
Apocalyptic Conspiracism
American Evangelicalism in an Age of Climate Crisis
Bloomsbury Academic (Publisher)
Published on 12. December 2024
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-1-350-44294-8 (ISBN)
Description
In the USA, politically conservative and right-wing apocalyptic evangelicals hold that climate change science and Covid-19 are fabrications governed by manifest evil. How do these groups generate and distribute these truth-claims and why?
Using a sociological methodology informed by Bourdieu and Foucault, this book offers tools for scholars and students to better understand the logic of climate denial within the context of American conservative evangelicalism and apocalypticism. Tom Albrecht and Tristan Sturm coin and employ the term apocalyptic conspiracism to analyse the increasingly powerful confluence of apocalyptic and conspiracist discourses. These dialogues create a holistic belief system, which claims that the world will profoundly change for the worse due to a global network of interconnected conspiracies.
This book focuses on and expands the literature on the discursive practices of anthropogenic climate change and Covid-19 denialism. Exploring religious, apocalyptic, and conspiracist belief systems, the authors demonstrate how these affect geopolitical imaginations, the perception of global crises, as well as the environmentally relevant behaviour of American Evangelical Christians.
Using a sociological methodology informed by Bourdieu and Foucault, this book offers tools for scholars and students to better understand the logic of climate denial within the context of American conservative evangelicalism and apocalypticism. Tom Albrecht and Tristan Sturm coin and employ the term apocalyptic conspiracism to analyse the increasingly powerful confluence of apocalyptic and conspiracist discourses. These dialogues create a holistic belief system, which claims that the world will profoundly change for the worse due to a global network of interconnected conspiracies.
This book focuses on and expands the literature on the discursive practices of anthropogenic climate change and Covid-19 denialism. Exploring religious, apocalyptic, and conspiracist belief systems, the authors demonstrate how these affect geopolitical imaginations, the perception of global crises, as well as the environmentally relevant behaviour of American Evangelical Christians.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
1 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
500 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-44294-8 (9781350442948)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Tom Albrecht is Visiting Scholar in Geography at Queen's University Belfast. His research concerns contemporary apocalyptic conspiracist discourses in digital spaces.
Tristan Sturm is Senior Lecturer in Geography at Queen's University Belfast. He is the Director of the MA in Geopolitics and a Fellow of the Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice and was recently granted a Fellowship at the Centre for Apocalyptic and Postapocalyptic Studies at the University of Heidelberg. He is interested in apocalyptic thought related to climate change, conspiracies, and religious movements in the USA and Israel/Palestine. He has published over 30 academic articles, in co-editor of Mapping the End Times, and has disseminated his findings in the Toronto Star, Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, National Post, THE Magazine, BBC Radio 4, ITV, BBC Newsline (TV), among other media spaces.
Tristan Sturm is Senior Lecturer in Geography at Queen's University Belfast. He is the Director of the MA in Geopolitics and a Fellow of the Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice and was recently granted a Fellowship at the Centre for Apocalyptic and Postapocalyptic Studies at the University of Heidelberg. He is interested in apocalyptic thought related to climate change, conspiracies, and religious movements in the USA and Israel/Palestine. He has published over 30 academic articles, in co-editor of Mapping the End Times, and has disseminated his findings in the Toronto Star, Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, National Post, THE Magazine, BBC Radio 4, ITV, BBC Newsline (TV), among other media spaces.
Content
Introduction: Apocalyptic Conspiracism as a Way of Comprehending Crises
1. Social Epistemology, Power, and Climatic Counter-Knowledge
2. Analysing Digital Knowledge Discourses/Spaces
3. American Evangelicalism, the Environment, and Apocalyptic Conspiracism
4. The Construction of Evangelical Apocalyptic Conspiracist Climate Change Discourses
5. Generation of Evangelical Apocalyptic Climate Counter-Knowledge
6. Climate Change and Evangelical Apocalyptic Geopolitics
Conclusion: Apocalyptic Friends and the Truth of the End
References
Bibliography
Index
1. Social Epistemology, Power, and Climatic Counter-Knowledge
2. Analysing Digital Knowledge Discourses/Spaces
3. American Evangelicalism, the Environment, and Apocalyptic Conspiracism
4. The Construction of Evangelical Apocalyptic Conspiracist Climate Change Discourses
5. Generation of Evangelical Apocalyptic Climate Counter-Knowledge
6. Climate Change and Evangelical Apocalyptic Geopolitics
Conclusion: Apocalyptic Friends and the Truth of the End
References
Bibliography
Index