"Between divine punishment and conspiracy theories"

New publication on competing interpretations of epidemics from antiquity to the present

A new publication from the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the University of Münster deals with conspiracy theories and “alternative theological” interpretations that emerge in times of epidemics both past and present. Entitled Between divine punishment and conspiracy theories and edited by the historians Marcl Bubert and André Krischer, the volume is published in the Campus Verlag’s “Religion and Modernity” series.

“What disturbed liberal milieus convinced of the evidence provided by medical-scientific expertise in the Corona pandemic is not new for times of epidemics”, the editors underline. “Competing interpretations of epidemics have emerged time and again”.

The edited volume is the first to illuminate such competing interpretations in an interdisciplinary and trans-epochal way, its contributors exploring which interpretations found resonance under which conditions, how this changed over time, and how far this change correlates or collides with historical grand narratives (modernization, secularization, rationalization). (exc/vvm)