Comparative Approaches to Religion and Violence Unit, Religion and Human Rights Unit, Religion, Media, and Culture Unit and Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace Unit

Catastrophe, Apocalypse, and Human Rights

We seek proposals that address religious thought and practice, and human rights concerns, in these areas: 

• Violations of human rights during a catastrophe or “state of emergency,” or the wholesale setting aside of human rights norms in a (real or imagined) catastrophe or state of emergency 
• Representation of apocalyptic or catastrophic settings, often with religious overtones or religiously-inflected, in media and popular culture (film, literature), and depictions of human rights protection (or lack thereof) in such settings 
• The religious resonances of manufactured or imagined apocalypse, and the call to defend” a particular group or social order from an apocalyptic threat; examples might include conspiracy theories against immigrant or minority groups, such as the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory; and catastrophizing of the actions of oppressed groups in their search for equality, such as the characterization of largely peaceful racial justice protests as “burning down cities”