Learning From The Past, Imagining The Future

Recorded October 6th, 2026. What does the future hold for creativity in a rapidly changing world? To mark the presentation of the Trinity European Laureate Award to Cartoon Saloon, the Trinity Long Room Hub will host a major discussion exploring the future of art and creative culture. The event celebrates a studio whose distinctive storytelling has brought Irish history, culture, folklore and artistic traditions to audiences around the world, while also examining why creativity matters and how we can support it in the years ahead. The panel discussion will feature: Maura McGrath, Chair of the Arts Council of Ireland Annie Fletcher, Director of IMMA Naoise Nunn, Cultural Producer and Festival Director Ronan McCabe, CEO of Animation Ireland Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Recorded October 7th 2026. A lecture by Prof Patrick j. Houlihan organised by the Loyola Institute, School of Religion, Theology and Peace Studies. Patrick J. Houlihan is Associate Professor in History here in Trinity College. His most recent book is Religious Humanitarianism during the World Wars, 1914-1945: Between Atheism and Messianism (Cambridge University Press, 2024).  Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

What if imagining the end of the world were also a way of imagining a new one? In this episode, Doctor Irene Barbotti speaks with Dr Rebecca Walker about the revolutionary and creative power of the idea of “apocalypse”, from early Christianity to contemporary Italian culture. The “end” can mean the end of the world, but also of a way of life, a political system, or a particular understanding of ourselves. Moving between Mark 13 and the Book of Revelation, the radical Christian movement of the Circumcellions, Ernst Bloch’s Atheism in Christianity, and the writings of Elsa Morante and Michela Murgia, the conversation asks how communism and feminism relate to biblical eschatology, whether we need new words to talk about revolution, and what a “queer apocalypse” might look like. Bio of the Host: Doctor Irene Barbotti is a Research Fellow at the University of Milan. She completed her PhD in Religious Studies at Trinity College Dublin in 2026, where she worked on the relation between Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. She has been an Early Career Research Fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub. Her current research focuses on female representations of Christology. Since 2023 she has chaired a research unit on Eschatology at the European Association of Biblical Studies. Bio of the Guest: Dr Rebecca Walker is Stipendiary Lecturer in Italian at Oriel College, Oxford. She completed her PhD at the University of St Andrews and held postdoctoral positions at St Andrews and Trinity College Dublin. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary Italian literature and culture, particularly women’s life-writing and the relationship between self-formation and narrative. She is the author of The Sense of Fracture in Goliarda Sapienza and Elena Ferrante (Legenda, 2025), is co-editing a special issue of Italian Studies on Michela Murgia, and is currently working on how writers such as Grazia Deledda, Natalia Ginzburg, and Elsa Morante have grappled with the “God question” in their work. Supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub and funded by the Graduate Interdisciplinary Funding Scheme. Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

In this episode of Beyond the End, Simon Brummer and Dr Tim Grass explore a religious movement shaped by apocalyptic expectations and the belief in the imminent return of Jesus: the Brethren, also known as the Plymouth Brethren. Together with Doctor Grass, a historian of religion, Simon traces the movement’s origins in Dublin around two hundred years ago and explores how it developed and spread around the world. The Brethren’s beliefs about the end times have had a lasting influence on Christian thought, particularly within evangelical circles and beyond. The episode examines the origins and development of the movement, its distinctive end-time beliefs, and its wider religious and historical impact. Bio of the Host: Simon Brummer is a PhD student in Religious Studies at Trinity College Dublin. His research explores the Gospel of Luke through the lens of how people think, feel, and make sense of the world. Drawing on the Cognitive Science of Religion and related fields, he examines how these processes can help us understand how ancient religious narratives construct meaning, shape perceptions, and negotiate questions of identity and belonging. He is also interested in the cognitive and psychological dimensions of eschatology and end-time beliefs. Bio of the Guest: Dr Tim Grass is a historian and theologian, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and currently a Visiting Scholar at Queen’s University Belfast. His research focuses on church history and the Brethren traditions, on which he has published extensively. His recent publications include Brethren: A Brief Introduction (2025) and Brethren at 200: A Bicentenary Conference, which he edited following a conference held in Dublin and Belfast in the summer of 2025. Supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub and funded by the Graduate Interdisciplinary Funding Scheme. Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

What happens to gender in the end times? This episode explores how early Christian communities imagined transformed bodies, blurred social boundaries, and redefined gender roles in light of eschatological expectation. Hairuo Wang and Dr Priscilla Buongiorno examine literary and visual portrayals of holy women, especially saints and martyrs, who abandon socially prescribed markers of femininity such as clothing, hair, bodily adornment, and household roles. The episode asks what these depictions reveal about early Christian visions of gender transformation, and how they helped shape later Western ideals and anxieties of womanhood. Bio of the Host: Hairuo (Haru) Wang is a PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin’s School of Religion, Theology and Peace Studies. Her research explores how New Testament characters were reimagined in early Christian writings. She is also interested in feminist interpretations of the New Testament and early Christian literature in the cultural milieu of late antique Syria. Away from her books, Haru is an avid rider who believes the happiest place in the world is on horseback. Bio of the Guest: Dr Priscilla Buongiorno received her PhD from the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University. Her research investigates the roles of women in the early Christian community in Rome, with particular attention to iconographic evidence as a privileged medium of inquiry. Focusing especially on visual documents produced in Roman workshops, her work examines funerary art as a key source for understanding the social organization of early Christian communities and the visual expression of shared identity in the third and fourth centuries CE. She is currently working on early Christian texts to identify literary “types” of women and to compare them with their visual representations, exploring the discrepancies between literature and iconography as a means of reconstructing otherwise missing histories of early Christian women. Supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub and funded by the Graduate Interdisciplinary Funding Scheme. Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Can prayer be a form of warfare? In this episode, Maicol Cortés and Professor Benjamin Wold explore how ancient Jewish and early Christian texts imagined prayer as active participation in divine conflict. Drawing on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Revelation, and the Letter to the Ephesians, they discuss prayer as an embodied practice of co-agency, where human beings become participants in cosmic battles between divine and opposing powers. Bio of the Host: Maicol Cortés is a final-year PhD researcher at Trinity College Dublin, under the supervision of Professor Ben Wold. His research focuses on ancient Judaism and early Christianity, particularly the role of liturgy, prayer, and ritual sound in eschatological conflict. His doctoral thesis offers a comparative study of the Qumran War Scroll (1QM) and the Book of Revelation, examining how liturgical practices shape religious identity, organise participation, and contribute to the understanding of the final conflict between good and evil. Bio of the Guest: Ben Wold is Professor in Ancient Judaism and Christianity at Trinity College Dublin. He specialises in the late Second Temple period, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls. His interests include nascent Christianity and the shared cultural histories of diverse religious traditions in the first centuries. About this series: Beyond the End is a podcast series by four PhD researchers in Religious Studies at Trinity College Dublin exploring how beliefs about the end of the world have shaped human imagination, religious traditions, and social life from antiquity to the present. Rooted in the study of ancient Jewish and early Christian eschatology, the series traces how apocalyptic ideas emerged as responses to crisis, injustice, and political upheaval, while also offering visions of renewal, transformation, and hope. Bringing together perspectives from religious studies, history, sociology, philosophy, literature, and gender studies, the podcast examines how “end-time” expectations continue to influence contemporary culture, politics, and identity. Through conversations with leading scholars, Beyond the End invites listeners to reflect on why the idea of “the end” remains such a powerful lens for understanding both the past and the present. Supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub and funded by the Graduate Interdisciplinary Funding Scheme. Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

In this opening episode, Irene Barbotti, Hairuo Wang, Maicol Cortés, and Simon Brummer introduce themselves, their research, and the questions that brought them to the study of the end of the world. Coming from different academic, cultural, and personal backgrounds, they reflect on why beliefs about the end continue to matter, both as a historical phenomenon and as a living force in contemporary society. Along the way, they introduce the central themes of the series: apocalypse as revelation, crisis, justice, and renewal, setting the stage for the conversations to come. About this series: Beyond the End is a podcast series by four PhD researchers in Religious Studies at Trinity College Dublin exploring how beliefs about the end of the world have shaped human imagination, religious traditions, and social life from antiquity to the present. Rooted in the study of ancient Jewish and early Christian eschatology, the series traces how apocalyptic ideas emerged as responses to crisis, injustice, and political upheaval, while also offering visions of renewal, transformation, and hope. Bringing together perspectives from religious studies, history, sociology, philosophy, literature, and gender studies, the podcast examines how “end-time” expectations continue to influence contemporary culture, politics, and identity. Through conversations with leading scholars, Beyond the End invites listeners to reflect on why the idea of “the end” remains such a powerful lens for understanding both the past and the present. Supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub and funded by the Graduate Interdisciplinary Funding Scheme. Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Recorded Monday, 28th of September 2026, as part of the Trinity Arts and Humanities Research Festival. Join David Shepherd (Biblical Studies) in conversation with celebrated Irish writer, Colm Tóibín, about his Booker Prize short-listed novella, Testament of Mary, and its operatic adaptation, Testament (composed by Tarik O’Regan with a libretto by Colm Tóibín), which will feature in the Dublin Theatre Festival this October. Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Recorded Thursday, 24th of September 2026, as part of the Trinity Arts and Humanities Research Festival. Suzanne O'Neill (Classics), Niamh Deignan (Education), Mary Grace Albanese (English) and Laura Shanahan (Library) consider how the arts and humanities can help us understand the past and imagine a better future for Europe. Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Tarraingeoidh an comhrá grúpa saineolaithe le chéile chun iniúchadh a dhéanamh ar an mbunús atá leis an ngéarchéim muiníne, an tionchar a bhíonn aici ar ár ndaonlathas agus ar ár sochaí, agus, níos tábhachtaí ná aon rud eile, an tslí inar féidir linn an mhuinín a atógáil. Á reáchtáil go hiomlán trí Ghaeilge.