In this talk, Professor Darrin McMahon will draw on his forthcoming book Divine Fury: A History of Genius (Basic Books, October 2013) to discuss what Europeans in the early twentieth century described as "the religion of genius." Replete with its own sanctuaries, iconography, pilgrimage sites, and cult of the dead, the religion of genius attributed superhuman powers to nature's chosen--powers of prophecy, redemption, creation, and destruction--drawing on an extensive scientific literature to do so.
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