Past Events
Many recent Young Center presentations are available on YouTube. Click on a title to view the recording.
February 8 through April 12, 2024 • Hess Gallery, Zug Memorial Hall
Monday—Friday: 9 am–8 pm • Saturday—Sunday: 1–5 pm
EXHIBIT
Before Baptism: Growing Up Amish
“Before Baptism" showcases the collaborative photography of Gail Nogle and Ellen Sabin and provides a remarkable window into the lives of Nebraska, or “white-topper,” Amish of Central Pennsylvania. Over the past nine years, Nogle and Sabin have documented persistence and change in this highly traditional community. The exhibit features the experiences of Amish children who have not yet joined the church through baptism.
Gail Nogle, of Dallas, Texas, is a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology and became one of the few women in the world awarded a fellowship from the American Society of Photographers. Ellen Sabin is a professional photographer based in Raleigh, North Carolina. A graduate of Truman State University, she counts artists Jay Stock and Gail Nogle as mentors.
Tuesday, April 2, 2024 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
Rose Fisher explores the language habits of the Amish and Old Order (Groffdale Conference) Mennonites of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She considers how English and Pennsylvania Dutch are used in contrast to one another and the extent to which each is restricted to certain domains (e.g., in the home as opposed to at work). In particular, Fisher discusses how the norms of use for English and Pennsylvania Dutch differ between the Amish and Mennonites of Lancaster County and what impact that has on how the grammar of Pennsylvania Dutch is developing over time.
Rose Fisher is a Ph.D. student in German linguistics whose research focuses on Pennsylvania Dutch. During her time as the Young Center's Kreider Fellow, she will visit Amish and Groffdale Conference Mennonites to collect data for her dissertation project. As a former member of the Amish and as a linguist, Fisher is interested in promoting the Pennsylvania Dutch language by better understanding its grammar, how it interacts with English, and the ways that the rich culture of the Anabaptists shapes it over time.
View the slides that accompany the Kreider lecture.
Friday, March 15, 2024 • 9:30 am–noon • Bucher Meetinghouse
DURNBAUGH SEMINAR
The Changing Landscape of Relief, Development, and Service
The world in which Heifers for Relief (now Heifer International) took shape eighty years ago was markedly different from that of today. And yet human need remains very much the same. In this seminar, panelists will discuss key developments shaping the contemporary landscape of global relief efforts, including the significance of localization and decentralization, the role of faith communities in shaping development programs, the ways geopolitics and global economics impact relief and development, and the challenge of sustainability and climate change in development work.
In addition, they will consider factors shaping current understandings of service, including interdependent models of service, shifting motivation for service, strategies for nurturing an ethic of service, and efforts to develop authentic connections between service locally and globally. They will engage with questions and contributions from the audience as well.
The panelists will be Surita Sandosham, president and CEO of Heifer International; Nathan Hosler, director of the Church of the Brethren’s Office of Peacebuilding and Policy; Sanjay Paul, associate professor of economics at Elizabethtown College; Alain Epp Weaver, director of strategic planning, Mennonite Central Committee; and Alexandra Aligarbes, co-pastor, Harrisburg First Church of the Brethren.
Thursday, March 14, 2024 • 7:00 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
DURNBAUGH LECTURE
Celebrating Eighty Years of Heifer International
“The Christians of American can save Europe,” an early enthusiast observed during World War II, referring to a small-scale relief program then called Heifers for Relief. Created in stark contrast to the mass scale development projects of its time—the collectivization of agriculture in the USSR, the Tennessee Valley Authority in the US, and later the building of the Aswan Dam—Heifer and its visionary founder Dan West (1893–1971) sought to end war by removing its causes and creating personal human connections across religious, cultural, ideological, and geographical divides. Its successes, if often more modest, were dependent on a diverse body of ordinary farmers who shared its vision and did the hard work to make it successful. William Kostlevy will recount Heifer’s origins and how a vision became a reality.
Following Kostlevy’s lecture, Surita Sandosham, president and CEO of Heifer International, will describe Heifer’s current work and its mission to end hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth, by providing appropriate livestock, training and related services to small-scale farmers and communities worldwide.
William C. Kostlevy holds degrees from Bethany Theological Seminary and the University of Notre Dame. He is the editor of the Historical Dictionary of the Holiness Movement, 3rd edition (2024) and coeditor of Hoosier Prophet: Selected Writings of Dan West (2021). Kostlevy has served as archivist and as director of the Brethren Historical Library and Archives. He was a visiting fellow at the Young Center in fall 1997.
Surita Sandosham was named president and CEO of Heifer International in 2022. Born and raised in Singapore, Sandosham is a graduate of the University of London and has more than two decades of leadership experience at global nonprofit organizations working on behalf of vulnerable populations.
Parking for the Durnbaugh Lecture is available at the Elizabethtown Church of the Brethren, 777 S. Mt. Joy Street. Enter the parking lot from Cedar Street.
Thursday, March 14, 2024 • 6:00 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
BANQUET
The annual Young Center dinner gives faculty, staff, students, church leaders, and other friends of the Young Center the opportunity to socialize and learn about the Center’s activities and programs. A reception for Durnbaugh Lecturers William Kostlevy and Surita Sandosham begins at 5:30; the dinner begins at 6:00.
Thursday, February 8, 2024 • Hess Gallery, Zug Memorial Hall
OPENING RECEPTION: 6.30 pm
ARTISTS’ TALK: 7:00 pm
Before Baptism: Growing Up Amish
“Before Baptism" showcases the collaborative photography of Gail Nogle and Ellen Sabin and provides a remarkable window into the lives of Nebraska, or “white-topper,” Amish of Central Pennsylvania. Over the past nine years, Nogle and Sabin have documented persistence and change in this highly traditional community. The exhibit, which runs through April 4, 2024, in Hess Gallery, Zug Memorial Hall, features the experiences of Amish children who have not yet joined the church through baptism. In their artists' talk, Nogle and Sabin will describe the origins and surprises of this project, the relationships they have built, and the artistic choices and challenges involved with photographing the Amish.
Gail Nogle, of Dallas, Texas, is a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology and became one of the few women in the world awarded a fellowship from the American Society of Photographers.
Ellen Sabin is a professional photographer based in Raleigh, North Carolina. A graduate of Truman State University, she counts artists Jay Stock and Gail Nogle as mentors.
Thursday, January 11, 2024 • 2:00 pm • Chapel, Brethren Village, 3009 Lititz Pike, Lititz, PA
LECTURE
Strictly Observant: Amish Women and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women Negotiating Media
Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities are associated with religious observance, a renunciation of worldly things, and an obedience of women to men. Women’s relationship to media in these communities, however, reveals a more nuanced picture of the boundaries at play and women’s roles in negotiating them. In this talk, Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar will draw on her extensive interviews with women in both traditions to explain and compare how they use—and don’t use—contemporary media technology. By exhibiting a deep awareness of how media can be managed, these women prompt us to reconsider outmoded understanding of Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, the role that women play in these communities as agents of change, and our own relationship to media today.
Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar is a senior lecturer at Sapir Academic College in Sderot, Israel, where she teaches communications, religion, and gender. She received her doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has been a Fulbright post-doctoral fellow. In Fall 2017, she served as the Young Center's Snowden Fellow. Her book Strictly Observant: Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women Negotiating Media is forthcoming from Rutgers University Press.
This event is cosponsored with Mennonite Life.
Thursday, November 9, 2023 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
SNOWDEN LECTURE
Celebrating 100 Years of Brethren Witness in Nigeria
Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN), the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, is the largest national body of the Church of the Brethren in the world. The origins of this church date to 1923 and the preaching, teaching, and medical ministry of Brethren missionaries in Garkida and surrounding areas. Philip Asura Nggada will share key developments in the history of the church, which moved from being a missionary enterprise to an independent indigenous church. Major events include national independence in 1960, the transfer of mission institutions to Nigerian control in 1972, and the growth and spread of the church since that time. The attacks from Boko Haram since 2011 produced much suffering but also sent the church into neighboring Cameroon, Chad, and Niger, where EYN is now organizing beyond Nigeria.
Philip Asura Nggada is a reader (associate professor) in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at the University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria, where he has been a faculty member since 2014. He previously taught at Kulp Theological Seminary in Kwarhi and at the Theological College of Northern Nigeria in Bukuru. He is the author of numerous articles and two books, including The Shepherd Motif in the Old Testament (2012).
Thursday, October 12, 2023 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Balthasar Hubmaier and Anti-Judaism in the Reformation: Reexamining Regensburg
Christian perceptions of Jews in the medieval and early modern periods were immensely varied, ranging from utter detestation to indifference to reverence. The social and theological upheavals of the Reformation further confused Jewish-Christian relations. Based upon archival research in Regensburg, this talk by Breanna J. Nickel will reconstruct the kinds of anti-Judaic sentiment that were prevalent in the city prior to the famous expulsion of the Jewish community in 1519. Including a reexamination of the role and rhetoric of Balthasar Hubmaier and other Christian leaders, the talk also explores whether Hubmaier can be considered as representative of wider Jewish-Anabaptist relations.
Breanna J. Nickel is assistant professor of Bible and religion at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana. Her research and teaching focuses on interreligious relations, including Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations in the medieval and early modern periods as well as current interreligious dialogue and peacebuilding efforts in global society.
Tuesday, September 26, 2023 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
BROWN BOOK AWARD LECTURE
Herrnhut: A New Look at the Origins of the Moravian Church
From its founding in 1722, the community of Herrnhut quickly grew to become the epicenter of a transatlantic religious movement that would go on to attract thousands of Europeans, American Indians, and enslaved Africans: the Moravian Church. In his recent book, based on the analysis of thousands of documents from archives in Germany and the United States, Paul Peucker takes a fresh look at the origins of Herrnhut and demonstrates how this community was able to survive despite the existing regulations against new religious groups in early modern Germany.
Paul Peucker is archivist of the Moravian Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He holds a doctorate in history from the University of Utrecht and a degree from the State Archives School in The Hague. He worked as archivist at the Moravian Archives in Herrnhut, Germany, before becoming director at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 2004. Peucker is the managing editor of the Journal of Moravian History and the author of A Time of Sifting: Mystical Marriage and the Crisis of Moravian Piety in the 18th Century (2015). His most recent book on the origins of the Moravian Church, Herrnhut: The Formation of a Moravian Community, 1722–1732, was published simultaneously in English and German in 2022 and received the 2023 Dale Brown Book Award.
Thursday, July 26 through Saturday, July 29, 2023
SEVENTH BRETHREN WORLD ASSEMBLY
Brethren Faithfulness: Priorities in Perspective
Locations:
Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA, July 26, 27, and 28; Germantown, PA, July 29
The international gathering, drawing participants from all bodies stemming from the 1708 Schwarzenau Brethren movement, will include a keynote address by theologian Dale Stoffer, plenary presentations on Brethren in eighteenth-century Europe and America and in nineteenth-century America, and panel discussions on Brethren ordinances, Brethren hymn singing, a celebration of 100 years of Brethren in Nigeria, and more.
Wednesday, April 19, 2023 • 10:00 am to noon • Bucher Meetinghouse
DURNBAUGH SEMINAR
This panel discussion explores how Anabaptists should assess political issues and opportunities; the connections between local, national, and international policy choices; and the ways in which Anabaptist values might motivate authentic engagement and principled dissent. Panelists also consider how Anabaptists can talk across lines of political difference, including within their own churches.
Panel members include Curtis Berry, professor emeritus of political science at Shippensburg University; Nathan Hosler, the director of the Church of the Brethren’s Office of Peacebuilding and Policy based in Washington, DC, and a pastor of the Washington City Church of the Brethren; Heather Wolf, an experienced political campaign advisor and mentor with the Women’s Campaign School at Yale, and active in Lititz (PA) Church of the Brethren; and Nathan Zook, a professor of political science at Montgomery College, Rockville (MD) Campus, and the pastor of Hampden Mennonite Church, a congregation in Baltimore affiliated with Keystone Mennonite Fellowship.
Tuesday, April 18, 2023 • 7:00 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
DURNBAUGH LECTURE
Anabaptists and Secular Politics: Reflections on the Shifting Paradigm over Seven Decades
During the 49 years since his baptism into the Mennonite Church, Berry has closely followed changes in American politics and its impact on American Christians. He will consider these developments, including the effect of single-issue voting or the influence of talk radio and cable news, and will reflect on how social and political changes have impacted contemporary Anabaptists, perhaps resulting in the church losing some of its ability to be salt of the earth, as described in Matthew 5:13.
Curtis R. Berry is professor emeritus of political science at Shippensburg University, where he taught for 32 years. Berry was a founding board member of Work Team Partners, Inc. and has served on the boards of directors of Eastern Mennonite University, the Mennonite Publishing Network, and Menno-Haven Retirement Communities in Chambersburg, Pa. During his professional career he was active in the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties local and statewide organizations.
Tuesday, April 18, 2023 • 6:00 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
BANQUET
The annual Young Center dinner gives faculty, staff, students, church leaders, and other friends of the Young Center the opportunity to socialize and learn about the Center’s activities and programs.
A reception for Durnbaugh Lecturer Curtis R. Berry will be held at 5:30; the dinner will begin at 6:00.
Parking is available at the Elizabethtown Church of the Brethren, 777 S. Mt. Joy Street. Enter the parking lot from Cedar Street.
Tuesday, March 28, 2023 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
KREIDER LECTURE
Dilemmas of Generosity: Dutch Mennonite Aid to Fellow Believers
In the eighteenth century, the Dutch Doopsgezinden (Mennonites) were moved to compassion and generosity by the persecution of their fellow believers in the Canton of Bern in Switzerland and the troubles of the Prussian and Palatine brothers and sisters. They pursued various means to help them. Yet when the demand became too great in the flow of immigrants through Rotterdam to Pennsylvania via England, they had to limit their generosity.
Lydia Penner, coeditor of Documents of Brotherly Love: Dutch Mennonite Aid to Swiss Anabaptists, Volume III (1712-1784), grew up on a farm near Steinbach, Manitoba, a community originally settled by Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from South Russia (Ukraine) in 1874. She has done various kinds of work, including journalism, ministry in Dutch Mennonite congregations, and translating. She is a naturalized Dutch citizen and lives in The Hague, Netherlands.
Tuesday, March 28, 2023 • 2:00 to 4:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
Presentations include “‘Eine besondere Liebe’: The Story of the Amsterdam Archives Project” by John L. Ruth, “Anabaptist Strategies for Survival in Eighteenth Century Switzerland, the Rhineland, and North America” by Edsel Burdge Jr., and “The Challenge of Translation: Eighteenth-Century Dutch and German in Modern American English” by Lydia Penner. A time for discussion will follow the presentations.
John L. Ruth is a historian and author, whose books include The Earth is the Lord’s: A Narrative History of the Lancaster Mennonite Conference (2001). Edsel Burdge Jr. is research associate at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College, and coeditor of Documents of Brotherly Love: Dutch Mennonite Aid to Swiss Anabaptists, Volume III (1712-1784). Lydia Penner is a retired minister in the Dutch Mennonite Church, a freelance translator, and coeditor of Documents of Brotherly Love: Dutch Mennonite Aid to Swiss Anabaptists, Volume III (1712-1784).
Thursday, March 2, 2023 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Holy Cow: Religion, Race, and Milk in Lancaster County, PA
In the past fifteen years, Lancaster County has increasingly become a thriving hub for Orthodox Jewish tourists seeking out “kosher” leisure activities, including encounters with the Amish tourist industry. The expanding Orthodox Jewish tourist infrastructure has developed in tandem with an unexpected economic collaboration between some ultra-Orthodox Jews and local Amish and Mennonite farmers to produce unpasteurized kosher dairy products (milk, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream). And while Orthodox Jews’ tourism decidedly does not lead to intercultural or interfaith tolerance, the kosher collaborations between rabbis and farmers Feldman and Fader analyze in this presentation reveal shared illiberal ideologies of health. Based on anthropological research with Orthodox Jewish tourists, dairy entrepreneurs, and local Amish/Mennonite farmers, the researchers show that kosher collaborations around milk in particular offer a lens to think through contemporary American racialized politics and minority religious identities in our post-COVID and post-Trump realities.
Rachel Feldman is a cultural anthropologist and assistant professor of religious studies/Judaic studies at Franklin and Marshall College. Her book Messianic Zionism in the Digital Age: Noahides, Jews and the Third Temple Imaginary is forthcoming with Rutgers University Press. Ayala Fader is professor of anthropology at Fordham University. She is the author of two award-winning books, Mitzvah Girls (2009) and Hidden Heretics (2020).
Monday, November 14, 2022 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Peacemaking Beyond the Boundary: Lessons from EYN
Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN), the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, as one of the historic peace churches, has faced many crises during the past fifteen years, including crises of leadership, tribalism, and Boko Haram insurgency. Within this period, EYN has still held its stand as a peaceful church by making peace to keep the church together. When faced with the insurgency, the church extended a hand of care to the “enemy.” This response has become something that other denominations are yearning to learn.
The Church of the Brethren in the United States could learn from the stance of EYN as it is faced with a crisis that tends to divide the church. The crisis faced by the COB is internal. EYN faced both internal and external aggression, but the church is still standing as one.
Dauda A. Gava is currently International Scholar in Residence at Bethany Theological Seminary, Richmond, Indiana. He is the provost of Kulp Theological Seminary, the theology school of Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria. He received his Ph.D. in New Testament from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
(This event is sponsored by Bethany Theological Seminary, Elizabethtown Church of the Brethren, the Young Center, and Elizabethtown College’s Center for Global Understanding and Peacebuilding.)
Thursday, November 10, 2022 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
SNOWDEN LECTURE
Keeping Track of Settlement and Population Growth of the Amish in North America
It is estimated that the Amish population is doubling every 20-22 years, which is an amazing rate of growth for any group of people, anywhere in the world. Likewise, the number of settlements or communities is doubling at nearly the same pace. This lecture will examine how this growth has come about and the geographic expansion of the Amish beyond Pennsylvania and several midwestern states, into the southern, western, and New England regions, as well as Canadian provinces both to the east and west of their historic locations in Ontario. Population and settlement growth is a product of both internal forces, such as high fertility/large families combined with a high rate of baptism by daughters and sons into the Amish faith; and external forces, such as advantageous land prices and the rise of non-agricultural economic opportunities, especially carpentry and sawmill work, among others. The lecture will conclude with projections of population and settlement growth to the mid-century as possible presentiments of change in their cultural and social fabric.
Joe Donnermeyer is professor emeritus in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University. Although a criminologist for most of his academic career, he has a deep and continuing interest in the social, cultural, and economic changes affecting the Amish. Donnermeyer has published two books and numerous peer-reviewed book chapters and journal articles about the Amish. He cofounded and serves as coeditor of the Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities , which is part of the digital library at The Ohio State University.
Thursday, October 20, 2022 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Virtually Amish: Preserving Community at the Internet’s Margins
The Amish are famous for their disconnection from the modern world and all its devices. But Old Order Amish today are selectively engaging with digital communication technology. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two Old Order Amish settlements in Indiana, Lindsay Ems finds that the Amish do not allow digital communication technologies to drive their behavior; instead, they actively configure their sociotechnical world to align with their values and protect their community's autonomy. This talk will explore the various decisions made by members of Amish communities to guide digital communication technology use in an effort to maintain community wellness.
Lindsay Ems is an associate professor of communication and media studies at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her research explores the social impacts of digital communication technologies. Specifically, in her teaching and research she aims to better understand the social forces that are often inconspicuously embedded into the technologies we all use today for relationship-building and maintenance, and workplace collaboration. Her new book, Virtually Amish: Preserving Community at the Internet’s Margins , explores approaches to resisting the damaging forces of high-tech capitalism that impact all who live and work in today’s information society, as deployed in Old Order Amish communities.
Saturday, October 15, 2022 • Noon to 4:00 pm • Young Center and grounds
BRETHREN HERITAGE FESTIVAL
| noon–4:00 |
Tour the Bowers Interpretive Gallery Quilt with us! |
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12:30-4:00
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Children's crafts (Each child participant takes home a free container of play dough.) Enjoy snacks: popcorn from the historic Reist Popcorn Coach; apple butter on home baked bread; homemade raspberry ice cream Help to churn the ice cream on the bike designed by Etown Engineering Club |
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| 1:00 | Hymn sing with Janice Longenecker Holsinger | |
| 2:00 | Gospel music by Belinda and Chris Collins | |
| 3:00 | Magic show by Marty Thomas-Brummé | |
| 3:45 | Music by Belinda and Chris Collins | |
Thursday, September 22, 2022 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
DALE BROWN BOOK AWARD LECTURE
Moravian Soundscapes: Hearing New Histories of Early America
This presentation explores the soundscapes and musical practices of eighteenth-century Moravian mission communities in eastern Pennsylvania. The sonic histories of these religious communities provide new insights into the ways that music and sound functioned as a site of cultural encounter between German missionaries and Indigenous communities in early America, demonstrating the rich and multifaceted meanings that eighteenth-century music and religious history hold for contemporary Americans.
Sarah Eyerly is associate professor and Curtis Mayes Orpheus Professor of Musicology at Florida State University. Her research interests include sound studies, performance practice, music and religion, Native American and Indigenous Studies, and the geo-humanities. Her current projects include a biography and documentary film on the life of the eighteenth-century Mohican musician, Joshua; heritage tourism and Indigenous representation at Moravian mission sites in Ohio; and sound reconstruction of the Apalachee and Spanish musical culture of Mission San Luis in Tallahassee, FL. She serves on the board of the American Musicological Society and the Mozart Society of America, and is coordinator of the musicology area at Florida State and director of the early music program. Her first book, Moravian Soundscapes: A Sonic History of the Moravian Missions in Early America (Indiana University Press, 2020), received the Young Center's Dale W. Brown Book Award.
Thursday, June 2, through Saturday, June 4, 2022
CONFERENCE
The Amish and Their Neighbors: A Multidisciplinary Conference
The international conference will highlight issues arising from interaction between Amish communities and wider society, including those in areas such as public health, government regulation, business and economic development, charitable work, land use and environmental issues, tourism, and civic involvement.
Tuesday, April 5, 2022 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
KREIDER LECTURE
The Unknown Story of Naming the Brethren in Christ
Since the early twentieth century, the Brethren in Christ—formerly known as the River Brethren—have claimed that they adopted their current denominational name during the American Civil War when the United States government required them to register or go on record as a Peace Church in response to the draft. The conscription laws did not include such a requirement, nor has contemporary documentation of such action by the church been found. So what really happened and how did the Brethren in Christ get their name? Join a retired state government archivist on a fascinating romp through church sources, government records, newspapers and historical accounts as he unravels the true story.
Jonathan R. Stayer was supervisor of reference services at the Pennsylvania State Archives when he retired in 2019 after 35 years of employment. He is vice president of the South Central Pennsylvania Genealogical Society (SCPGS) and serves on the boards of the York County History Center and the Friends of Camp Security. Stayer volunteers at both the State Archives and the History Center.
Friday, March 25, 2022 • 10:00 am to noon • Bucher Meetinghouse
DURNBAUGH SEMINAR
Early Anabaptist Hymnody: What Do We Want to Learn?
(The seminar will not be livestreamed.)
Joe Springer will provide input and invite discussion of aspects of Anabaptist hymnody that merit further exploration. Can we better determine who used which texts or melodies and how? How did hymns spread geographically and across language groups? What musicological resources provide new documentation or insight?
Thursday, March 24, 2022 • 6:00 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
BANQUET
The annual Young Center dinner gives faculty, staff, students, church leaders, and other friends of the Young Center the opportunity to socialize and learn about the Center’s activities and programs.A reception for Durnbaugh Lecturer Joe A. Springer will be held at 5:30; the dinner will begin at 6:00. Cost for the dinner is $20 and reservations are required by March 10. Parking is available at the Elizabethtown Church of the Brethren, 777 S. Mt. Joy Street. Enter the parking lot from Cedar Street.
Thursday, March 24, 2022 • 7:00 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
DURNBAUGH LECTURE
“That I May Sing a Song”: Early Anabaptist Hymnals
Joe A. Springer will share recent scholarship on the earliest hymnals published by German-speaking Anabaptists in the 16th century. He will devote particular attention to the 1564 Etliche schöne Christliche Geseng, the first known edition of the Ausbund hymnal still in use among Old Order Amish today.
Joe A. Springer has served as curator of the Mennonite Historical Library, Goshen (IN) College since 1986. He holds a BA in history from Goshen College and an MA/MLS in history and library science from Catholic University of America. He enjoys studying the bibliographical evolution of specific works as well as interconnections among different works. In his work, Springer regularly fields questions related to printing history, hymnody, and genealogy.
Parking is available at the Elizabethtown Church of the Brethren, 777 S. Mt. Joy Street. Enter the parking lot from Cedar Street.
Thursday, February 24, 2022 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
“I Have Come as My Name”: The Vocation and Poems of Jane Rohrer
Julia Spicher Kasdorf will present an illustrated lecture and reading of the poetry of Jane (Turner) Rohrer, one of the first Mennonites to publish poetry in the mainstream literary press in the United States. Rohrer, born in 1928 in Broadway, Virginia, was best known as the wife of the Lancaster County painter Warren Rohrer during his lifetime. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Life After Death and Acquiring Land, and anticipates an exhibition at Woodmere Art Museum in April 2022, Hearing the Brush: the Painting and Poetry of Warren and Jane Rohrer .
Julia Spicher Kasdorf co-curated a Palmer Museum of Art exhibition and coedited with Christopher Reed and Joyce Henri Robinson the catalogue Field Language: The Painting and Poetry of Warren and Jane Rohrer. She has also published four books of poetry: Sleeping Preacher; Eve’s Striptease; Poetry in America; and Shale Play: Poems and Photographs from the Fracking Fields, created in collaboration with Steven Rubin. She teaches poetry writing at Penn State, where she is a Liberal Arts Professor of English.
Tuesday, November 16, 2021 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
SNOWDEN LECTURE
Seeking Religious Toleration: Anabaptist Communication Networks and Migration in the Seventeenth Century
Beiler explores the connections between seventeenth-century European Anabaptists in Switzerland and the Netherlands and many places in between. She explains why those connections arose, how participants communicated across cultural, linguistic and political borders, and how their relationships shaped migration opportunities and flows. The networks and processes of mobility that began in the seventeenth century extended across generations and expanded well beyond the Rhine Valley by the eighteenth century.
Rose Beiler is an associate professor of history at the University of Central Florida in Orlando whose research focuses on the German-speaking Atlantic world. She has published Immigrant and Entrepreneur: The Atlantic World of Caspar Wistar, 1650-1750 (Penn State University Press, 2008) and essays that look at the intersections of religion and migration within Europe and to the British North American colonies. She is currently working on a book titled Communication Networks and the Dynamics of Migration, 1630-1730 and a companion digital project, PRINT—People, Religion, Information Networks, and Travel.
Thursday, October 21, 2021 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
BROWN BOOK AWARD LECTURE
Migration Stories of Mennonites on the Move: Russia, Canada, Germany, and Paraguay (1870-1945)
Paraguay’s oldest and largest Mennonite colonies are Menno Colony, founded by a group of voluntary migrants who moved from Russia to Canada in the 1870s and from Canada to Paraguay in the 1920s, and Fernheim Colony, established by a group of refugees who fled from Soviet Russia to Germany in 1929 and settled next to Menno Colony in 1930. In this lecture, John Eicher argues that the colonies remained socially and spiritually divided for the first twenty years of their existence because their migration stories were not mutually intelligible. On a broader level, the lecture suggests that all humans live inside group narratives that shape the way they understand time, space, good, evil, and reality itself.
John P. R. Eicher is an assistant professor of history at Pennsylvania State University-Altoona. He received degrees from Goshen College and the University of Iowa and visiting fellowships from the Free University of Berlin, the University of Freiburg, and the German Historical Association (Washington, D.C.). His book, Exiled Among Nations: German and Mennonite Mythologies in a Transnational Age (Cambridge University Press, 2020), received the 2021 Dale W. Brown Book Award.
Saturday, October 16, 2021 • noon–4:00 pm • Young Center
BRETHREN HERITAGE FESTIVAL
Enjoy children's activities, country gospel music, an a cappella hymn sing, and a quilting demonstration. Taste bicycle-churned homemade ice cream, popcorn from the Reist popcorn wagon, and homemade bread and apple butter served in the tent outside the Young Center. Tour the Bowers Interpretative Gallery. And watch a family magic show that begins at 3 p.m.
Thursday, September 16, 2021 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Quiet Riots: Latino Mennonites and the Politics of Belonging
In this lecture, Felipe Hinojosa provides an overview of Latino religious politics in the Mennonite Church in the 1960s and 1970s, as discussed in his book Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical Culture . He focuses on how Latino Mennonites forged coalitions with Black Mennonites to both push back against the racism they experienced in the church and to fight for a seat at the Anabaptist table.
Felipe Hinojosa is an associate professor of history at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. He serves as director for the Carlos H. Cantu Hispanic Education & Opportunity Endowment at Texas A&M and is editor for the interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, and online moderated forum Latinx Talk. His work has appeared in Zócalo Public Square, Western Historical Quarterly, American Catholic Studies, Mennonite Quarterly Review, and in multiple edited collections on Latinx Studies.
Thursday, April 13, 2021 • 7:00 pm
PRESENTATION
Travelling through the National Dark: Poet and Pacifist William Stafford
The Young Center and Elizabethtown College’s Bowers Writers House welcome poet Fred Marchant for an evening celebrating William Stafford (1914-1993), a Library of Congress Poet Laureate with significant ties to the Church of the Brethren. Marchant and Jesse Waters, director of the Bowers Writers House, will discuss Stafford’s life and legacy and read some of his poems. Young Center Interim Director Steve Nolt will review the World War II context in which Stafford declared his conscientious objection to war and the Civilian Public Service program in which he served for four years.
Fred Marchant is the author of several books of poetry, including his most recent, Said Not Said (Graywolf, 2017), which was named an Honored Book by the Massachusetts Book Awards. He is the editor of Another World Instead: The Early Poems of William Stafford (Graywolf, 2008) and Professor Emeritus of English at Suffolk University in Boston.
Thursday, March 25, 2021 • 7:00 pm
DURNBAUGH LECTURE
Weapons Transfers as Foreign Policy: Theological Ethics, Economics and Strategy
The church has always contended that matters of killing must be subject to theological ethics. Though many traditions have not rejected all use of deadly force, all have made judgments on when, how, and by whom this can be done. One of the “tools” within US foreign policy is the selling or giving of weapons and related systems. This practice is used to strengthen diplomatic relations, further national interests, and bring economic benefit to the US arms industry. This lecture will describe how this process is seen within the strategic planning of Washington, challenge underlying assumptions, and argue that such transfers cannot be separated from war-making and must be subject to ethical reasoning.
Nathan Hosler is director of the Church of the Brethren's Office of Peacebuilding and Policy based in Washington, DC, and a pastor at the Washington City Church of the Brethren. He holds a Ph.D. in theological studies focusing on peacebuilding.
Thursday, March 4, 2021 • 7:00 pm
KREIDER AND SNOWDEN LECTURES
Responding with Compassion to the Crisis in Northeastern Nigeria
Kreider Fellow Samuel Dali and Snowden Fellow Rebecca Dali will share stories of pain and hope from the Boko Haram crisis and the church’s response. Samuel Dali will offer an update on the situation of the Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria/Church of the Brethren in Nigeria in the context of ongoing violence in northeastern Nigeria and reflect on the church’s constructive engagement around sociopolitical, economic, and environmental issues that contribute to the possibility of peace in the region. Rebecca Dali will review the recent humanitarian work of the Centre for Caring, Empowerment, and Peace Initiatives and discuss the suffering and resilience of women in situations of war and related trauma as refugees and internally displaced persons.
Samuel Dali led Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria during the years of greatest insurgency violence in northeastern Nigeria. He works at peacebuilding and advocacy with ecumenical, interfaith, and political entities in northeastern Nigeria. Rebecca Dali is the founder and executive director of the Centre for Caring, Empowerment, and Peace Initiatives.
*** Due to the sensitive nature of some of the stories that are shared, the link to the video of this event is not being posted publicly. Please contact the Young Center at youngctr@etown.edu if you would like access to the recording. ***
Thursday, February 18, 2021 • 7:00 pm
BROWN BOOK AWARD LECTURE
The Complicated Spirituality of Pietist Conversion
Why did conversion, one of the most talked about themes of German Pietism, became so problematic for insiders to describe and outsiders to interpret? In this talk, Jonathan Strom explores how the desire to determine “true conversion” distorted the understanding of conversion experiences and worked at cross purposes to the spirituality Pietists hoped to instill.
Jonathan Strom is senior associate dean of faculty and academic affairs and professor of church history at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, in Atlanta, Georgia. His recent book, German Pietism and the Problem of Conversion (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018), received the 2019 Dale W. Brown Book Award.
Thursday, November 12, 2020 • 7:00 pm
LECTURE
Compassion in the Face of Internment: The Story of the Cunninghams
This presentation will focus on the process of acquisition, rehousing, research, and digitization of the Cunningham Papers: a collection of letters, documents, and photographs recently acquired by the Young Center. These documents tell the story of Lloyd and Ellen Cunningham, Brethren missionaries who served in China, the Philippines, and India, and who were imprisoned by the Japanese Imperial Army from 1941 to 1945.
Caitlin Rossiter, a senior at Elizabethtown College, is studying history and French with a minor in religious studies. She is also pursuing the Public Heritage Studies certificate, as she plans to attend graduate school for public history or museum studies. Rossiter will graduate in December 2020.
Thursday, October 22, 2020 • 7:00 pm
BROWN BOOK AWARD LECTURE
The German Awakening: Protestant Renewal after the Enlightenment, 1815-1848
Historians of modern German culture and church history refer to “the Awakening movement” to describe a period in the history of German Protestantism between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the Revolution of 1848. Theologically, awakened Protestants were traditionalists. They affirmed religious beliefs that Protestants had professed since the Reformation. However, awakened Protestants were also themselves distinctly modern. Their efforts to spread their religious beliefs were successful because of the new political freedoms and economic opportunities that the Enlightenment had introduced. Adapting Protestantism to modern society in these ways was the most original and innovative aspect of the Awakening movement. It was a product of the larger social changes that were reshaping German society during the early decades of the nineteenth century.
Andrew Kloes is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the author of The German Awakening: Protestant Renewal After the Enlightenment, 1815-1848 (Oxford University Press, 2019) in the Oxford Studies in Historical Theology series, which received the 2020 Dale Brown Book Award. He has contributed articles on eighteenth and nineteenth century European religious history to academic journals, including the Harvard Theological Review and Pietismus und Neuzeit. Kloes received his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh and works as a historian in Washington, DC.
Thursday, October 8, 2020 • 7:00 pm
INTERVIEW
A Conversation about Amish Women with Karen Johnson-Weiner
Join us for a conversation with Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, author of the new book The Lives of Amish Women (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020). Johnson-Weiner will share her research and findings, which grow out of 35 years of fieldwork.
Johnson-Weiner is distinguished service professor emerita at State University of New York-Potsdam, the author of Train Up a Child: Old Order Amish and Mennonite Schools and New York Amish: Life in the Plain Communities of the Empire State, and the coauthor of The Amish.
Thursday, March 12, 2020 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
The Nicholas Stoltzfus Family and Homestead
Today, Stoltzfus is the most common last name among Lancaster County Old Order Amish, all descended from one immigrant family. Find out more about immigrant Nicholas Stoltzfus and his homestead in Reading in this talk by tenth-generation descendant Nic Stoltzfus.
Nic Stoltzfus is a graduate of the Florida State University communication program and has always appreciated the art of storytelling. He is the current caretaker of the Nicholas Stoltzfus Homestead in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, and author of German Lutherans to Pennsylvania Amish: The Stoltzfus Family Story (Masthof Press, 2019).
Saturday, March 7, 2020 • 9:00 am to 3:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
SYMPOSIUM
What is Pietism?
The symposium combines presentations and discussion around the questions of what Pietism is and its influences today. Craig Atwood, Jeff Bach, and Devin Manzullo-Thomas will provide input and invite conversation from the audience members about their understandings and their questions.
Friday, March 6, 2020 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
DISCUSSION
Conversations about Pietism and Old German Baptist Brethren Thought and Practice
Tony Walsh, the Young Center’s 2018 Kreider Fellow, and Jeff Bach, director of the Young Center, facilitate this interactive discussion about perceptions of Pietism and how Pietism affects Old German Baptist Brethren. Walsh is professor emeritus at Maynooth University in Ireland and the founder of the Centre for the Study of Irish Protestantism at the university. His research interests include studying self-perception among Old German Baptist Brethren.
Thursday, February 13, 2020 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
“She do preach up terror alarmingly”: The Publick Universal Friend, Jemima Wilkinson
Discover the life of Jemima Wilkinson, also known as the “Publick Universal Friend,” a Quaker-born woman from Rhode Island whose fiery preaching amassed a following from New England to Pennsylvania in the late eighteenth century. Candace Kintzer Perry will discuss the Friend’s curious blend of Quakerism and Methodism, her unconventional lifestyle, and how she attracted an affluent Schwenkfelder family to support her, and subsequently follow her, to build a settlement on the shores of Keuka Lake in New York State.
Candace Kintzer Perry, curator of collections of the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center, Pennsburg, Pa., holds a BA in history from Penn State and an MA in American history and museum studies from Duquesne University. Perry has written numerous articles and lectures on Pennsylvania German history and culture, most recently the article on Pennsylvania German textiles in The Pennsylvania Germans: An Interpretive Encyclopedia.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020 • 4:00 to 8:00 pm • Young Center
RECEPTION
All are welcome to join the Young Center and Phoenixx Design, the firm that designed and fabricated the exhibits, in celebrating the completion of the Bowers Interpretive Gallery. Staff persons from the Young Center will be on hand to greet visitors and point out highlights of the installation.
An additional reception will be held from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. on February 13, prior to the lecture by Candace Kintzer Perry.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
INTERVIEW
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. Part of the Clarence E. Spohn Collection will be on temporary exhibit in the Bowers Interpretive Gallery at the Young Center from November 1 through November 22. The exhibit is free and open to the public from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Friday.
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.
Part of the Clarence E. Spohn Collection will be on temporary exhibit in the Young Center's Bowers Interpretive Gallery from November 1 through 22. The exhibit is free and open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Saturday, October 19, 2019 • noon to 4:00 pm • Young Center
BRETHREN HERITAGE FESTIVAL
Enjoy bicycle-churned homemade ice cream, popcorn from the Reist popcorn wagon, and other treats served in the tent outside the Young Center. Then listen to country gospel music by Days of Old, participate in a hymn sing led by Janice Holsinger, and watch a quilting demonstration inside. Children’s activities will also be available.
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, 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.
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.
Thursday-Saturday, June 6-8, 2019
CONFERENCE
Health and Well-Being in Amish Society: A Multidisciplinary Conference
The conference will focus on health, health care, and individual and community welfare and well-being in Amish life.
Registration is open until May 20; the deadline for discounted registration is May 1.
Visit the conference web page for details.
Thursday, April 25, 2019 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
SNOWDEN LECTURE
Mental Health Treatment in the Plain Communities
Snowden Fellow Charles Jantzi, professor of psychology at Messiah College, explores the current thinking about mental health issues and treatment approaches within the Plain communities. His exploration will include both outside professional and Plain community peer-to-peer treatment approaches. Jantzi worked as a clinical psychologist conducting therapy full-time for 13 years before shifting to teaching full-time and providing therapy part-time. Since his transition to teaching full-time at Messiah College, he has spent two summers providing therapy at Green Pasture, the treatment center for members of the Plain communities, which is located at Wellspan Philhaven in Mount Gretna, Pa.
Thursday, March 28, 2019 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
KREIDER LECTURE
Amish Identities in Changing Context
This presentation by Kreider Fellow Joshua Brown will highlight social and cultural changes from mother to daughter Amish settlements, especially with regard to linguistic change. Brown is an associate professor of German and linguistics at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
Friday, March 15, 2019 • 10:00 am to noon • Bucher Meetinghouse
DURNBAUGH SEMINAR
Voices in the Pennsylvania Wilderness: An Examination of the Music Manuscripts, Music Theory, Composition, and (Female) Composers of the Eighteenth-Century Ephrata Cloister
Founded in 1732 by Conrad Beissel, the Ephrata Cloister was a celibate, ascetic, German-speaking, Sabbatarian commune in the wilderness of Pennsylvania. Its residents produced a large corpus of hymns and motets, and also published the third music treatise written in what is today the United States of America. Herbert's presentation will focus on the music theory and composition practices of the community, examining specific manuscripts held in various collections throughout the Northeast.
Thursday, March 14, 2019 • 4:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
DEDICATION CEREMONY
The dedication ceremony for the expanded Young Center will feature a presentation by Jonathan Stayer, supervisor of reference services at the Pennsylvania State Archives. Young Center director Jeff Bach will also give remarks. An open house preceding the dedication will begin at 3:00 p.m.
Thursday, March 14, 2019 • 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm • 2nd floor, Leffler Chapel
RECEPTION
A reception featuring light fare will follow the dedication ceremony.
Thursday, March 14, 2019 • 7:30 pm • Musser Auditorium, Leffler Chapel
DURNBAUGH LECTURE
Forgotten Sounds: Researching, Transcribing, Performing, and Reimagining the Music of the Eighteenth-Century Ephrata Cloister
During the past two years, Christopher Herbert has worked with Ephrata music manuscripts, representing a unique genre within American music. In collaboration with the Elizabethtown College concert choir, he will present this music, heard for one of the first times since the American colonial period.
Christopher Herbert holds a BA in Music from Yale University, an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University, and a DMA from the Juilliard School. He is an assistant professor at William Paterson University, where he heads the voice program. As a vocalist, he performs frequently throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Herbert is a two-time GRAMMY® nominee and the baritone in the critically acclaimed ensemble New York Polyphony. He has soloed with the San Francisco Symphony, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, International Contemporary Ensemble, and the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and he regularly presents Winterize, an outdoor adaptation of Winterreise with transistor radios.
Thursday, February 7, 2019 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
"I Just Want a Red Convertible": Surprising Stories From 30 Years of Research and Publishing Amish Life
Donald Kraybill, senior fellow emeritus, will share stories, backstage dramas, and humorous events from 30 years of fieldwork among the Amish.
September 17 -- December 14, 2018 • Young Center
EXHIBIT
Here, There is Welcome: 300 Years of Refugees in Lancaster County
This special exhibit produced by LancasterHistory.org honors the long tradition of welcoming refugees and immigrants to Lancaster County. It will be on display at the Young Center from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday. It is free and open to the public. To schedule a group tour or a tour after hours, please phone (717) 361-1470. The Young Center and High Library are joint sponsors of the exhibit.
Saturday, October 20, 2018 • 12:00 to 4:00 pm • Young Center
Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony at 1:30 pm; Open House and Brethren Heritage Festival from 12:00 to 4:00 pm
A ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place at 1:30 pm to celebrate officially the reopening of the expanded building. An open house and the Brethren Heritage Festival will take place from 12 noon until 4:00 pm. The festival includes crafts for children, performances by music groups, and historical exhibits. Free refreshments include homemade ice cream, homemade bread and apple butter, and popcorn. The events are free and open to the public.
Thursday, September 20, 2018 • 7:30 pm • Gibble Auditorium
LECTURE
Chasing the Amish Vote: Politics, Polarization, and the Old Order Community
During the 2016 presidential election, Amish PAC, a new political action committee based in Arlington, Virginia, sought to mobilize Amish voters in Lancaster County. Two Elizabethtown College professors—Steve Nolt, senior scholar at the Young Center and professor of history, and Kyle Kopko, associate dean of institutional effectiveness, research and planning and associate professor of political science—will describe the PAC’s efforts and the Amish response. They will report on research into Amish participation in the 2016 election and the possible impact of Amish PAC’s advertising on non-Amish voters, as well as suggest what this episode tells us about religion and politics in America today.
Thursday, May 31–Friday, June 1, 2018
CONFERENCE
“The Peace Churches and the Great War: A Centennial Reflection”
Two of the conference programs are open to the public:
Thursday, May 31, 2018 • 6:30 pm • Hoover 110
INTERVIEW
Jeff Bach interviews Barbara Royer about the letters and diaries her grandfather, Vern Kessler, kept during his experience as a conscientious objector detained at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Kessler, a member of the Old German Baptist Brethren, wrote about his experiences in camp and his interactions with other conscientious objectors. Royer is a member of the Old German Baptist Brethren (New Conference) church and devoted extensive labor to collating the correspondence that her grandfather wrote and received; she published his story in her book A First Class Fighting Man. During the interview, Royer will share insights about her grandfather’s religious views and the work she did to compile all of the sources.
Friday, June 1, 2018 • 7:00 pm • Hoover 212
PRESENTATION
Duane Stoltzfus, professor of communication at Goshen College and author of Pacifists in Chains: The Persecution of Hutterites during the Great War, and Dora Maendel, a teacher at Fairholme Hutterite Colony in Manitoba, present "On the Front Line of Conscience: An Acc
Thursday, April 26, 2018 • 7:00 pm • Hoover 110
LECTURE
“World War I and Lancaster Peace Churches”
As the First World War was being waged in Europe, members of Mennonite and Brethren churches on the home front faced military conscription, government surveillance, and intense pressure to buy war bonds. The 1917 conscription law was ambiguous with regard to conscientious objection, although peace church members ultimately found a political ally in Lancaster County Congressman W. W. Griest. In this presentation, Steve Nolt will describe these dynamics and other ways that Lancaster’s peace church people experienced wartime pressures, sought to explain their convictions to their neighbors and to the government, and struggled to know how best to help those suffering from the war’s effects. (This talk, which is cosponsorerd by the High Library, the Young Center, and the Center for Global Understanding and Peacebuilding, is held in conjunction with Voices of Conscience: Peace Witness in the Great War, a national touring exhibition exploring the experiences of conscientious objectors during World War I, on view at the High Library.)
Nolt is senior scholar at the Young Center and professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabettown College. He is the author or coauthor of fourteen books on Amish, Mennonite, and Pennsylvania German history and contemporary life and series editor for Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
Tuesday, April 17, 2018 • 7:30 pm • Hoover 212
KREIDER LECTURE
“Narrative and Meaning: The Rich Complexity of Old German Baptist Brethren Belief, Culture, and Practice”
The Old German Baptist Brethren (OGBB) see themselves as embodying and preserving the vision and traditions of the early Brethren of Schwarzenau. Narrative research contends that stories recounted by any collective about themselves (and the narratives told about them by others) provide an entrée into deep and more nuanced understandings of specifics of belief, practice, and identity. Tony Walsh will present and examine stories he's gathered to look at the rich spirituality, complex world and dynamic culture of the OGBB.
Walsh is the director of the Centre for the Study of Irish Protestantism and codirector of the Centre for Transformative Narrative Research at Maynooth University, County Kildare, Ireland. In recent years, he has edited and contributed to a number of books on radical adult education, the nature of knowledge, post-positivist research, suicide, international peacekeeping, and narrative reflexivity. He is currently interested in how minorities (particularly faith minority groups) identify themselves and resist or adapt to the influences of the majorities among whom they live. Currently, he has research involvements in Palestine, the UK, the US, and Ireland. Walsh was for many years a member of the Irish Methodist Council on Social Responsibility and was centrally involved in the leadership of one of Ireland’s first intercultural congregations. He continues as a visiting minister to a Baptist congregation in rural England.
Friday, March 23, 2018 • 10:00 am to noon • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
DURNBAUGH SEMINAR
“Leading a Peace Church in Terrorist Territory”
“CCEPI at Work: Addressing the Plight of the Most Vulnerable”
Samuel Dali will discuss the state of the Church of the Brethren in northern Nigeria both before and after Boko Haram and reflect on his personal experience as the president of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria during the time of crisis. Rebecca Dali will describe the most vulnerable populations (widows, children, orphans, and escapees) and efforts to feed, clothe, house, and empower them. She will also relate her personal experience in the danger zones of northern Nigeria.
Samuel Dali led Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, during the years of greatest insurgency violence in northeastern Nigeria. He works at peace building and advocacy with ecumenical, interfaith, and political entities in northeastern Nigeria as IDPs begin the long journey home. Samuel Dali holds degrees from the Theological College of Northern Nigeria and McPherson College, as well as a master's in theology from Bethany Theological Seminary and a doctorate from the University of Birmingham. Rebecca Dali is the executive director of the Centre for Caring, Empowerment, and Peace Initiatives, , an organization she founded in 1989. She holds a bachelor's and a master's degree from the Theological College of Northern Nigeria and a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Jos. Rebecca Dali received the Sérgio Vieira de Mello Foundation award in 2017.
Thursday, March 22, 2018 • 7:30 pm • Gibble Auditorium
DURNBAUGH LECTURES
“Update on Boko Haram Crisis in Northeastern Nigeria”
“The Founding of CCEPI and Its Mission to the Displaced”
Samuel Dali will present an overview of the Boko Haram crisis, the devastation to the Church of the Brethren, and the church’s response. Rebecca Dali will give a brief history of the Centre for Caring, Empowerment, and Peace Initiatives (CCEPI) and discuss the plight of women in northeastern Nigeria, and IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) and refugees in Cameroon.
Samuel Dali led Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, during the years of greatest insurgency violence in northeastern Nigeria. He works at peace building and advocacy with ecumenical, interfaith, and political entities in northeastern Nigeria as IDPs begin the long journey home. Samuel Dali holds degrees from the Theological College of Northern Nigeria and McPherson College, as well as a master's in theology from Bethany Theological Seminary and a doctorate from the University of Birmingham. Rebecca Dali is the executive director of the Centre for Caring, Empowerment, and Peace Initiatives, an organization she founded in 1989. She holds a bachelor's and a master's degree from the Theological College of Northern Nigeria and a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Jos. Rebecca Dali received the Sérgio Vieira de Mello Foundation award in 2017.
Thursday, March 22, 2018 • 6:00 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
YOUNG CENTER BANQUET
The annual Young Center dinner gives faculty, staff, students, church leaders, and other friends of the Young Center the opportunity to socialize and learn about the Center’s activities and programs.
A reception for Durnbaugh Lecturers Samuel and Rebecca Dali will be held at 5:30; the dinner will begin at 6:00.
The registration deadline for the banquet has passed. Interested persons are invited to attend the Durnbaugh Lectures (see below), which do not require reservations.
Tuesday, February 20, 2018 • 7:30 pm • Hoover 212
DALE W. BROWN BOOK AWARD LECTURE
“Embedded: Quilts and Their Stories”
In this interactive presentation, Janneken Smucker will focus on what we can learn about the larger culture from individual stories of quilts—seemingly everyday objects that are in fact embedded with sentimental, historical, artistic, and spiritual heft. In addition to recounting stories from her book, Amish Quilts: Crafting an American Icon, she will share some of her family quilt stories and interview members of the community about their quilts.
Smucker, a fifth-generation Mennonite quiltmaker, is an associate professor of history at West Chester University, where she specializes in digital and public history and American material culture. In addition to lecturing and writing widely on the topic of quilts for both popular and academic audiences, she leads workshops on digital tools and strategies, consults on digital projects for non-profits and museums, and brings digital humanities into the undergraduate classroom. Amish Quilts received the 2016 Dale W. Brown Book Award for outstanding book in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies.
Thursday, November 16, 2017 • 7:30 pm • Hoover 212
SNOWDEN LECTURE
Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Women’s Responses to New Media
"[The Internet is] Satan's tool to draw our focus away from our trust in God." Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar, the Young Center's 2017 Snowden fellow, explores how Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jewish (Haredi) women cope with new media and their apparent contradiction with these communities' values and practices. While their discourses included similar framings of danger and threat, the two groups developed different patterns of use (and nonuse) of new media. The strategies applied by these women to negotiate the tensions between their roles as gatekeepers and agents of change—nonuse, control and setting limits—are analyzed as valuable currencies in the cultural and religious markets of their communities.
Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar is a senior lecturer at Sapir Academic College in Sderot, Israel, teaching courses in research methods, communication, religion, and gender. She received her doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was a Fulbright post-doctoral fellow at Brandeis University in 2011-2012.
Tuesday, November 14, 2017 • 7:30 pm • Hoover 212
PANEL PRESENTATION
Three Views of Reform: Luther, Calvin, Swiss Anabaptists
Three scholars will mark the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation with a panel discussion examining the visions of Martin Luther, John Calvin and Swiss Anabaptists for reforming Christianity. The presenters will explore the three different paths emerging from this time of intense religious debate that continues to influence Christianity today. Vince Evener will explore how Martin Luther charted a course for reform distinct from Roman Catholic, Calvinist, and Anabaptist expressions of Christianity. Luther’s view of reform was built upon the foundational doctrinal claim that salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone; from this foundation, Luther worked to transform individual and corporate Christian life in rich and complex ways, seeking to ensure that doctrine, devotion, worship, and social life expressed and cultivated Christians’ trust in God alone for eternal salvation, and even for temporal well-being. Mark Draper will address the ways in which the Reformed Reformations in Zurich and Geneva took on different forms from the Lutheran and Radical Reformations. He will also address the legacy of the Reformation in regard to the relationships among descendants of the various reformation movements. Jeff Bach will discuss how Anabaptists in Zurich envisioned a biblical vision of reform that incorporated faith in Christ’s grace and its power to lead believers in discipleship. He will also address the group’s choice to adopt adult baptism and form a community of discipleship.
Evener is instructor in Reformation and Luther studies at United Lutheran Seminary and the coeditor of Protestants and Mysticism in Reformation Europe (due from Brill in 2018). He is completing a book manuscript titled “Enemies of the Cross”: Suffering and Salvation in the Reformation" and has published numerous articles on Luther and other reformers.
Draper is executive director of the Pense Learning Center at Evangelical Seminary and assistant professor of historical theology. His research interests include the history of evangelicalism and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century evangelical social reformers and theologians such as Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley and Gilbert Haven.
Bach is director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies and teaches courses on the history of Anabaptist and Pietist groups and communal societies at Elizabethtown College. He is the author of Voices of the Turtledoves: The Sacred World of Ephrata and coauthor with Michael Birkel of Genius of the Transcendent: Mystical Writings of Jakob Boehme.
Saturday, October 21, 2017 • Noon to 4:00 pm • Academic Quad
BRETHREN HERITAGE FESTIVAL
Participate in hands-on activities like making corn husk and yarn dolls, putting together old-fashioned wooden puzzles and playing classic outdoor games, and producing your very own batch of flubber to take home. Pedal the Etown Engineering Club bike to churn homemade ice cream and then enjoy it with other luscious treats, including homemade apple butter on fresh bread and popcorn from the historic Reist Popcorn Wagon. At the same time, learn more about the Anabaptists and Pietists and get the latest news about the current Young Center building project!
Thursday, October 19, 2017 • 7:00 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
LECTURE
Beards, Bonnets, and Football: Eastern Mennonite University & Elizabethtown College, 1900-2000
Long before the marshmallow rivalry with Messiah College, Elizabethtown had a quiet rivalry with a college in Virginia. Donald Kraybill explores some surprising connections, similarities, and differences between Eastern Mennonite University and Elizabethtown College. He also asks why the Brethren founded a college in Lancaster County but the Mennonites did not. Following the talk, Kraybill will sign his new social history of EMU, Eastern Mennonite University: A Century of Countercultural Education, released by Penn State University Press.
Kraybill is senior fellow emeritus at the Young Center. He is the founding editor of Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies and the author or coauthor of numerous books on Anabaptist groups.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017 • 7:30 pm • Hoover 212
LECTURE
A Glimpse of Life in the Dawdihaus
In collectivist cultures such as the Amish, aging family members often remain at home or near the main family dwelling in what is known as the Dawdihaus. The desire to move into the Dawdihaus and the assumption of greater household roles by the adult children is not a forced concept but one that is proliferated by a sense of yielding referred to as Gelassenheit. This talk, an assessment of the Dawdihaus experience from the perspective of the older family members and their adult children, is based on Claire Marie Mensack’s case study among the Amish and other Plain people of Pennsylvania and Delaware.
Mensack, the Young Center’s 2016 Kreider Fellow, is an adjunct instructor in the School of Health Sciences at Liberty University.
Friday, April 21, 2017 • 10:00 am to 2:00 pm • Hoover 110
DURNBAUGH SEMINAR
Object Lessons: The Meanings of Pennsylvania German Life and Culture
Joshua R. Brown, associate professor of German at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and several panelists will discuss Pennsylvania German culture, especially how their academic backgrounds inform Pennsylvania German research. The panel will highlight the importance of multidisciplinarity in a “new” Pennsylvania German studies.
Brown will open the seminar with introductory comments on the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to understanding Pennsylvania German culture and how it enriches the understanding of Anabaptist and Pietist groups among the Pennsylvania Germans.
Simon Bronner, distinguished professor of American studies and folklore and director of the Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies at Penn State Harrisburg, will discuss Pennsylvania German folklore.
R.Troy Boyer, who teaches history and American studies at Lebanon Valley College, will discuss the importance of farming among Pennsylvania German Plain groups in the broader context of farming in Pennsylvania German culture.
Candace Kintzer Perry, curator of collections at the Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center, will describe selected textiles and how they characterize some Anabaptist and Pietist groups among the Pennsylvania Germans.
William Donner, professor of anthropology at Kutztown University, will speak on the emergence of an ethnic identity among Pennsylvania Germans of Reformed and Lutheran backgrounds (the “church” people) and contrast that process with ways that ethnic identity formed among Pennsylvania German Anabaptist groups.
All of the panelists are contributors to the recently published Pennsylvania Germans: An Interpretive Encyclopedia (2017, Johns Hopkins University Press). Bronner and Brown are also coeditors of the book.
Cost for the seminar is $10, which includes lunch. Reservations are required by April 6. Register online or by calling 717-361-1470.
Thursday, April 20, 2017 • 6:00 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
YOUNG CENTER BANQUET
The annual Young Center dinner gives faculty, staff, students, church leaders, and other friends of the Young Center the opportunity to socialize and learn about the Center’s activities and programs.
A reception for Durnbaugh Lecturer Simon Bronner will be held at 5:30; the dinner will begin at 6:00. Copies of Pennsylvania Germans: An Interpretive Encyclopedia will be available for sale and signing during the reception.
Cost for the dinner is $23 and reservations are required by April 6. Register online or by calling 717-361-1470.
Thursday, April 20, 2017 • 7:30 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
DURNBAUGH LECTURE
New Directions in Pennsylvania German Studies
Simon J. Bronner will explore changes from past studies of the Pennsylvania Germans that focused on their shrinking rural identity to an interpretation based on ethnic studies. He will explain how his research integrates a variety of approaches such as architecture, agriculture, folk art, furniture, food, textiles, religion, and language in order to understand Pennsylvania Germans in the fullness of their culture and lived experience. In the process, he will also explore the role that religious communities such as the Mennonites and Amish have played in shaping Pennsylvania German culture. By tracing changes in understanding “Dutchiness,” Bronner will also raise questions about the continuing persistence of Pennsylvania German culture.
Bronner is distinguished professor of American studies and folklore and director of the Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies at Penn State Harrisburg. He has also taught at Harvard University, Dickinson College, Leiden University (Netherlands), and Osaka University (Japan). He is the author and editor of over thirty-five books including Pennsylvania Germans: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of American Folklife, Popularizing Pennsylvania, and Explaining Traditions: Folk Behavior in Modern Culture. Bronner served as editor of the Pennsylvania German History and Culture Series for Penn State Press and received the Pennsylvania German Society’s Award of Merit for lifetime contributions to Pennsylvania German studies.
Wednesday, April 19, 2017 • 7:30 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
PANEL DISCUSSION
Got Schnitz? Pennsylvania German Material Culture
Joshua R. Brown, associate professor of German at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, will convene a panel discussion about two aspects of Pennsylvania German material culture and comment on how aspects of material culture help to interpret the Pennsylvania Germans.
Yvonne Millspaw, senior professor emeritus of English and humanities at Harrisburg Area Community College, will describe several Pennsylvania German food customs and focus on some of the specialties of Anabaptist and Pietist groups. Foodies and others will discover that there are more treats than just whoopie pies.
David Kriebel, assistant professor of anthropology at Millersville University and the author of Powwowing among the Pennsylvania Dutch: A Traditional Medical Practice in the Modern World, will discuss the folk healing tradition sometimes called “powwowing” (and known in German as Bräucherei) as practiced among the Pennsylvania Dutch. He also will explain how these practices survive also among some of the Plain people.
The three speakers are contributors to the recently published Pennsylvania Germans: An Interpretive Encyclopedia (2017, Johns Hopkins University Press). Brown is also coeditor of the book with Simon J. Bronner.
Thursday, March 30, 2017 • 7:30 pm • Hoover 110
KREIDER LECTURE
Encountering Low German Mennonite Women in Mexican Archives
Rebecca Janzen will introduce Low German Mennonites in Mexico, and describe their largest church groups, land use patterns and language. Her lecture will focus on the presence of Low German Mennonite women in Mexican archival documents that deal with land redistribution and related conflict with indigenous people. Janzen argues that in spite of the women’s less powerful religious position, their presence in these documents shows that they are important in keeping the Low German Mennonite community together.
Rebecca Janzen, the Young Center’s 2017 Kreider Fellow, is an assistant professor of Spanish at Bluffton University. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2013 and her first book, The National Body in Mexican Literature: Collective Challenges to Biopolitical Control, was published in 2015 by Palgrave Macmillan. Janzen has been awarded a Plett Foundation grant and the C. Henry Smith Peace Scholarship to begin her second manuscript, Liminal Sovereignty: Mennonites and Mormons in Mexican Popular Culture, which she looks forward to completing at the Young Center.
Thursday, February 23, 2017 • 3:00 pm • Young Center grounds
GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY
The brief groundbreaking ceremony, which is open to the public, marks the beginning of a construction project to expand the Young Center. The ceremony will be followed by light refreshments in the McCormick Gallery of Leffler Chapel and Performance Center.
Thursday, February 23, 2017 • 7:30 pm • Hoover 212
LECTURE
‘You Hold the Whole World in Your Hand’: Cell Phones, Discernment, and the Amish
Steven Nolt, Senior Scholar at the Young Center, will discuss cell phone use among the Amish.
(The originally scheduled lecture, “A Glimpse of Life in the Dawdihaus,” will be rescheduled for a later date. The presenter, Claire Marie Mensack, is unable to come to Elizabethtown because she must give testimony in a legal case.)
Thursday, November 3, 2016 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
SNOWDEN LECTURE
The Entrepreneurship among the Conservative Laestadian Movement
Conservative Laestadianism is a Lutheran revival movement group that emerged in the nineteenth century inspired by German pietism. Located mainly in Finland, it is the largest revival movement in Scandinavia and has some 100,000–120,000 adherents worldwide. The group claims to be the only true Christians, the Kingdom of God on earth. It belongs to the Finnish Evangelical-Lutheran Church and has a strong social, political, and economic position in Finnish society.
Conservative Laestadians form a strongly normative community, maintaining strict guidelines for religious issues and for daily life. Entrepreneurial activities are fairly common in the movement, and the entrepreneurial networks among the members of the community are dense. In her talk, Aini Linjakumpu will focus on the group's entrepreneurship and discuss the framework the religious communality forms for economic activities and networks
Snowden Fellow Aini Linjakumpu is a lecturer in politics at the University of Lapland and an adjunct professor at the University of Tampere, Finland.
Thursday, October 20, 2016 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Mennonite Elites in the Frisian Southwest, 1580–1850
Almost from the very start of the Mennonite movement, some members of the Mennonite community in the southwestern part of Friesland were part of the economic elite. This lecture will show how, little by little, this economic elite became part of the societal elite and that, at the end of this process in the early nineteenth century, the Mennonite and Dutch Reformed elite had almost merged.
Cor Trompetter studied philosophy and history at Groningen University and received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas, where his supervisor was Gail Bossenga. Trompetter’s dissertation was published in 1997 as Agriculture, Proto-Industry and Mennonite Entrepreneurship. He has written a number of books on social and economic history, and his latest book, An Introduction to the History of Mennonites in Friesland until 1850, will be published this fall. Currently, Trompetter is Wethouder and deputy mayor of the county of Weststellingwerf in Friesland.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
China Friends: New Discoveries for the Church of the Brethren
Jeff Bach, director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies and associate professor of religious studies, and David Kenley, director of the Center for Global Understanding and Peacebuilding and professor of history, will present an illustrated discussion of their March 2016 research trip to Shanxi Province in China to trace the activities of Brethren missionaries. The two will recount their visits to cities where the Brethren had mission stations (Pingding, Shouyang, Zouquan, and Taiyuan) and describe outings to rural villages where Brethren missionaries preached. The speakers will also share impressions of Shanxi today as people there face economic challenges while dealing with urban growth. (The Young Center and the Center for Global Understanding and Peacebuilding are cosponsoring this event.)
Thursday, September 8, 2016 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
PANEL DISCUSSION
Remembering 9/11: Flight 93
Panelists will reflect on the significance of 9/11, the crash of Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pa., and the current political climate.
Panelists include Mal Fuller, air traffic controller at Pittsburgh Airport that day; Tim Lambert, director of multimedia news at WITF and owner of the land on which Flight 93 crashed; and Oya Ozkanca, associate professor of political science at Elizabethtown College. Jeff Bach, director of the Young Center, and David Kenley, director of the Center for Global Understanding and Peacebuilding, will moderate the event. (The Young Center and the Center for Global Understanding and Peacebuilding are cosponsoring this event.)
June 9–11, 2016
CONFERENCE
Continuity and Change: 50 Years of Amish Society
The international conference focused on changes and consistency within Amish communities during the years 1963 to 2013, the fifty-year time period is framed by the publication of Amish Society by John Hostetler (1963) and The Amish by Donald Kraybill, Karen Johnson-Weiner, and Steven Nolt (2013). The conference highlighted the many significant changes among the Amish during these five decades, such as population growth, cultural diversity, landmark legal decisions, the explosion of Amish-themed literature and media, health care issues, and the increasing involvement of Amish people in business.
Thursday, April 21, 2016 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
HONORS STUDENTS LECTURES
Amish and Brethren Topics
Annemarie Hartzell, a senior at Elizabethtown College, will present "Men of War, Men of Peace: Brethren Ideologies and the Civil War." In her talk, Hartzell will examine a small sampling of Brethren men in the Pennsylvania area and their beliefs and actions pertaining to the time surrounding the Civil War.
Quinton Meil, a senior at Temple University, will present "Amish and Criminal Law: The English Response to Amish Crime and its Implications on Due Process," an examination of the criminal justice system and its relation to the Amish community.
Friday, April 8, 2016 • 10:00 am to noon • Bucher Meetinghouse
DURNBAUGH SEMINAR
Hinglefleish Frolics
Since their initial schism from the main body of the Old Order Amish in 1917, Swartzentruber settlements have been established in thirteen states and the province of Ontario. With large families, often with as many as 10 to 15 children, and church disciplines that limit options for wage labor and emphasize farming, the Swartzentrubers are among the fastest growing Amish groups in North America. They are also among the most conservative, preserving traditions that are disappearing from the lives of their more progressive brethren. Karen Johnson-Weiner presents an in-depth look at Swartzentruber Amish courtship and wedding practices to explore how they reinforce community ties and help to preserve the Swartzentruber way of life.
An optional luncheon (cost: $10) follows the seminar. Reservations for the lunch are required by March 24. Reservations are not required for the seminar.
Thursday, April 7, 2016 • 6:00 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
ANNUAL YOUNG CENTER BANQUET
The annual Young Center dinner gives faculty, staff, students, church leaders, and other friends of the Young Center the opportunity to socialize and learn about the Center’s activities and programs.
A reception for Durnbaugh Lecturer Karen Johnson-Weiner will be held at 5:30, preceding the dinner.
Cost for the dinner is $23 and reservations are required by March 24.
Thursday, April 7, 2016 • 7:30 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
DURNBAUGH LECTURE
Getting Hitched Amish Style: Change and Continuity in Amish Weddings
The wedding is one of the happiest of celebrations in an Amish community. Exchanging vows, two baptized church members leave behind the "young folk" and join the church community as a new household. Yet as life in Amish communities has changed, so too have wedding traditions, with celebrations in some communities growing in size and even engendering new businesses.This talk explores Amish courtship and wedding practices and what they reveal about continuity and change in the Amish world.
Durnbaugh Lecturer Karen Johnson-Weiner is a Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology at SUNY Potsdam, where she teaches courses in linguistic anthropology. She holds the Ph.D. in linguistics from McGill University and has been studying culture and language use in Amish communities for over 30 years. Her research has been supported by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities and grants from NEH, the Spencer Foundation and the SUNY Potsdam Research and Creative Endeavors Program. She is the author of Train up a Child: Old Order Amish and Mennonite Schools (2007, Johns Hopkins University Press) and New York Amish: Life in the Plain Communities of the Empire State (2010, Cornell University Press), and co-author, with Donald Kraybill and Steven Nolt, of The Amish (2014, Johns Hopkins University Press). She is currently at work on a study of Old Order Amish women (tentatively titled “Wives, Mothers, and Entrepreneurs: The Lives of Amish Women”).
Wednesday, March 30, 2016 • 7:00 pm • Gibble Auditorium
PANEL
Conscientious Objectors to the Vietnam War
Conscientious objectors from the Historic Peace Churches will be interviewed about their experiences as religious objectors to participating in the war in Vietnam.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Gender, Shame and Jacob’s Hip: One Communal Society’s Views
Jeff Bach, Young Center director and religious studies professor at Elizabethtown College, will discuss the Ephrata Community’s unique interpretation of the biblical story of Jacob that allowed it to criticize patriarchy and male domination.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Assessing Vaccination Receptivity in the Old Order Amish in Cattaraugus County, N.Y.
Christine Nelson-Tuttle, associate professor of nursing at St. John Fisher College, will discuss her research on how receptive Amish individuals are to vaccinations, where they obtain information, and who assists them in making decisions about getting vaccinated.
Thursday, February 11, 2016 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
The Schwenkfelder Hymnal of 1762 and Its Unique Place in German Hymnody
Linguist and hymnologist Hedda Durnbaugh will explain what makes the Schwenkfelder hymnal of 1762 unique in the history of German hymn books by outlining its history and analyzing the origins of its hymn texts.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Anabaptists Around the World
Conrad L. Kanagy, professor of sociology at Elizabethtown College, presents the major findings from the Global Anabaptist Profile (GAP), a study of 22 Mennonite groups from 18 countries. This presentation is the first public report of the results of the GAP, which is sponsored by Mennonite World Conference and the Institute for the Study of Global Anabaptism (Goshen College, Ind.). John Roth (Goshen College) and Conrad Kanagy are codirectors of the study.
Thursday, October 22, 2015 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Collecting Data While You Pass the Jell-O Salad: Researching Amish Fiction at Potlucks and Reunions
Valerie Weaver-Zercher, managing editor of trade books for Herald Press, discusses the approach of narrative scholarship as it relates to her research for Thrill of the Chaste: The Allure of Amish Romance Novels, which received the 2015 Dale Brown Book Award. Her features and essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Christian Century, among others.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
SNOWDEN LECTURE
Writing About Amish Women
Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, professor of anthropology at SUNY Potsdam and the 2015 Snowden Fellow, explores the challenges of writing about Amish women's lives and the role of women in Amish communities. Johnson-Weiner is author of New York Amish: Life in the Plain Communities of the Empire State and Train Up a Child: Old Order Amish and Mennonite Schools and coauthor (with Donald B. Kraybill and Steven M. Nolt) of The Amish.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
From Conservative Amish Mennonite to Evangelical Anabaptist: A Historical Overview of the Conservative Mennonite Conference
Nate Yoder, professor of church history at Eastern Mennonite Seminary and archivist for Eastern Mennonite University, discusses the growth and change of the Conservative Mennonite Conference, which is the topic of his recent book, Together in the Work of the Lord: A History of the Conservative Mennonite Conference (Herald Press, 2014).
Saturday, April 18, 2015 • 9:30 am to 2:30 pm • Seminary Ridge Museum
at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg
Brethren and Mennonites and the Battle of Gettysburg
The daylong event includes a tour of Seminary Ridge Museum, a visit to Marsh Creek Brethren meetinghouse, and lectures by Stephen Longenecker, professor of history at Bridgewater College and author of Gettysburg Religion, and Roger Heller, retired history teacher and volunteer with Adams County Historical Society.
| 9:30 a.m. | Refreshments |
| 10:00 a.m. | Tours of Seminary Ridge Museum and visits to the cupola |
| 11:30 a.m. | Lunch (vegetarian option available) |
| 12:30 p.m. | Lecture: "Gettysburg Religion: Pursuing Faith in a Small Town on the Eve of the Civil War" Stephen Longenecker |
| 1:15 p.m. | Travel to Marsh Creek meetinghouse |
| 1:30 p.m. |
Lecture: "Conscientious Objection in Civil War Adams County"
Roger Heller |
| 2:15 p.m. | Closing comments by Stephen Longenecker |
Cost is $30, which includes museum admission, refreshments, lunch, and presentations. Reservations are required by April 8.
Friday, April 10, 2015 • 8:30 am to 2:30 pm • Susquehanna Room, Myer Hall
DURNBAUGH SEMINAR
How a Maverick Amish Group Impacted Federal Hate Crimes
The seminar will explore the motivation behind the Amish beard cutting attacks in Ohio in 2011 and the subsequent federal prosecution and trial of sixteen “Amish” defendants. Presenters will trace the legal proceedings and the reversal of the hate crime convictions. They will explain how this case will influence interpretation of federal hate crimes motivated by religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and country of origin. An informal format will allow ample opportunity for discussion.
| 8:30 a.m. | Gathering and Introduction |
| 8:45 a.m. | "The Bergholz Story: The Community, the Attacks, and the Trial" --Donald Kraybill |
| 9:30 a.m. | Inside the Bergholz Community: A Conversation with Johnny Mast |
| 10:30 a.m. | Break |
| 11:00 a.m. | The Investigation: A Conversation with Detective Joe Mullet |
| 11:45 a.m. | Lunch |
| 12:45 p.m. | Keynote Address: "Amish on the Cutting Edge: Hate Crimes, Interstate Commerce, and the Unlikely Case of U.S. v. Mullet" --Kyle Kopko |
| 1:30 p.m. | Discussion with Kyle Kopko |
| 2:00 p.m. | Wrap-up panel with program participants and Attorney Larry Etzweiler |
| 2:30 p.m. | Dismissal |
Program Participants
Larry Etzweiler is a retired attorney whose career in the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office was significantly devoted to prosecuting criminal cases and law enforcement. He received his law degree from Rutgers-Camden School of Law in 1975 and was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1976.
Kyle Kopko is an assistant professor of political science and director of the pre-law program at Elizabethtown College. Kopko’s research on judicial behavior and constitutional law has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals including Election Law Journal, Judicature, and Justice System Journal. He received a Ph.D. in political science from The Ohio State University.
Donald Kraybill is senior fellow at the Young Center of Elizabethtown College. He assisted the prosecutors and served as an expert witness at the federal trial for the Bergholz defendants. Kraybill is the author of numerous books on Amish society including, most recently, Renegade Amish: Hate Crimes, Beard Cutting, and the Trial of the Bergholz Barbers (Johns Hopkins, 2014).
Johnny Mast is a former member of the Bergholz community who was an eyewitness to many of the events preceding and during the beard-cutting attacks. He also served as a witness for the prosecution at the federal trial in Cleveland.
Joe Mullet is a detective in the Holmes County Sheriff’s Department. He grew up in the Amish community of Holmes County, Ohio, and is fluent in Pennsylvania Dutch. Detective Mullet participated in the investigation and prosecution of the Bergholz defendants. He was the first officer to respond on the scene after the late-night beard cutting attack in Holmes County.
********
Cost for the seminar is $10, which includes lunch. Reservations are required by March 26. Parking will be available on Cedar Street and in the Elizabethtown Church of the Brethren parking lot. To locate Myer Hall on the college campus, see the campus map.
Thursday, April 9, 2015 • 5:30 pm • Leffler Chapel and Performance Center
ANNUAL YOUNG CENTER BANQUET
* Please note the change of venue and format for this event *
The annual Young Center gathering gives faculty, staff, students, church leaders, and other friends of the Young Center the opportunity to socialize and learn about the Center’s activities and programs. This year, the gathering will celebrate the retirement of Young Center senior fellow Donald B. Kraybill. The format will be a reception with heavy hors d'oeuvres.
The registration deadline for the banquet has passed. Interested persons are invited to attend the Durnbaugh Lecture (see below), which does not require reservations.
Thursday, April 9, 2015 • 7:00 pm • Leffler Chapel and Performance Center
DURNBAUGH LECTURE
The Young Center: From Swamp to International Center of Scholarship
* Please note the change of venue and start time for this event *
Donald Fitzkee will emcee the program, which celebrates the retirement of Donald Kraybill. The program will begin with an update on Young Center activities by director Jeff Bach followed by relfections by several of Kraybill’s former students and colleagues. Kraybill will then reflect on his teaching and work at Elizabethtown College and trace the Young Center’s birth, growth, and contributions to the world of Anabaptist and Pietist studies.
Donald B. Kraybill, Distinguished College Professor and senior fellow at the Young Center, is the author, coauthor, or editor of numerous journal articles and books, including The Amish and Renegade Amish: Beard Cutting, Hate Crimes, and the Trial of the Bergholz Barbers , both published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
Thursday, March 12, 2015 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Amish in Focus: Photos and Stories
Professional photographer Dennis Hughes of East Petersburg, Pa., has been taking pictures of the Amish and other Plain groups since 1986. His 18,000 wide-ranging images, taken in various counties in Pennsylvania and other states, illustrate his sensitivity and respect for Amish people and their way of life. Hughes’s photographs have appeared in various publications, including those of Young Center scholars. He will show some of his photos and tell behind-the-scene stories related to them.
A reception honoring Hughes for the generous contribution of his slides to the Hess Archives and Special Collections will follow the program.
Thursday, January 29, 2015 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Eberhard Bethge and the Myth of Bonheoffer the Assassin: Recovering a Consistent Christ-Centered Ethic in "a World Full of Nazis"
Perhaps the most commonly known fact about Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life is that he was executed for being involved in efforts to kill Hitler. But what if this “fact” is actually a myth? What if, in fact, he was executed for saving the lives of Jews and being a conscientious objector? What if the life and teachings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer from 1932 to 1945 were actually a consistent expression of the love of neighbors and enemies that is articulated in his famous book, Discipleship? In this lecture, Mark Thiessen Nation, professor of theology at Eastern Mennonite Seminary and coauthor of Bonhoeffer the Assassin?: Challenging the Myth, Recovering His Call to Peacemaking (Baker Academic Press, 2013), will argue that the latter is true, thus challenging the impressions left by Bonhoeffer’s influential biographer and friend Eberhard Bethge. Following Nation’s lecture, Brian Newsome, professor of history at Elizabethtown College, will give a response. Newsome’s specialties are modern history in Europe and northern Africa.
Thursday, November 20, 2014 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE AND DISCUSSION
Religion and Terror in Northeastern Nigeria: Boko Haram, Christians, and Modern Muslims
Musa Mambula, Young Center Fellow in Spring 2007 and minister and educator in Nigeria, will discuss Boko Haram’s recent attacks and takeover of the headquarters of the Church of the Brethren (EYN) and Kulp Bible College in Nigeria. Brian Newsome, professor of history at Elizabethtown College, will respond. The event is cosponsored by the Young Center and the Center for Global Understanding and Peacebuilding.
Thursday, November 13, 2014 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
SNOWDEN LECTURE
Heroes and Heretics: Pietists and Anabaptists in the Evangelical Imagination
American evangelicals have both revered and condemned the Pietist and Anabaptist traditions. The view they have taken has often depended on the historical context and the tensions within the evangelical subculture at the time. Jared Burkholder will examine several episodes in historical memory and what they say about all three groups and their places on the landscape of American society.
Burkholder is professor of history at Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana, where he also directs the Office of Faith, Learning, and Scholarship. Burkholder's research interests are in American religious history with an emphasis on Pietism, Anabaptism, and evangelicalism. He is coeditor of The Activist Impulse: Essays on the intersection of Anabaptism and Evangelicalism (Wipf & Stock, 2012) and A Cord of Many Strands: Seventy-Five years of Christian Higher Education at Grace College and Theological Seminary (BMH, forthcoming).
Tuesday, October 21, 2014 • 7:30 pm • Gibble Auditorium, Esbenshade Hall
(For the location of Esbenshade Hall, see #15 on the campus map.)
LECTURE
The Amish and Federal Hate Crimes
Donald B. Kraybill and an Amish guest will discuss the Ohio beard-cutting attacks and their impact on national hate crime laws. Following the talk and a question-and-answer period, copies of Kraybill's newly released book, Renegade Amish: Beard Cutting, Hate Crimes, and the Trial of the Bergholz Barbers, will be available for sale and signing.
Kraybill, Distinguished College Professor and Senior Fellow at the Young Center, is the author or editor of numerous journal articles and books, including The Amish (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013).
Thursday, October 2, 2014 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Looking Backward on a Career: How Growing Up Mennonite Prepared Me for Leadership
Shirley Hershey Showalter was the first woman college president of Goshen College, first Mennonite college president to be given a leadership award by the Knight Foundation, and first person in her family to go to college. Like most Mennonites, she has received strong messages about the dangers of pride and humility. Few, if any, Mennonite women of her generation were taught to “lean in.” In this talk, Showalter will reflect on how she dealt with conflicting aspirations in the writing of her award-winning memoir, Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World. Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing following the talk.
Showalter grew up on a Mennonite family farm near Lititz, Pennsylvania. She was named the first woman president of Goshen College in Indiana, a position she held from 1996 to 2004. After six years as an executive at the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan, she became a full-time writer. Her memoir was named a Best Spiritual Book of 2013 by Spirituality & Practice.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
BROWN BOOK AWARD LECTURE
German Pietists as Translators in An Introduction to German Pietism
Pietism was a late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Protestant movement that encouraged spiritual transformation and new birth. Convinced that Germans suffered from a lack of models of true Christian piety, Pietists such as Gottfried Arnold and Gerhard Tersteegen turned to the Catholic mystics from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, translating their writings from Latin and French into German. Doug Shantz will examine their strategies as translators, and their effort to use the past to inspire new spiritual vitality and engagement in the present. Copies of Shantz's book will be available for sale and signing after the talk.
Shantz is professor of Christian thought at the University of Calgary, where his courses include “Medieval and Reformation Christianity,” “Radical Protestantism in Early Modern Germany,” “Spiritual Autobiography in the Modern Age,” and “Christianity in the Developing World.” The author or editor of several books including A Companion to German Pietism (Brill, forthcoming), Shantz focuses his writing and research on Protestant reform movements in early modern Germany, especially German Pietism. His recent book, An Introduction to German Pietism: Protestant Renewal at the Dawn of Modern Europe (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), was awarded the Brown Book Award for 2014. Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing following the talk.
.The Dale Brown Book Award is given annually to the book chosen by a panel of independent judges for making outstanding contributions to the field of Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. It is named in honor of Church of the Brethren theologian and long-time peace worker Dale W. Brown.
Friday, June 6, 2014 • 7:00 pm • Hoover 110
LECTURE
Spiritual Manifestations: The Union of Shaker Art and Vision
Eleanor Potter and other Shaker women created drawings and messages in the 1800s during a time when Shaker communities experienced many visionary spiritual events. Jane Crosthwaite will discuss the importance of these drawings and messages and share illustrations from Eleanor Potter’s work.
Crosthwaite is professor of religion at Mount Holyoke College. She has taught courses on women in religion, American religious history, and ethics as well as advanced seminars on the Shakers. She is the author of The Shaker Spiritual Notices of Eleanor Potter (Richard W. Couper Press, 2013).
June 5–7, 2014
CONFERENCE
Privileged Speech: Prophecy, Pietism, and Beyond
Speaking from divine inspiration has been a claim among numerous minority groups in Christianity throughout the early modern period and beyond, especially in the Anabaptist movement, the Pietist movement, and the evangelical awakening. This study conference offers a forum for examining the claims and content of inspiration, the status of the speakers, and the reception of prophetic speech.
Friday, April 4, 2014 • 10:00 am to 2:00 pm • The KAV, Brossman Commons
DURNBAUGH SEMINAR
Cloth, Commerce, and Collecting
In this hands-on session led by Janneken Smucker, participants will hone their skills in identifying characteristics of Amish quilts, consider the relationship of these objects to consumer culture, and analyze material culture including quilt-related objects made for the consumer market. Attendees are invited to bring a quilt for comment by Smucker.
The March 20 registration deadline for the seminar has passed, but interested persons are invited to attend Smucker's Thursday evening lecture, which is open to the public and does not require reservations.
Smucker is an assistant professor of history at West Chester University and the author of numerous works on Amish quilts, including Amish Quilts: Crafting an American Icon (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). She serves on the board of the national nonprofit Quilt Alliance.
Thursday, April 3, 2014 • 7:30 pm
Elizabethtown Church of the Brethren
DURNBAUGH LECTURE
Abstract Art or Country Craft? The Quilts of the Amish
In 1997, art critic Robert Hughes called Amish quilts “America’s first abstract art.” At the same time, these country crafts can be found in “Amish country,” where they help attract tourists eager to take home a souvenir of their visit. Janneken Smucker will explore these and other paradoxes of this material manifestation of Amish culture.
Smucker is an assistant professor of history at West Chester University and the author of numerous works on Amish quilts, including Amish Quilts: Crafting an American Icon (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). She serves on the board of the national nonprofit Quilt Alliance.
Thursday, April 3, 2014 • 6:00 pm • Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall
ANNUAL YOUNG CENTER BANQUET
The annual Young Center dinner gives faculty, staff, students, church leaders, and other friends of the Young Center the opportunity to socialize and learn about the Center’s activities and programs.
A reception for Durnbaugh Lecturer Janneken Smucker will be held at 5:30, preceding the dinner.
The March 20 registration deadline for the banquet has passed. Interested persons are invited to attend Janneken Smucker's 7:30 lecture (see below), which is open to the public and does not require reservations.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014 • 7:30 pm • Gibble Auditorium, Esbenshade Hall
LECTURE
9/11 and the Heroes of Flight 93
Mal Fuller was an air traffic control watch supervisor at Pittsburgh International Airport and participated in the shutdown of the nation's airspace after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. In his talk, Fuller discusses the events of 9/11, the heroes of Flight 93, and the crash outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Fuller, now retired, is a member of the board of directors of Friends of Flight 93 National Memorial.
This event is sponsored by the Center for Global Understanding and Peacebuilding, the Bowers Writers House, and the Young Center.
Biographies of Passengers and Crew of Flight 93
Thursday, March 20, 2014 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
KREIDER LECTURE
Why Have the Amish Survived? A Synthesis
The persistence of the Amish has attracted scholars’ attention for over 70 years. Those working in the social sciences and humanities have published hundreds of studies that contribute in some small way to answering the question: Why have the Amish survived? Cory Anderson has synthesized all known academic Amish-focused publications since 1942 and will present a theory that integrates the diverse foci of this research question.
Anderson is completing a Ph.D. in rural sociology at Ohio State University. His research focuses broadly on the plain Anabaptists with a particular focus on Amish-Mennonites. He is a founding co-editor of the new periodical Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies.
Thursday, February 27, 2014 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Narrating the Harrowing Journey of Four Hutterites During the Great War
Duane Stoltzfus will present highlights of the story of four Hutterite men who were chained in the dungeon at Alcatraz when they refused to perform military service during World War I. The experiences of David, Joseph, and Michael Hofer, and of a brother-in-law, Jacob Wipf, came to be regarded as exhibit A among accounts of prisoner abuse during the war. Two of the Hofer brothers died at Fort Leavenworth in 1918. Stoltzfus will also describe the research process that led to his recent book, Pacifists in Chains, including visits with descendants of the four men and a tour of the basement cells at Alcatraz.Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing after the talk.
Stoltzfus is professor of communication at Goshen College and copy editor for The Mennonite Quarterly Review. He formerly worked as a staff editor at The New York Times.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Desert Safaris for Palestinian-Israeli Reconciliation
As a Palestinian Christian, Salim Munayer learned about reconciliation from his father. Twenty years ago he took his first group of Israeli and Palestinian Christians on a camelback safari in the desert. His ministry of peacemaking and reconciliation flows out of a lifetime of learning. In this talk, Munayer will discuss his life experiences and his ministry.
Munayer is the founder and director of Musalaha Ministry of Reconciliation in Jerusalem, a nonprofit organization promoting reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, and a professor of theology at Bethlehem Bible College.
Thursday, February 20, 2014 • 7:30 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
KREIDER LECTURE
Amish Women's Literacies
Vi Dutcher will discuss the literacy practices of women members of a particular northeastern Ohio Amish community. Whether she is writing as a scribe for a newspaper column, making cards to send to shut-ins, handing down time-honored recipes to younger women, contributing to a circle letter, writing poetry for friends and family, or writing a letter to The Blackboard Bulletin editor in order to impart wisdom to a young Amish woman teaching school, a northeastern Ohio Amish woman practices literacy that is both public and private and always sacred. These women use literacy tools that they have both inherited and selected, shaping them to meet their needs while, in turn, meeting church-appointed communal needs.
Dutcher is professor of rhetoric and composition and director of the writing program at Eastern Mennonite University.