Mission, Gender, Emotion in a transkonfessional Perspective

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The growing global dimension in the historical research has also reached the field of Christian mission. The foundation of a network for the study of emotional practices in Jesuit and Protestant overseas missions from a gender perspective offers perfect opportunities to address three research desiderata in the German historiography. On the one hand, a still lacking gender history of the mission history will be promoted (1), on the other hand, the historiography of emotions will be extended beyond Europe in a global perspective (2), and thirdly, the non-European missions will be brought together across denominational boundaries via systematic questions (3). A strategic goal is to connect German-language research in the chosen topic area to international research and to initiate an exchange on an international level. A German-speaking 10-member network will be established, consisting of equal numbers of persons with Jesuit and Protestant research experience. Ulrike Strasser, who is designated as co-leader of the network, will serve as contact person to the U.S. research community. The planned five working meetings in Wolfenbüttel beginning in September 2022 should lead to a collaborative handbook publication. For the second meeting in June 2023, eight internationally renowned colleagues should be invited for an intensive exchange. To realize the demanding transconfessional dimension of the network research, the project will initially concentrate on Jesuit and Protestant missionaries of the 17th and 18th centuries. The temporal limitation and the focus on the Jesuits within the Catholic missions are to be understood against the background of the global dimension of this new missionary order, which allows a systematic comparative perspective with the global Protestant missions that only emerged in the late 17th century. Both missionary movements are among the self-declared most influential forces of a renewal within their denominations, which not only developed similar medial and emotional strategies with regard to the transfer of knowledge to Europe, but also approached their practices on the ground of competing mutual influence. A confessional comparative view will be realized by systematic questions, which will enable a synthesis of similarities and differences of confessional emotional practices and effects. Each of the planned thematic complexes will be supervised by a tandem consisting of one person with Jesuit and one with Protestant research experience. The publication of the handbook will take place in 2025.