Richard Landes, Director

Trained as a medieval historian, Prof. Richard Landes' specialty is popular behavior at the turn of millennial dates; his first book is on a monk-historian who lived in the millennial generation of 1000-1033. Dr. Landes has been paying attention to contemporary millennial manifestations for over 25 years and offers a unique historical perspective for understanding current apocalyptic and millennial phenomena in light of past moments. He received his Ph.D from Princeton University (1984), and attended Harvard and the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. He has written articles and editorials for The New Republic and the Boston Globe, and his publications include Relics, Apocalypse and the Deceits of History: Ademar of Chabannes (989 - 1023) (1995), and (as co-editor with Tom Head) The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France around the Year 1000 (1992). He is currently a professor of Medieval History at Boston University.

Steven O'Leary

Dr. O'Leary took his undergraduate degree in the comparative study of religion at Harvard University, where he first began his millennial research. He completed his doctorate in communication studies at Northwestern University where he studied the argumentative dimension of apocalyptic prophecies and rhetoric. Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California, he has published Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric (1994), and "The Unknown God of the Internet: Religious Communication from the Ancient Agora to the Virtual Forum" in Philosophical Perspectives on Computer-Mediated Communication (1996), and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.