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Prophetic Eyes: the Theatricality of Mark Hitchcock's Apocalyptic Geopolitics Masters of Arts

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Prophetic Eyes: the Theatricality of Mark Hitchcock's Apocalyptic Geopolitics Masters of Arts Prophetic Eyes: The Theatricality of Mark Hitchcock’s Apocalyptic Geopolitics By Tristan Sturm, B.A. (Hons.) A thesis submitted to: The Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Arts Department of Geography and Environmental Studies Carleton University © Tristan Sturm, 2006 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Library and Bibliotheque et Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 C anada C anada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-16445-7 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-16445-7 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce,Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve,sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet,distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform,et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be includedBien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. i * i Canada Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract Geopolitical analysis has left religion in the margins and footnotes of its scholarship. This thesis will help rectify this shortcoming. Evangelist Mark Hitchcock and his prophetic biblical interpretations have proliferated in the United States, influencing millions of Americans. Hitchcock’s exegesis is based on four ‘evil’ geopolitical containers: the ‘Muslim alliance’, the ‘Roman Empire’, Russia, and the ‘kings of the Far East’. Through the Rapture and through biblical dictation/interpretation, Hitchcock is able to transcend Earth to write his Apocalyptic geopolitics and qualify the character of the people living in his geopolitical blocs as homogeneous units of evil. This thesis traces the reasoning strategies of how Hitchcock separates himself from the materiality of world politics, claims to ‘know the future’ through detached, objective, unproblematized theatrical and visual analogies, allowing him to see the world as a whole, and giving him the power to ‘know’ the Other. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgments Various paragraphs written for this thesis were published in the journal Geopolitics (2006) and presented to the American Association of Geographers (AAG) (2006) in Chicago, as ‘Prophetic Eyes: The Theatricality of Mark Hitchcock’s Premillennial Geopolitics’. This paper also won the David E. Sopher New Scholar Award for best religion paper presented by untenured faculty at the AAG. Sections of another paper presented in London, Ontario to the Canadian Association of Geographers (2005) entitled ‘Apocalyptic Geopolitics’, are also used throughout this thesis. Furthermore, the paper ‘American Political Economy and Apocalyptic Empire’, presented to the 6th Annual Graduate Political Economy Conference (2005) at Carleton University, has found space in the conclusion of this thesis. The paper ‘Without Geography ‘They’re’ Nowhere: Questions on Utopia and Ives Lacoste’ presented to the Canadian Association of Geographers Ontario Division (2004) at the University of Waterloo, helped me formulate ideas on utopia/nowhere and is used in Chapter 5. All of the material written and presented in these forums was originally done so with the intent of thinking through the ideas and texts presented in this thesis. I would like to thank John Agnew, Andrew Baldwin, David Campbell, John Clarke, Ruby Dumais, Gwilym Eades, Michael Ferber, Leah Gilbert, Fiona Mackenzie, Lori Massini, Nick Megoran, Brandon Schaufele, Anne-Marie Schryer-Roy, and Gearoid O Tuathail for reading and commenting on parts of this thesis. Your suggestions and comments were friendly, albeit critical, and useful beyond words. I would like to thank Noel Salmond in the department of Religious Studies for giving me several hours of his iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. time to talk through these ideas. Ben Moffat, as always, encouraged and pushed me farther. I owe much of this to him, particularly with respect to my interest in geography. If it wasn’t for his always entertaining classes I might today be a wealthy and bored charted general accountant. As well, thanks, Ben, for your detailed comments on this thesis. Certainly my supervisors Simon Dalby and Iain Wallace have been of great help in the many scholarly routes I’ve taken at Carleton University. Thank you for encouraging me through rough times and for reading terribly written drafts just days before journal deadlines, and certainly for having the patience to read through this thesis. In this respect, thank you for giving me financial support, a thanks that goes to Carleton University, as well. Without funding, I would not have been able to purchase the many prophecy books used to write this thesis. The access to these texts was a burden but was also reaffirming that this research was vastly under studied. Thank you to Mark Hitchcock for being receptive and kind in our many conversations. Without your cooperation this thesis would lack your analysis of this work and an important empirical dimension. I would also like to the thank the two anonymous reviewers who read my Geopolitics paper and the four anonymous reviewers of the David E. Sopher New Scholar Award for detailed critique that helped bring those papers and this thesis to a more professional and cogent level. How could I forget my sanity: thank you Eric Oh and Jay Joshi for having patience, taking me x-country skiing when I should have been working on my thesis and thank you for reading over almost every word I wrote during my Master’s. Doug, Karen and Clinton Sturm, my family, thank you for your always available and loving support and encouragement. If I have missed anyone, I am truly apologetic, and I thank you. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Contents Setting the Stage: Premillennialism and Mark Hitchcock 1 1. Critical and Apocalyptic Geopolitics ........................................................ 33 Critical Geopolitics Apocalyptic Geopolitics 2. Strategies Toward Transcendence: Theory and Method ..................... 50 Performance and Performativity Method: Discourse, Foucault and Strategy Transcendence/Transgression, Strategy/Tactic 3. Act 1: The Father’s Heavenly Separation ................................................ 69 The Theatre of the Apocalypse Theatre as Strategy: The Only way Out is Up Hitchcock’s Author-itative Power 4. Act 2: Seeing the Whole Picture .................................................................90 Privileging and the Geo: Distancing and Representation A Short History of Premillennial Geopolitics Hitchcock and the New Apocalyptic Picture 5. Act 3: Knowing the Evil Other.................................................................. 110 Othering Strategies: Heaven/Earth, America/Middle East Othering Between the Border of Heaven and Earth Othering Between America and the Middle East Curtain 127 Bibliography 146 v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. List of Figures and Tables Figures 1. Four Best-Selling Hitchcock Books (1993-2004) 14 2. Israel’s Prophesied Territory 16 3. Mark Hitchcock’s Place Translations and Four Geopolitical Blocs 18 4. ‘God’s Blue Print for the End Times’ 24 5. O Tuathail’s Geopolitical Diagram 38 6. The Premillennial Spatial Separation of Responsibility 65 7. Hal Lindsey’s Maps of Armageddon 74 8. Early ‘T and O’ Maps 99 9. Shrieky and Mr. Beastly of the Care Bears 115 10. Charles Dyer and the Arab Mind 125 Table 1. Changing Premillennial Toponyms (1970-2005) 105 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 Setting the Scene: Premillenniatism and Mark Hitchcock The ‘Politics’ of the Apocalyptic ‘Geo’ Prophetic geographical imaginations in the United States have, since the end of the Cold War, undergone a significant conversion, one that sheds light on the political contingencies
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