Politics within Nineteenth Century Missionary Periodicals

Numerous evangelical Protestant missionary societies were established throughout the nineteenth century to ‘civilise and Christianise’ the non-European Other, who came to the attention of Europeans through colonial expansion. Protestant missionary societies were also established with the aim of converting Catholics, Muslims and Jews to Christianity. The rise of these missionary organisations resulted in a burgeoning of missionary periodicals that were used as tools for propaganda and fund-raising.

The audiences of missionary periodicals were wide, and varied from children, youth, families, women, church members, and indigenous converts, to potential sponsors of missions. Replete within such periodicals were normative European notions of ‘civilisation’, as well as political discourses, albeit often implicit, pertaining to the colonial or nation state. Missionary periodicals clearly elucidate the entangled nature of the missionary endeavour within colonial politics, and provide insight into how religious media shaped domestic and international political discourse.

This workshop brings together international scholars working on the relationships between religion and politics within both Protestant and Catholic missionary periodicals. It provides a forum for scholars to exchange ideas on the methodological, theoretical, empirical and conceptual approaches to the study of nineteenth century missionary periodicals. (Felicity Jensz, Hanna Acke)

Venue:

Main Building of the Cluster of Excellence
Room J119
Johannisstraße 1-4
48143 Münster

Program