In the spotlight: Kate Cooper
What were your first thoughts when you saw the call for applications for the fellowship?
I thought: these people sound mad, just like my kind of people—I must get to know them! It seemed to me that studying different apocalyptic ideas across time and space was such a fantastic idea. And of course this turned out to be true!
What does the apocalypse and/or post-apocalypse mean for you?
The medievalist Marjorie Reeves defined the term apocalyptic as ‘the disclosure of hidden divine purpose in history’. Her definition arises from the literal meaning of the Greek word ‘apokalypsis’—‘unveiling’ (the word is derived from the combination of ‘apo’ [‘away’] with ‘kalypsis’ [‘covering’]).
In the first century, the Apostle Paul suggested that the end-time [Greek: ‘eschaton’] was coming, and this should be read as a sign from God, that the faithful should organize their lives as a search for God’s hidden plan. I believe this is why the ideas of eschatology (the end of the world) and apocalypse (revelation) began to be entwined with one another, with the result that modern thinkers often refer to the end-time as ‘the Apocalypse’.
What is your fellowship trying to achieve, which questions is it addressing, and with which methods?
My project explores early Christian ‘apocalyptic ethics’—the idea that there will be a final moment of judgement in which time collapses and God’s purpose in history will be revealed. In this scenario you often see what we call ‘eschatological reversal’, where the meek inherit the earth and the powerful are called to account. This idea reaches back to the Psalms and is expressed vividly in the sayings of Jesus, especially the Sermon on the Mount. Across time, different communities discovered different meanings in these sayings.
How does the fellowship project build on or connect to your previous career or biography?
My earlier work focuses on gender and the household in late antiquity. And, of course, things that resonate with your previous work always jump out at you! So, one of the most fascinating things about my current project is discovering how important gender ideas are in the apocalyptic imagination.
What do you hope to take with you from the project and its results?
The time at CAPAS has given me a fantastic opportunity to think about all the ways ‘apocalyptic ethics’ are expressed across the history of the Jewish and Christian worlds, from the time of the Psalms (in the first millenium B.C.E.) up to the present.
What are the aspects you are looking forward to with respect to input from other disciplines, other perspectives, and the exchange with the fellows and people at CAPAS?
I’ve been part of a research group studying apocalyptic spaces, and we have been reading and thinking about spaces that carry an apocalyptic ‘charge’ in the imagination, especially the household and the desert. The group includes an architect and a geographer as well as a literature scholar and two historians, which has made for a fantastic collaboration.
To get some practical advice: What would be the three things you would definitely need in a post-apocalyptic world?
You know, in all the dystopian films, people start out with all sorts of useful gadgets, and they lose them one by one: they drop the flashlight into a well or whatever, and finally they are left with their own resources. So, in the end I think you probably just have to make the most out of whatever you stumble across!
What are some of your favourite pop culture references to the/an (post)apocalypse. What can you recommend?
One of one of the most fascinating types of medieval ‘diffusion’ culture are the ‘block books’ that were printed in the fifteenth century, around the same time as Gutenberg was printing his first Bibles with moveable type. The block books were similar to modern comic books or graphic novels, with one or more pictures on each page, and a caption or speech bubbles to add meaning to each picture. The Apocalypse of John of Patmos, from the New Testament, was one of the most popular texts for these block books, because people loved the illustrations of John’s monsters and other mad visions. Here in Heidelberg there is a beautiful block book printed in 1469.
Kate Cooper is Professor of History at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research explores how women, children, and adolescents changed history in various ways. She is especially interested in religious and social change, and the distinctive institutions of daily life such as marriage, asceticism, slavery, domestic exploitation, and violence.