CALL FOR PAPERS<\/strong><\/p>\n Virtual Symposium: 4th June 2020<\/p>\n Deadline for Submissions: 12th May 2020<\/p>\n In the 1970s Ronald Reagan is reported to have told Sen. James Mills that \u201ceverything is in place for the battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ\u201d and that \u201cEzekiel says that fire and brimstone will be rained upon the enemies of God\u2019s people. That must mean that they will be destroyed by nuclear weapons\u201d (1985,\u00a0San Diego Magazine<\/em>). Reagan\u2019s views echoed a widespread and religiously inflected Cold War grammar in the West \u2013 what has come to be known as the \u201creligious Cold War\u201d (see Dianne Kirby 2013 in\u00a0Oxford Handbook of the Cold War<\/em>; Andrew Preston 2012 in\u00a0Religion and the Cold War<\/em>). Despite\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0state atheism, Cold War discourse took on a religious tenor in the Soviet Union as well. For example, Miriam Dobson has recently described a state-sanctioned Soviet peace movement which sought to co-opt religious groups within the Soviet Union, and which found itself in tension with an emerging popular apocalypticism (2018,\u00a0Journal of Contemporary History<\/em>\u00a053(2)). Alongside these more explicit articulations, apocalyptic and millenarian themes can also be discerned in implicit or covert ways in wider domains: presentations of technology and the space race, perceptions of Marxism, the evolution of architectural and design aesthetics,\u00a0etc<\/em>. As scholarship extends understanding of the complex interaction of religious thinking and the Cold War, this one-day virtual symposium \u2013\u00a0The Cold War and The End Times: Apocalyptic and Millenarian Themes in Politics, Society and Culture, 1946-1989<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 brings a particular focus to apocalyptic and millenarian aspects of these discourses during the period between Churchill\u2019s coining of the \u201cIron Curtain\u201d and the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is intended that a broad definition of apocalyptic and millenarian frameworks, including secular formulations which implicitly draw on or encode religious or supernatural themes alongside discourses which are understood in conventional religious terms, should be applied.<\/p>\n Academics working within these themes are invited to propose short papers (10-15 minutes) as the basis for discussion within the symposium. We encourage presentation of early-stage and speculative discussion points as well as more developed material. Recognizing the limitations of the current global situation, the symposium will take place virtually\/online.<\/p>\n Paper proposals with a 300-word abstract and details of academic affiliation<\/strong>should be submitted to the organizers, Prof. James Crossley (St Mary\u2019s University, Twickenham) and Dr. Alastair Lockhart (University of Cambridge), at\u00a0conference@censamm.org<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Tuesday 12th May 2020.\u00a0<\/strong>The event is organized by the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM)\u00a0www.censamm.org<\/a><\/u>. There is no charge for participation.<\/p>\nThe Cold War and the End Times: Apocalyptic and Millenarian Themes in Politics, Society and Culture,<\/strong>\u00a01946-1989.<\/strong><\/h4>\n