Program

(13:30 – 14:00 UTC)

• Riddick Weber, Conference Chair
• Bryon Grigsby, President of Moravian College and Moravian Theological Seminary
• Paul Peucker, Director and Archivist of Moravian Archives, Bethlehem
• Nola Reed Knouse, Director of Moravian Music Foundation
• Susan Ellis, Director of Moravian Historical Society
• Julie Ann Lambert, Production Coordinator of Penn State University Press
• Kathryn Yahner, Acquisitions Editor of Penn State University Press
• Jeffrey Long, Conference Administrator

(14:00 – 15:30 UTC)

When the Moravians Returned to Georgia: A Forgotten Mission During the American Revolution

Jon Sensbach, University of Florida

The Moravian settlement in Georgia between 1735-1740 is the founding cornerstone of the Renewed Unity’s history in North America. Virtually unknown is that the Moravians returned to Georgia in 1775 for a mission to enslaved Africans on rice plantations outside Savannah. Previously unused diaries and letters in Herrnhut reveal the mission’s brief flourishing and sudden collapse during the war of independence. The documents shine bright light on African cultures in revolutionary Georgia.

(17:00 – 19:00 UTC)

“Obedient subjects” “mingling in worldly affairs”? Social and Political Entanglements of Moravian Communities in the Transatlantic World

• Jessica Cronshagen (Panel Organizer), Oldenburg University, “Necessary Presents”: Moravian Missionaries, British Privateers and Local Colonial Rulers in late 18th -Century South America
• Frank Marquardt, Oldenburg University, Avoiding Contraband and Privateers? Moravian networks of trust in the Caribbean colonial setting of the 18th century
• Jonas Schwiertz, Oldenburg University, “Agitator” and “Trouble Maker”: The Expulsion of Gottlob Fischer from the Moravian Church

• Grant McAllister, Wake Forest University, Odes to the Schreiber Collegium: a Textual Communion
• Stephanie McCormick-Goodhart, Independent Scholar, Moravian Footsteps: Single Sister, Missing Persons and Bastardy Bonds

(23:00 – 00:00 UTC)

(12:30 – 14:00 UTC)

Singing Box 331:  Re-Sounding Eighteenth-Century Mohican Hymns from the Moravian Archives

• Sarah Eyerly, Florida State University
• Rachel Wheeler, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis

(14:30 – 16:00 UTC)

• Nicole Crabbe, Moravian Archives, Winston-Salem, My Dear Miss Fries: The Correspondence of Archivist Adelaide Fries, 1911-1949
• Rowena McClinton, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Early Nineteenth Century Voices of Cherokee Converts, Second Principal Chief Charles Renatus Hicks and Margaret Scott Vann Crutchfield: Sharing Their Concerns with Moravian Missionaries about the Cherokee Land Base

• Stewart Carter, Wake Forest University, Whatever Happened to Julius Leinbach’s Cornet?
• John Watson, Independent Scholar, A Moravian Piano Gains a Voice and Speaks About Its Mid-18th Century Origins
• Riddick Weber, Moravian Theological Seminary, Brother Bowles and the Builders in the Basement

(16:00 – 17:30 UTC)

Introducing Recent Research or Work in Progress on Moravian History

Join us for a History roundtable session, where participants are encouraged to share their recent research findings or work in progress. Not quite ready to present, but interested in new projects? Please join us. Each participant will have up to five minutes to speak about their work, with the idea that attendees will have the opportunity to follow up with each thereafter.

Introducing Recent Research or Work in Progress on Moravian Music

Join us for a Music roundtable session, where participants are encouraged to share their recent research findings or work in progress. Not quite ready to present, but interested in new projects? Please join us. Each participant will have up to five minutes to speak about their work, with the idea that attendees will have the opportunity to follow up with each thereafter.

(17:30 – 19:00 UTC)

• Christoph Beck, Independent Scholar, Sexual Counseling and Pastoral Care: Peter Swertner’s essay about the nocturnal seminal flow (1779)
• Pieter Boon, University of the Free State, South Africa, Self-Sacrificing Ministry or Fundraiser? Moravian Ministry to South Africa’s Leprosy Institution in the 19th Century
• Stephen McGeary, Florida Atlantic University, Fanaticism and Funding: Obeah Acts in Jamaican Moravian Missionary Communities, 1834-1850

• Alice Caldwell, University of Bridgeport, What Lutherans (and Other Denominations) Can Learn from the Moravian Lovefeast
• Donna Rothrock, Salem College, The Salem Band at 250

(23:00 – 00:00 UTC)

(12:30 – 14:00 UTC)

• Jared Burkholder, Grace College, Digging out the Well: Herrnhut in the Pentecostal Imagination
• Chaz Snider, Calvary Moravian Church, Bonhoeffer a Bohemian Brethren? Moravian Influence in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Jill Vogt, Moravian Church, Herrnhut, The Readings for Holy Week: History, Practice, and Spiritual Relevance

• Claudia Mai, Unity Archives, Herrnhut, Stammbäume: Allegorical Representations of Moravian Congregations as an Archival Object and Source
• Wilson Nkumba, Teofilo Kisanji University, The Beginning of the Moravian Church in Western Tanzania
• Lorraine Parsons, Moravian Archives, London, Digitisation of the Lantern Slides of Moravian Missions

(14:00 – 15:30 UTC)

Medical Knowledge, the Church, and a Chapel: Moravians and Global Connections, 1750-1970

• Heikki Lempa (Panel Organizer), Moravian College, Moravian Medical Knowledge in a Global Context: The Case of Christian Oldendorp, 1721-1787
• Felicity Jensz, University of Münster, Moravian Church in the Aftermath of WWI: Global Connections
• Jenna Gibbs, Florida International University, Multi-Racial Culture and the Challenge of Apartheid: The Moravian Chapel in District Six, Cape Town, 1800-1966

• Devandré Boonzaaier, University of Fort Hare, The Moravian Music Heritage in South Africa
• Tom Gordon, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Christian Ignatius LaTrobe in Labrador
• Mark Turner, Memorial University, The Transmission of the Moravian Labrador Inuit Wind Tradition After 1959

(16:00 – 17:00 UTC)

Legacies of David Cranz’s ‘Historie von Grönland’ (1765)

Introductory Remarks: Scott Gordon
Reactions: Christina Petterson and Felicity Jensz, Editors

(17:00 – 19:00 UTC)

The Moravians and Eighteenth-Century Politics

• Christina Petterson (Panel Organizer), Australian National University
• Josef Köstlbauer, University of Bremen, Subjects, Serfs, and Slaves: Semantics and Practices of Dependence
• Paul Peucker, Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Zinzendorf on Church and State
• Benjamin Pietrenka, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Bodies of Dissimilarity: Transporting Moravian Notions of Equality to the New World

• David Blum, Moravian Music Foundation, Beethoven among the Moravians
• Jewel Smith, University of Cincinnati, The Van Vleck Sisters: Dynamic Moravian Musical Women

(23:00 – 00:00 UTC)

(13:30 – 15:30 UTC)

Brothers and Sisters: Moravian Identity and Community within Eighteenth-Century Protestantism

• Lennart Gard, Freie Universität Berlin, “Beloved Brother”, “Angelic Sister”: Religious Semantics of ‘Brother’ and ‘Sister’ in Early Eighteenth-Century Protestantism
• Alexander Schunka (Panel Organizer), Freie Universität Berlin, Brethren’s Commons: Resource Management and Community Building in the Early Years of Moravian Bethlehem
• Michael Leemann, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, The Limits of Spiritual Kinship: Race and Religion in the Moravian Mission to the Danish West Indies, 1750–1770

New Perspectives on Moravian Material Culture

• Laurence Libin, Metropolitan Museum of Art (retired), Three Spinets from David Tannenberg’s Workshop
• Christopher Malone, Winterthur, Within and Without: Strangers in a Communal World
• Mark Turdo, Museum of the American Revolution, The Best Mode: Moravian Mission Material Culture
• Scott Gordon (Panel Organizer), Lehigh University, The Puzzle of Signatures

(16:00 – 17:00 UTC)

Moravian Soundscapes: A Sonic History of the Moravian Missions in Early Pennsylvania

Author: Sarah Eyerly

• Tanya Kevorkian, Millersville University
• David Blum, Moravian Music Foundation
• Rachel Wheeler, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis

(17:00 – 18:30 UTC)

Beethoven in Bethlehem

presented by Moravian Music Foundation
Introduction by Gwyneth Michel, Assistant Director

• Trio for Strings No. 2 in D minor … Moravian composer John Antes (1740-1811)
  the first chamber music composed by an American; composed while Antes was a missionary in Egypt.
• Symphony No. 4 in Bb major … Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
  arranged for flute, violin, cello, and piano by Hummel; found in the Philharmonic Society of Bethlehem collection.
  • Nora Suggs, flute
  • Rebecca Brown and Mary Ogletree, violins
  • Elizabeth Mendoza, cello
  • Martha Schrempel, piano

This is the 250th year of the birth of Beethoven, and so this concert honors “Beethoven in Bethlehem” by using a major work found in the Bethlehem collections.

(18:30 – 19:30 UTC)

(14:00 – 15:30 UTC)

• Craig Atwood, Moravian Theological Seminary, Confronting or Avoiding the Challenges of American Culture Since 1957? An Examination of the Synods of the Northern Province
• Peter Vogt, Moravian Church, Herrnhut, The Victorious Lamb: History, Iconography, and Theology of the Moravian Seal
• Fabian Zubia-Schultheis, Biblioteca Nacional de Argentina, The Influence of the Brüdergemeindekolonie Sarepta Among the German Protestant Colonies of the Volga

• Christina Ekström, University of Gothenburg, Scandinavian Perspectives on Women’s Musicking within the Moravian Church
• Nola Reed Knouse, Moravian Music Foundation, A Moravian Music Timeline

(16:00 – 17:00 UTC)

Center for Moravian Studies presentation
‘David A. Schattschneider Award of Merit’

(17:00 – 18:30 UTC)

Closing Remarks
Riddick Weber, Conference Chair

Keynote Lecture
Introduction and Moderator: Susan Ellis, Moravian Historical Society

Conversion and Conflict: Christian Ignatius Latrobe Visits South Africa, 1807-1816

presented by Moravian Historical Society
Jenna Gibbs, Florida International University

In his Journal of a Visit to South Africa in 1815 and 1816, published shortly after his return from South Africa to Great Britain, Christian Ignatius Latrobe wrote of the protection and expansion of the Moravian missions in the Western Cape, the dire effects of imperial expansion on indigenous people, and their exploitation through the newly installed British governor’s edicts, the “Caledon Code.” Christian was openly critical of the Caledon Code and its harsh work hours, imperial “passes” without which Khoisan people could not move about freely, and their near slave-like conditions of labor.  He accompanied his critique of imperial policy with antipathy toward slavery and the slave trade.  Christian’s journal reveals how evangelical outreach was deeply — if complicatedly — entwined with Enlightenment discourse and praxis: on slavery and enslaved peoples’ treatment, ethnographic observation, and indigenous claims to land and civic rights.