Tag Archives: Call for Papers

Call For Papers: Young Historians

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The Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, in partnership with the Sider Institute for Anabaptist, Pietist, and Wesleyan Studies at Messiah College, and with the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, welcomes paper proposals for its “Young Historians Spotlight,” held June 3, 2019.

Invited to participate are high school students, undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students, those who have just started careers in history, as well as those who are “young” in scholarly study of historical topics (no matter what their age).

All must be engaged in original research using chiefly primary sources (written and/or oral). All should either be a part of a Historic Peace Church (Amish, Brethren in Christ, Church of the Brethren, Mennonite, Religious Society of Friends/Quaker, etc.) or focusing on one or more of these traditions. 

Those interested should submit a 250-word proposal, for a 20-minute paper to be given at the symposium, along with a brief autobiographical sketch and full contact information, by April 23, 2019. Send these to Joel Nofziger at Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, 2215 Millstream Road, Lancaster, PA 17602, or at younghistorians@lmhs.org. A limited number of travel scholarships are available. Please note in the proposal whether this will be needed. The symposium will take place at the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 3.

Proposals are due April 23, 2019

For the seventh year in a row, young historians are being invited to share their research findings with others in a symposium in the Lancaster area. This event was conceived by Joel Nofziger and Devin Manzullo-Thomas, who were concerned about the limited venues there are where young adults engaged in historical research and writing are the focus of attention, especially those from Historic Peace Churches. In the symposiums, three of the proposals received are accepted for papers to be given in a public event. In addition, the papers are subsequently published in Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage. 

In the past, papers have included topics such as John F. Funk and the dissemination of information to the scattered churches of America, Quaker Anne Knight and her lifelong efforts for the rights of the disenfranchised, and the peace position of the Church of the Brethren, among others. 

Symposium Planning Committee: Jeff Bach, Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College; Simone Horst, Menno Simons Historical Library, Eastern Mennonite University; Jason Kauffman, MC USA Archives; Devin Manzullo-Thomas, Sider Institute for Anabaptist, Pietist, and Wesleyan Studies at Messiah College; Joel Nofziger, Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society; and Anne Yoder, Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Call For Papers: What Young Historians Are Thinking Symposium

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June 2, 2018

The Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, in partnership with the Sider Institute for Anabaptist, Pietist, and Wesleyan Studies at Messiah College, and with the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, welcomes paper proposals for its event “What Young Historians Are Thinking.”

Invited to participate are high school students, undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students, those who have just started careers in history, as well as those who are “young” in scholarly study of historical topics (no matter what their age). All must be engaged in original research using chiefly primary sources (written and/or oral). All should be a part of a Historic Peace Church (Amish, Brethren in Christ, Church of the Brethren, Mennonite, Religious Society of Friends/Quaker, etc.) or focusing on one or more of these traditions.

Those interested should submit a 250-word proposal, for a 20-minute paper to be given at the symposium, along with a brief autobiographical sketch and full contact information. Send these to Joel Nofziger at Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, 2215 Millstream Road, Lancaster, PA 17602, or at younghistorians@lmhs.org. A limited number of travel scholarships are available. Please note in the proposal whether this will be needed. The symposium will take place at Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College, 400 Campus Rd, Elizabethtown, PA., at 1:30 p.m.

For the sixth year in a row, young historians are being invited to share their research findings with others in a symposium in the Lancaster area. This event was conceived by Joel Nofziger and Devin Manzullo-Thomas, who were concerned about how few venues there are where young adults engaged in historical research and writing are the focus of attention, especially for those from Historic Peace Churches. In the symposiums, three of the proposals received are accepted for papers to be given in a public event. In addition, the papers are subsequently published in Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage.

In the past, papers have included topics such as John F. Funk and the dissemination of information to the scattered churches of America, Quaker Anne Knight and her lifelong efforts for the rights of the disenfranchised, and the peace position of the Church of the Brethren, among others.

Proposals are due April 20, 2018

Symposium Planning Committee: Jeff Bach, Simone Horst, Jason Kauffman, Devin Manzullo-Thomas, Joel Nofziger, and Anne Yoder.

Call For Papers: What Young Historians Are Thinking

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What Young Historians Are Thinking Symposium

June 5, 2017

The Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, in partnership with the Sider Institute for Anabaptist, Pietist, and Wesleyan Studies at Messiah College and with the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, welcomes paper proposals for its event “What Young Historians Are Thinking.”

Invited to participate are undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students, those who have just started careers in history, and those who are “young” in scholarly study of historical topics (no matter what their age). All must be engaged in original research using chiefly primary sources (written and/or oral). All should be a part of an Historic Peace Church (Amish, Brethren in Christ, Church of the Brethren, Mennonite, Religious Society of Friends/Quaker, etc.) or focusing on one or more of these traditions.

Those interested should submit a 250-word proposal for a 20-minute paper to be given at the symposium, along with a brief autobiographical sketch and full contact information. Send these to Joel Nofziger at Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, 2215 Millstream Road, Lancaster, PA 17602, or at younghistorians@lmhs.org. A limited number of travel scholarships are available. Please note in the proposal whether this will be needed. The symposium will take place at Ridgeview Mennonite Church in Gordonville, Pennsylvania, at 7:00 p.m.

Symposium Planning Committee: Jeff Bach, Simone Horst, Devin Manzullo-Thomas, Joel Nofziger, and Anne Yoder.

Proposals are due April 14, 2017

Call for Papers: Remembering Muted Voices: Conscience, Dissent, Resistance, and Civil Liberties in World War I through Today

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remembering-muted-voicesThe World War’s profound effect on the United States is often overlooked. Although the United States actively took part in the conflict for only 18 months, the war effort introduced mass conscription, transformed the American economy, and mobilized popular support through war bonds, patriotic rallies, and anti-German propaganda. Nevertheless, many people desired a negotiated peace, opposed American intervention, refused to support the war effort, and/or even imagined future world orders that could eliminate war. Among them were members of the peace churches and other religious groups, women, pacifists, radicals, labor activists, and other dissenters.

Intolerance and repression often mute the voices of war critics. Almost overnight in 1917, individuals and groups who opposed the war faced constraints on their freedom to advocate, organize, and protest. The Selective Service Act of 1917 made few concessions for conscientious objectors. The Espionage Act of 1917—reinforced by the Sedition Act of 1918—prohibited many forms of speech and made it a crime to interfere with the draft. Peace advocates, antiwar activists and conscientious objectors confronted not only external hostility from the government, the press, and war supporters, but also internal disagreements over how to respond to the war and advance the cause of peace. The experience of American dissenters was not unique; their counterparts in other belligerent countries and colonial dependencies found themselves in comparable situations. Yet, those who opposed World War I helped initiate modern peace movements and left a legacy that continues to influence antiwar activism.

We invite proposals for papers, panels, posters, roundtables, and workshops that engage in diverse ways with issues of conscience, dissent, resistance, and civil liberties during World War I, in the United States and around the world. We encourage proposals that examine historical and contemporary parallels to the war. Strong conference papers will be given consideration for publication in special issues of Mennonite Quarterly Review and Peace & Change.

Topics Might Cover:

  • War Resistance as an Expression of Religious Conscience (Amish, Brethren, Catholics, Hutterites, Latter Day Saints, Mennonites, Methodists, Nazarenes, Pentecostals, Quakers, etc.)
  • Secular Dissent and Resistance to War (feminists, socialists, and other movements and communities)
  • The Costs of War (economic, political, social, physical, psychological, etc.)
  • Civil Liberties in World War I and War Today
  • Race, Empire, and World War I
  • The Legacy and Relevance of World War I Peace Activism to the Present
  • The Causes and Prevention of War: World War I and Since
  • Teaching World War I and Peace History in High School and College
  • Memory, Memorialization, and the Public History of World War I

The program committee invites interested participants to send a 1-page proposal focused on the theme of the conference by January 31, 2017 to John D. Roth at johndr@goshen.edu.

For more on the conference, click here.

Call for Papers: Word, Spirit, and the Renewal of the Church

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believerschurchconfwordspiritrenewalposter

In the fall of 1517, Martin Luther’s challenge to the authority of the papacy and church tradition—along with his appeal to Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone)—inspired various reformers to read scripture and to understand the liberating power of the Holy Spirit in new ways. But what started as a renewal movement within the Catholic Church soon led to a host of divisions, giving rise to Protestant, Anabaptist, and other traditions, including those groups known as the Believers’ Church. Among the latter, the deep debts to the renewal impulses of late medieval Catholicism and the Protestant Reformation are unmistakable. In the 500 years since then, the church—including the Believers’ Church movement—has further expanded globally in a great diversity of forms.

This conference seeks to explore the gifts and tensions of the Reformation legacy for the Believers’ Church tradition, with a view toward its ecumenical and global dimensions. The gathering will focus especially on the debates that have swirled around the themes of Biblical authority, the movement of the Spirit, and the renewal of the church.

The conference theme “Word, Spirit, and the Renewal of the Church” can encompass a wide range of disciplines, approaches, and topics. We seek proposals from theologians, biblical scholars, ethicists, historians, pastors, and graduate students that address how the debates of the sixteenth century continue to find expression in contemporary understandings of Word, Spirit, and the renewal of the church. We are especially interested in papers that bring voices from the Believers’ Church into conversation with other Christian traditions.

Possible questions and topics to address include:

  • How does a given understanding of Word and Spirit, and their relation to each other, interact with another doctrine (e.g., creation, Christology, ecclesiology, etc.)?
  • What are some of the theological and sociological dynamics of past and present renewal movements within the Believers’ Church tradition?
  • How do groups in the Believers’ Church tradition interpret the Bible and its authority vis-à-vis other Christian traditions?
  • How has the Reformation called into question the location of the church: where/who is the church today?
  • What are some of the key issues facing comparative theologies, ethics, and practices of grace, discipleship, tradition, enculturation, church unity and renewal, worship and preaching, etc.?
  • How are the central issues of the Reformation relevant to the Believers’ Church, especially in its global dimension?

Presentations should reflect a thoughtful engagement with scholarship but be accessible to a broad audience, including interested lay people. A limited number of travel grants will be available, with highest priority going to presenters coming from the Global South and students.

Please submit a one-page CV and a 250-word abstract for a paper or a complete panel/workshop session (with presenters indicated) by April 1, 2017 to John D. Roth (johndr@goshen.edu). Conference organizers will respond by May 1, 2017.