Upcoming Events
ALL EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Thursday, September 12, 2019 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
BROWN BOOK AWARD LECTURE
The Meaning of the Pennsylvania Dutch Language
Though often misunderstood and even scorned by outsiders, the Pennsylvania Dutch language is flourishing today among the Plain people, members of Amish and Old Order Mennonite groups. This presentation by Mark Louden will explore how Pennsylvania Dutch has not only been able to survive but in fact thrive since it developed in Penn’s Woods some two and a half centuries ago. We will consider a number of social and geographic factors that underlie the successful maintenance of the language, as well as the emotional and even spiritual significance it held and continues to hold for its speakers, past and present. The presentation will include examples from Pennsylvania Dutch literature that illustrate the expressive power of the language.
Mark L. Louden is a fluent speaker of Pennsylvania Dutch and has written extensively on the language and its speakers. He is the author of Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language , which received the 2017 Dale Brown Book Award. Louden is the Alfred L. Shoemaker, J. William Frey, and Don Yoder Professor of Germanic Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, directs the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, and is an affiliate faculty member in the UW Religious Studies Program.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Giving the Dunkers Their Due: The Other Side of the Antietam Story
Alann Schmidt, the coauthor of September Mourn: The Dunker Church of Antietam Battlefield, reflects on his experiences researching and presenting the story of the German Baptist Brethren and their meetinghouse at Sharpsburg, Maryland, looking at much more than just the Battle of Antietam.
Alann Schmidt spent fifteen years as a park ranger at Antietam National Battlefield. He earned degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, Shippensburg University, Shepherd University, and the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science. While a severe case of Lyme disease forced him into early retirement, he currently serves as a pastor for the Churches of God.
Tuesday, October 15, 2019 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
SNOWDEN FELLOW LECTURE
A Life Revealed in Letters: Insights from the Correspondence of John A. Hostetler
Drawing on an extensive archived correspondence and using theories of adult development as a framework, Ann Hostetler uncovers the changes in thinking and interpretation expressed in her father's letters as he emerged from an Amish family to gain higher education and eventually become the leading interpreter of the Amish and communal societies of the second half of the twentieth century. As the letters reveal changes in his thinking in response to higher education and alternative service during World War II, they also show him as the chosen arbiter of difficult circumstances in his own family of origin. Hostetler argues that the skills he developed in mediating situations in his own family paved the way for his later work in negotiating conversations between the Amish and outsiders through his scholarly work as a cultural interpreter.
Ann Hostetler is Professor of English at Goshen College, where she teaches literature and creative writing. Her scholarship focuses on multiethnic literature in the US and Canada, including Mennonite writing. She is the editor of the Journal of Mennonite Writing (www.mennonitewriting.org); the author of two books of poetry, Safehold and Empty Room with Light; and the editor of the anthology A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry. With Steve Nolt, she revised The Amish, a classic short book by John A. Hostetler that has been in print for over fifty years.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
TALK
A Conversation with Clarence Spohn about Printing in Ephrata
Young Center director Jeff Bach will interview Clarence Spohn about his collection of imprints, which the Young Center recently acquired. Spohn has spent years collecting imprints from the early presses in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.
Clarence E. Spohn worked at the Ephrata Cloister from 1968 to 1996. He has been active in the Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley, serving as its president from 2004 to 2008 and as editor of its journal from 1988 to 2018.