Participants of the Malabar Student Conference, May 1911.
Der evangelische Heidenbote 1911, 80.
How did Christian groups negotiate the tensions between their aspirations for global unity and their national identities? At the turn of the twentieth century, increasing global connections made unity movements possible among Christians around the world. The embrace of internationalism among Christians in Europe, Asia, and North America occurred simultaneously with the growth of patriotism directed toward emerging modern nation-states in a matrix of western colonialism. As Christianity expanded beyond its predominantly European heartland, Christian leaders found themselves navigating the tensions between their own ethnic and national identities, and an idealistic internationalist vision they often connected to the “kingdom of God.”
Inclusive of student Christian movements, regional church councils, and efforts to rebuild Europe after the First World War, what we are calling the “young ecumenical movement” promoted worldwide Christian fellowship in tension with the emerging fascist, communist, and capitalist empires of the era. The conference explores the entanglements between nationalism and internationalism in Christian unity movements in order to understand their mechanisms of mutual demarcation and mutual interdependence, and their idealistic globalist stance during an age of heightened nationalism. It thus illuminates an epoch that has been under-researched so far.
This international conference is co-sponsored by scholars at Humboldt Universität and Boston University. It brings into conversation researchers working on a diverse range of Christian leaders and unity movements in Europe, Asia, and North America during the period under consideration.
Please register for the conference by 10 September 2020. Registration limited. There will be a waiting list; applicants will be informed by 15 September.
All participants will receive a link to the papers for advanced reading by the end of September. The conference will assume that papers have been read ahead of time and the half hour for papers will include brief presentations by the authors and interaction by registrants.
Please note the times are Central European Times.
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Dana L. Robert Boston Finding Fellowship: The Search for Transnational Public Lecture with an introduction by Judith Becker |
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Thursday, 8 October |
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Welcome + Plenary Meeting Chair: Dana L. Robert/Judith Becker
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Panel I Chair: Judith Becker |
Panel II Chair: Dana L. Robert |
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John Wolffe Ecumenical Prehistory: Philip Schaff and the Evangelical Alliance 1868–1893 |
Charlotte Methuen Nationalism, internationalism and ecumenism at the 1920 Lambeth Conference |
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Sarah Scholl Travelling with John Mott. Switzerland and the WSCF |
David W. Scott Leading the World Parish: American Methodist Nationalism in an International Framing |
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Benjamin L. Hartley Three Motifs for Negotiating Internationalism and Nationalism in the Life of John R. Mott, |
Frieder Ludwig Norwegian Missionary Educators between Nationalism and Internationalism, |
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Plenary meeting Chair: Dana L. Robert
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Friday, 9 October |
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Plenary Meeting Chair: Judith Becker
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Panel I Chair: Dana L. Robert |
Panel II Chair: Katharina Stornig |
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John Thomas Towards Resolving the Nationalist Dilemma: Gandhi and the Ecumenical Leaders in Early Twentieth Century India |
Judith Becker The German Ecumenical Youth Movement between Internationalism and Nationalism at the time of World War I |
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Klaus Koschorke "At the Special Request and Invitation of the Indian... Y.M.C.As". |
Ada Focer Ruth Rouse: Binding and Rebinding the World’s Student Christian Federation |
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Yeonseung Lee Currents of Christian Nationalism and Internationalism: Yun Ch’iho and the Korean YMCA in the 1920s
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Plenary meeting Chair: Dana L. Robert
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Saturday, 10 October |
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Plenary Meeting Chair: Judith Becker
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Panel I Chair: Judith Becker |
Panel II Chair: Dana L. Robert |
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Noriko Ishii Nationalism and Internationalism: Japanese and British Women’s Imaginations of the Other in the World Student Christian Movement after the Russo-Japan War |
Yun Zhou Between the Nation and the World: Christian Work directed at Chinese Students in the 1920s |
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Deanna Ferree Womack Islam and Early Ecumenical Thought: Protestant Internationalism in the Middle East and South Asia |
Andreas Feldtkeller The National Christian Council in China during the 1920s between Nationalism and Internationalism
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Plenary Concluding Discussion Chair: Judith Becker/Dana L. Robert
Introductory Statements by Heike Liebau Berlin, Georg Essen Berlin, Jennifer Wasmuth Strasbourg |
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