Prof. Jacob Erickson presented as part of Drew University's 21st Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquium, 17th-19th April, 2026, in Madison, NJ, USA.   

The conference brought together an array of prominent scholars from a variety of disciplines on the theme of "Apocalypse Now and When" and included a keynote from Prof. Catherine Keller. 

Whether as end-of-the-world hype or as empirically justified warning, the metaphor of “apocalypse” is not soon going away. Mounting threats both to the life of the planet and to democratic politics will continue to foment apocalyptic rhetoric. Responsible use of apocalypsis, informed by the ancient context of the metaphor and attuned to the immense and contradictory range of its present deployments, may be key to facing those threats. This conference explored multiple histories and potentialities of apocalyptic/apocalypse as it crisscrosses disciplines and inflects public sensibility, theological and secular. Erickson's paper, "Inhabitants of the Earth," explored apocalyptic narratives surrounding climate displacement, the racialized and securitized narratives that surround the figure of the "climate refugee," and asked how theology and ethics might better tend to climate and mobility justice. 

 

Drew's Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia have been important gatherings of inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration, resulting in 14+ volumes with Fordham University Press, where Erickson has also published in Divine Multiplicity: Trinities, Diversities, and the Nature of Relation (2013), Divinanimality: Animal Theory, Creaturely Theology (2014), and Entangled Worlds: Religion, Science, and New Matieralisms (2017). https://drew.edu/transdisciplinary-theological-colloquium/

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