss, I find space for hope and redemption—perhaps the best of what apocalyptic writing can do.