Matthias Riedl is an associate professor of history and holds the privately supported Chair of Comparative Religious Studies at Central European University (Budapest, Hungary). Before coming to CEU Budapest, he taught at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, and Duke University. His research interest is the comparative history of religion, with a focus on the relation of religion and politics. Lecture Details: The analytical category of "apocalyptic violence" has been frequently applied in recent studies of terrorism, sectarian violence, and revolutionary action. As the psychologist Robert J. Lifton put it: "Apocalyptic violence denotes the readiness to cause enormous destruction in the service of spiritual purification. A world must cease to exist in order to make space for a better one." However, as Riedl will discuss, the category is by no means self-explanatory, since apocalyptic literature is traditionally deterministic and dissuades the readers from taking action. A historical overview will demonstrate that revolutionary and violent forms of apocalypticism emerge only in early modernity, when mystical and humanist influences undermine the determinist creed. Riedl therefore argues that apocalyptic violence, despite its references to an ancient symbolic tradition, is a decidedly modern phenomenon.