Emory University Conference Center, March 4-6, 2004
Conveners: James Melton (Department of History, Emory)
Jonathan Strom (Candler School of Theology, Emory)
Dirk Schumann (Deputy Director, German Historical Institute)

Sponsors: Emory University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of History, Graduate Division of Religion, Candler School of Theology, Department of German Studies, and the German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C.

Originating in Germany in the late seventeenth century, Pietism has long been recognized by scholars of religion (e.g. Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch, Karl Barth) as a movement profoundly shaping Protestant society and culture in Europe and North America. In past decades, interdisciplinary approaches to Pietism have broadened the field beyond its former limits of historical theology and provided a new level of methodological sophistication. Alongside historians of Christianity, Germanists, political historians, musicologists, and social historians have all contributed to our understanding of Pietist movements in the development of modern Protestant culture and religion.

The field has also become increasingly international in character. From the late seventeenth century on, when the first Pietist refugees fled to North America, Pietism has been a transatlantic phenomenon. Pietists established strong networks of communication, commerce, and support between Germany and the New World. North America became important not only for refugees fleeing persecution in Europe but also as a place whose relative openess allowed Pietists to experiment with new forms of evangelization and create new social and ecclesiastical structures. Pietist movements played a major role in shaping political and religious life in German communities in early American history. Despite the transatlantic interconnections, however, the study of Pietism in North America has not always kept pace with research in Europe. Above all in Germany, social and cultural historians have opened new lines of inquiry into religious experience, the place of radical Pietist movements, the contribution of women to Protestantism, and the interaction of these movements with the emergence of modern states such as Prussia. Yet even then, European scholars have only recently begun to pursue Pietist history in a broader transatlantic context.

Bringing together leading scholars from Europe and North America, this conference addresses new approaches to Pietist scholarship with a particular focus on the transmission and migration of religious dissent within and between Central Europe and North America from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. The conference schedule is included below; for information on conference registration, please consult the conference web page at http://candler.emory.edu/Resources/Pietism).

Schedule of Events

Thursday, March 4, 2004
Arrival
Reception and Dinner, Emory Conference Center

Friday, March 5, 2004
Morning Panels

Session I: Defining Pietism in the World of Transatlantic Religious Revivals Communication Networks as One Aspect of Pietist Definition: The Example of Radical Pietist Connections Between Colonial North America and Europe
Professor Donald F. Durnbaugh, Archivist/Curator of Special Collections, Juniata College
Professor Hermann Wellenreuther, University of Göttingen
Professor Christopher Clark, Cambridge University
Chair: Jonathan Strom, Graduate Division of Religion/School of Theology, Emory University

Session II: New Directions in Pietism Research

Joanna Eleonora Petersen in the Context of Women and Gender Studies
Dr. Ruth Albrecht, Lecturer, Faculty of Theology, University of Hamburg

Resistance and Hegemony: Pietism Versus the State in the Prussian Army Chaplaincy
Dr. Benjamin Marschke, History Department, UCLA

Creating the Kingdom of God: The Transatlantic Communication Network of Ebenezer, Georgia, 1730-1830
Mr. Alexander Pyrges, History Department, University of Trier
Chair: Professor A.G. Roeber, Religion and History, Pennsylvania State University

Lunch
Afternoon Panels

Session III: Migration and Dissent

Traveling Prophets: Inspirationists Wandering throughout Europe and to the New World—Mission, Transmission of Divine Word, Poetry
Professor Hans-Jürgen Schrader, German Studies, University of Geneva

From Jakob Bohme via Jane Leade to Eva von Buttlar –Transmigrations and Transformations of Religious Ideas
Dr. Willi Temme, Kassel

Homeless Minds: the Migration of Radical Pietists, their Writings and Ideas in Early Modern Europe
Professor Doug Shantz, Department of Religion, University of Calgary
Chair: Hartmut Lehmann, Visiting Distinguished Professor, Emory University/Max Planck Institute for History

Session IV: Dissent and Pluralism

How to Incorporate Gender in Lutheran Pietism Research: Narratives and Counternarratives
Dr. Ulrike Gleixner, Department of History, Technical University of Berlin

Concealment and Exposure: The Communicative World of a Salzburg Protestant on the Eve of His Georgia Exile (1733)
Professor James Melton, Emory University

A Spiritual Triangle Trade: Creating a Black Pietist Movement in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World
Professor Jon Sensbach, Department of History, University of Florida
Chair: Mary Odem, Department of History, Emory University

Dinner

Saturday, March 6, 2004

Morning Panels

Session V: Migration to North America and Pietism

If You Want to be the Lord’s Servant, Resign Yourself to Confrontation: The Pietist Challenge in Early Georgia
Professor Helene M. Kastinger Riley, Department of Languages, Clemson University

Mixed Migrations: Balancing Diverse Needs for the Moravian Community in Pennsylvania
Professor Katherine Carte Engel, Department of History, Rutgers University, Camden
Professor Renate Wilson, School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
Chair: Jonathan Strom, Emory University

Session VI: Graduate Students and Recent Ph.D.’s

Wesel Refugees and the 'Further Reformation'
Dr. David Freeman, Emory University

The 'Little' Church of Utrecht and the Formation of a Catholic Public Sphere in the Age of Enlightenment
Mr. Doug Palmer, Emory University

Heathen: Pietist Encounters in North America and India
Mr. Axel Utz, Pennsylvania State University
Chair: Professor William Bradford Smith, Oglethorpe University

Lunch

Roundtable Discussion: Pietism in the Atlantic World

Professor Hartmut Lehmann, Emory University/Max-Planck Institute for History
Professor A.G. Roeber, Pennsylvania State University
Professor Stephen J. Stein, Indiana University
Professor Jonathan Strom, Emory University