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The Centre for Millennial Studies - Sydney Branch

The original Centre for Millennial Studies was initiated by Professor Landes at Boston University (USA) in 1999, basically with a view to watching collective religious behaviour at the turn into the Third Millennium. A second branch was established at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, mainly to check on what Landes perceived as an alarming rise in conservative Christian expectations that Christ would return to the holy city at the opening of the new millennium. The Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney was invited to open the third branch, with a very ‘open brief’ that reflected the various interests of its chosen Director, Professor Garry Trompf. The third branch was at first focused on the sociology and cross-cultural study of millenarian hopes (particularly in Melanesia, where Trompf concentrates much of his research) and on the controversy surrounding the so-called 2YK “bug.” But in the course of time, the scope of research broadened, even though the initial interest in both Oceanic materials and the implications of new technologies deepened. The vision of the branch centre encompassed all research that took in the idea of a new millennium in general, so that work on apocalyptic-type issues (whether historical or contemporary) now sits alongside research into the idea of a ‘new Era of remarkable possibilities.’

Director

Garry W. Trompf, Emeritus Professor in the History of Ideas Studies in Religion (and Adjunct Professor), Centre for Peace of Conflict Studies, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2006

Deputy Director

Dr Mick Brodrick, Associate Professor of Media Analysis, Murdoch University, WA, Australia, 6168; Deputy Director, National Academy of Screen and Sound Apocalyptic Themes in Mass Media

Executive Members

Prof. Hilary Carey, Professor of History, University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia 2308 Hilary.Carey@newcastle.edu.au Christian apocalyptic

Mr. Ian Dunn, independent environmental researcher, Denhams Beach, NSW 2536 bronnyian@optusnet.com.au Environmental catastrophism

Revd Dr Raúl Fernández-Calienes, School of Law, St Thomas University, Miami, Fl., USA Visions for churches in the third millennium

Prof. Norman Habel, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Australian Lutheran College, Adelaide SA, Australia 5006 Biblical interpretation and eco-justice in the third millennium

Dr Christopher Hartney, Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia 2006 christopher.hartney@sydney.edu.au Ideas of the millennium in the Latin classics

Dr Penny Keable, independent social theorist Apocalypticism and the nuclear threat

Dr Mehrava Marbani, Social Worker, Psychologist and Social Worker, Sydney Zoroastrianism views of the future

Mr Ramin Marzbani, MIR Investment Management Council, Sydney. Former CEO, wwww.consult (1995-2003) reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from computers, leading to the prize-winning work of EventZero and Greentrac. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDz0NHCy_eM

Prof. Brikha Nasoraia, Mardin Artuklu University, Department of Eastern Languages and Literature, and Department of Art History, Turkey and School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia 2006 Mandaean and comparative ancient Gnostic ideas about the future

Assoc. Prof. Lynette Olson, Department of History, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia 2006. Mediaeval beliefs about AD 1000

Dr David Pecotic, independent researcher Time in modern Gnostic thought

Dr Lee Skye, independent Aboriginal scholar, and hospital Chaplain to Indigenous People, Brisbane. Tradition and Christian Aboriginal ideas about time and the future

Dr Keith Suter, independent futurist, media personality (running radio program “Global Insights”) and social theorist www.keithsuter.com Politics and religion in the new millennium

Dr Friedegard Tomasetti, Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia 2006 Anthropological study of cargo cults; and fresh ideas arising from the reworking of Christianity in Oceania

Centre Publications

  • Fernández-Calienes (ed.), The Asian Church in the New Millennium (Voices from the Edge, 2) (2000)
  • Lee, Kerygmatics of the New Millennium (Voices from the Edge, 4) (2007)

Relevant writings and publications of other Executive Members

  • Brodrick, Nuclear Films (1991)
  • Carey (ed.), Millennium Special Issue of Journal of Religious History 24, 1 (2000)
  • Habel, An Inconvenient Text: Is a Green Reading of the Bible possible? (2009)
  • Hartney, “Per Saturam or Performance? Seneca’s … Ritual Hilarity and Millennial Closure in the Apocolocyntosis.” In C. Cusack and Hartney (eds.), Religion and Retributive Logic (Trompf Festschrift) (2010), pp. 167-85.
  • Keable, ‘Figments of Armageddon’ (Doctoral dissert., Univ. Syd.), 2 vols. (1991)
  • Nasoraia (and Trompf), “Mandaean Macrohistory,” ARAM 22 (2010-11): 391-425.
  • Olson, The Early Middle Ages: The Birth of Europe (2007) (not esp. pp. 153-58)
  • Pecotic, Gurdjieff and the Place of Materialism in the Academic Study of Esotericism (2012)
  • Suter, Global Order and Global Disorder (2003)
  • Tomasetti, Traditionen und Christentum im Chimbu-Gebiet Neuguineas (1976) (on “Old and New Time” in New Guinea)
  • Trompf (ed.), Cargo Cults and Millenarian Movements (Religion and Society, 29) (1990)

Other Notices

The founding Director of Millennial Studies at Boston, Prof. Landes, has recently published his Heaven on Earth: Varieties of Millennial Experience, with dust-jacket comments by Prof. Trompf.