Empire of Healing: South Africa, the United States and the Transatlantic Zionist Movement

我的研究将调查20世纪新教信仰治疗运动的历史，称为犹太复国主义。它起源于美国中西部主要由白色人组成的伊利诺伊州锡安镇，穿越大西洋，成为南非黑人社区最重要的影响之一-今天30%的南非黑人是犹太复国主义者。在绘制这个仍然鲜为人知的故事，我的研究旨在提供一个新的角度对戏剧性的20世纪基督教在非洲的扩张。基督教在世纪从欧洲和北美向非洲的转移，一直受到宗教学、历史学和人类学学者的广泛评论。许多解释强调了区域性的、大陆特有的因素在非洲基督教发展中的作用。学者们指出，基督教对非洲民族主义运动的重要性及其与非洲本土宇宙观的共鸣。通过对比这些本地化的解释，我的研究将开拓一个跨国的方法在南非的犹太复国主义。第一次绘制南非和美国之间犹太复国主义交流的历史，我将试图表明，基督教在非洲的快速增长是通过非洲和地球仪不同地区之间的联系发生的。为了做到这一点，我将使用一个“帝国的愈合”的概念来探讨锡安，伊利诺伊州和南非之间的犹太复国主义信仰愈合做法的动态翻译。特别是，我将集中在这些不同的地理位置之间进行的频繁的争论。这种跨越地理、文化和语言边界的宗教发展理论将突出民族国家在理解宗教个人、机构、实践和文本的运动方面的效用和局限性。我的方法将仔细研究陆地和海洋区域之间的联系，同时也要警惕那些破坏建立跨区域宗教社区努力的社会政治和宗教限制。首先，南非的犹太复国主义长期以来一直被视为一个地区性的宗教运动，脱离了它在北美新教的起源。我的比较方法将在南非和美国进行历史和人种学研究。我将试图把这两个数据主体相互进行批判性对话，分析犹太复国主义在其不同地点作为一个单一现象的紧密相关的组成部分。其次，几乎没有历史学者存在犹太复国主义，无论是在其北美和南非的背景。我的方法将是严格的历史，使用档案，印刷材料和口头传统在南非，美国和瑞典。通过这种方式，我的目标是照亮犹太复国主义的起源，作为一个信仰愈合运动出现在十九世纪后期的盎格鲁-撒克逊世界，以及它被传送到南非的复杂过程至今不为人知的故事。通过设计一个跨国的，比较犹太复国主义的方法-一个我的目标是适用于其他宗教运动-我将寻求发展我在非洲和北美宗教研究的智力领导。这些技能将通过我与研究相关主题的高级同事的指导关系以及与国际咨询小组建立跨学科合作来提高。我将接受管理技能和公众参与策略的培训。我的研究结果将通过高质量的研究成果（专著，同行评议的文章和编辑的卷）以及网络和公众参与活动传播给英国和国际上的学术和非学术受益者。这些活动包括在英国举办的国际研讨会、在南非和美国举办的公开展览以及在剑桥创意节上的公开演讲。

My research will investigate the history of a twentieth-century Protestant faith healing movement called Zionism. It originated in the town of Zion, Illinois, in the largely white Midwest of the USA, travelled across the Atlantic Ocean, and became one of the most important influences in black communities of South Africa - today 30% of black South Africans are Zionists. In charting this still little-known story, my research aims to provide a new perspective on the dramatic twentieth-century expansion of Christianity in Africa. The shift of Christianity from Europe and North America to Africa in the twentieth century has been widely commented upon by scholars in religious studies, history and anthropology. Many interpretations emphasized the role of regional, continent-specific factors in the growth of Christianity in Africa. Scholars have pointed to Christianity's saliency for African nationalist movements and its resonance with indigenous African cosmologies. By contrast to these localized interpretations, my research will pioneer a transnational approach to Zionism in South Africa. Charting for the first time the history of Zionist exchanges between South Africa and the USA, I will seek to show that Christianity's rapid growth in Africa occurred via linkages between Africa and different parts of the globe. In order to do this, I will use the notion of an 'Empire of Healing' to probe the dynamic translation of Zionist faith healing practices between Zion, Illinois and South Africa. In particular, I will focus upon the frequent arguments carried out between these disparate geographical sites. This theory of religious development occurring across geographic, cultural and linguistic borders will highlight both the utility and the limitations of the nation-state for understanding the movement of religious individuals, institutions, practices and texts. My approach will scrutinize links across terrestrial and oceanic regions, alert also to the socio-political and religious constraints that undermined efforts to build transregional religious communities.My method is novel in two respects. First, Zionism in South Africa has long been treated as a regional religious movement, detached from its origins in North American Protestantism. My comparative approach will conduct historical and ethnographic research in both South Africa and the United States. I will seek to bring these two bodies of data into critical dialogue with each other, analyzing Zionism in its different sites as tightly-related components of a single phenomenon. Second, little historical scholarship exists on Zionism, both in its North American and South African contexts. My approach will be rigorously historical, using archives, printed material and oral traditions in South Africa, the USA and Sweden. In this way, I aim to illuminate the hitherto-untold story of Zionism's origins as a faith healing movement emerging in the late nineteenth century Anglo-Saxon world, as well as the complex processes by which it was transmitted to South Africa. Through designing a transnational, comparative approach to Zionism - one which I aim to be applicable to other religious movements - I will seek to develop my intellectual leadership in the study of religion in Africa and North America. These skills will be enhanced by my mentoring relationship with a senior colleague researching related topics, and by building interdisciplinary collaborations with an international Advisory Group. I will undergo training in management skills and public engagement strategies. My findings will be disseminated to academic and non-academic beneficiaries in the UK and internationally by high quality research outputs (a monograph, peer-reviewed articles and an edited volume) and through network and public engagement activities. These will include an international workshop in the UK, public exhibitions in South Africa and the USA, and a public talk at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas.