Through a Glass Darkly Symposium

About the Symposium
Event Details
Directors
Past Symposiums

About the Symposium

The study of humankind's fascination with the apocalyptic worldview is a vast field which has increased in interest over the last three decades with the approach and passing of the start of a new millennium. It is a subject that spans cultures, religions, time, and space, and one that resists easy categorical definition. In Through a Glass Darkly, scholars and artists gather each year to deliver presentations and engage in dialogue.

Through a Glass Darkly was founded in 2015 and is directed by UCCS Humanities Program Director Colin McAllister. In 2018, Lorenzo DiTommaso of Concordia University Montréal joined as Co-Director. Through a Glass Darkly is underwritten by the UCCS Humanities Program, the Heller Center for Arts & Humanities, the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University Montréal, the School of Religious Studies at McGill University, and a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada / Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada.

Schedule & Presenters

The 2026 Symposium—Time and the Eschaton—will be held March 16th and 17th at the Heller Center for Arts & Humanities. The schedule includes a series of presentations, a film screening, and a book release event. Speakers include Gillian Adler (Sarah Lawrence College), Chris Akers (University of Colorado, Boulder), Nadine Boljkovac (UCCS), Lorenzo DiTommaso (Concordia University Montreal), Francis X. Gumerlock (Independent Scholar), Colin McAllister (UCCS), Gerbern Oegema (McGill University), and James Reid (MetropolitanState University).

Through a Glass Darkly 2026, Monday, 16 March 2026

Opening Reception, 4:30-6:00pm *Clyde's Gastropub*Book release presentation and discussionAn Anonymous Irish Gloss on the Apocalypse by Francis X. Gumerlock

Film Screening—Werckmeister Harmonies, 6:00-9:00pm *UC 302 Theatre* with an introductory talk by Nadine Boljkovac (UCCS)

Tuesday, 17 March 2026 *at the Heller Center*

Welcome and Introduction—Colin McAllister (UCCS) 9:00-9:15a

Varieties of Eschatological Time: From Mundus Senescens to Eternity in Dante's Afterlife Gillian Adler (Sarah Lawrence College) 9:15-10:00a

Different Concepts of Time in the New Testament and Its Reception History, Gerbern S. Oegema (McGill University) 10:00-1045a

Coffee Break 10:45-11:00a

Time and History in the Apocalyptic Imagination, Lorenzo DiTommaso (Concordia University Montréal) 11:00-11:45a

Heidegger and Eschatology: The Promise of Poetry in the Modern World, James Reid (Metropolitan State University) 11:45a-12:30p

lunch in the Heller atrium 12:30-1:45p

Time in Gravity and Quantum Mechanics, Chris Akers (University of Colorado, Boulder) 1:45-2:30p

Hauntings Fraught: Time, the Trinity, and the Theology of the Descent in, Joachim of Fiore and Hans Urs von Balthasar, Colin McAllister (UCCS) 2:30-3:15p

Closing Remarks and a look ahead to TAGD XI Montreal—Lorenzo DiTommaso 3:15-3:30p

Roundtable discussion with VAPA 3900 (Arts and Apocalypse) class 3:30-4:30p

Information

Locations

Heller Center for Arts & Humanities

1250 North Campus Heights

Colorado Springs, CO 80918

Contact

For questions regarding the Through a Glass Darkly Symposium, please contact Colin McAllister:

Symposium Directors

Colin McAllister

Symposium Director

Colin McAllister is the Director of Humanities and Associate Professor of Music at UCCS.

His publications include the Cambridge Companion to Apocalyptic Literature, a translation of the Cambridge Glossa in Apocalypsin (Corpus Christianorum in Translation, Brepols) and—with Lorenzo DiTommaso—Music in the Apocalyptic Mode (Brill, 2023).

Lorenzo DiTommaso

Symposium Director

Lorenzo DiTommaso is a Professor of Religions & Cultures at Concordia University Montreal. He studies apocalypticism from biblical apocalypses to contemporary apocalyptic manga and anime.

Among his current projects is the medieval Antichrist, for which he has received a five-year grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. His new book, The Architecture of Apocalypticism, the first volume of a trilogy, is forthcoming for Oxford University Press.