3: Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times

This is the third episode of the End of law podcast.

In this episode Tormod Johansen and Jayne Svenungsson talks to Alison McQueen, political scientist working at Stanford University. We discussed her 2018 book Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times. In the book McQueen discusses three important political realists – Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and Hans Morgenthau – who all in their respective eras engaged with and in different ways reacted to and used apocalypticism.

The first part of the episode is a short introduction by Aaron Goldman of the At the End of the World research programme organising this talk. After that the discussion between McQueen, Svenungsson and Johansen follow, which ranged from the concept of apocalypticism, the dangers and potentials of apocalyptic imaginaries, and different aspects of the relation between religious and secular understandings of politics and apocalypse.

A couple of books mentioned in the episode:

Hobbes, Thomas Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil (1651)

McQueen, Alison Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

Svenungsson, Jayne Divining History: Prophetism, Messianism and the Development of the Spirit (Berghahn Books, 2016)

This podcast is produced by the End of Law research project in collaboration with the At the End of the World research programme. Producer is Joel Kuhlin and the music is by Simon Hansson.

If you would like to contact the podcast, you’re welcome to send an email to tormod.otter.johansen@law.gu.se