Second CFP RGS-IBG Conference London 28-30th Aug 2013

Eschatology and World Politics

Organisers:
Rory Rowan (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Ross Adams (London Consortium / University College London)

This session seeks to examine the influence of apocalyptic and
eschatological conceptions of historical time on world politics and
the various ways that these understandings of history are
‘spatialised’ in both spatial imaginaries and political practices.
There has been much discussion in recent years about the ‘return of
religion’ with the growth of world religions and their rising
influence on world politics, from the sway of the Christian Right in
the United States to the impact of militant Islam in a number of
areas. We aim to investigate what role eschatological thought has
played in shaping the spatial imaginaries of religious groups and
their influence on world politics.
At the same time representing historical change in terms of
apocalyptic events has become a dominant trope in popular mediums such
as film, literature, video games and comic books. We believe that
these representations act as an important register for understanding
the relationship between eschatological thought and world politics and
the way in which geopolitical imaginaries both shape, and are shaped
in turn by, the threat of political and environmental catastrophe.
Following the argument made by Carl Schmitt and others that key modern
political concepts represents secularized versions of theological
concepts, we seek to examine the shadow eschatological thought casts
on the fundamental categories of modern (geo)political thought and the
ways in which world politics have been conceived. Whilst the process
of secularization by which Christian, but also Jewish and Islamic,
theological concepts have been transformed in to secular concepts in
modern political thought has been remarked upon in the field of
‘political theology’ the implicit and explicit relationship between
such ideas and the political organization of space and geopolitical
imaginaries has yet to be fully explored. We believe that political
theology is an area of thought that deserves serious attention from
the perspective of Geography and spatial thinking more broadly.

We welcome both theoretical and empirical papers engaging the
relationship between eschatological thought and the politics of space
in the broadest sense. Possible areas of investigation might include,
but are not limited to:


Political theology and world politics

Geopolitics and apocalyptic thought

The return of religion and eschatological politics

Climate Change and apocalyptic thought

Eschatology and the history of geographic thought

Modernisation and secularisation

Eschatology and urban studies


Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to Rory Rowan
([log in to unmask]) and Ross Adams ([log in to unmask])
by 30th January 2013.