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

我的研究将调查二十世纪新教信仰愈合运动称为犹太复国主义的历史。它起源于美国中西部以白人为主的伊利诺伊州锡安镇，横跨大西洋，成为对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。在绘制这个鲜为人知的故事的过程中，我的研究旨在为20世纪基督教在非洲的戏剧性扩张提供一个新的视角。二十世纪，基督教从欧洲和北美向非洲的转移，受到宗教研究、历史和人类学学者的广泛评论。许多解释强调了区域的作用，特定大陆的因素在非洲基督教的发展。学者们指出了基督教在非洲民族主义运动中的突出作用，以及它与非洲本土宇宙观的共鸣。与这些本地化的解释相比，我的研究将开创一种跨国方法来研究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与全球不同地区之间的联系发生的。为了做到这一点，我将使用“治愈帝国”的概念来探索锡安，伊利诺伊州和南非之间犹太复国主义信仰治疗实践的动态翻译。特别是，我将集中讨论在这些不同的地理位置之间进行的频繁争论。这种跨越地理、文化和语言边界的宗教发展理论将强调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，同时也要注意破坏建立跨区域宗教社区努力的社会政治和宗教限制。我的方法在两个方面是新颖的。首先，长期以来，南非的犹太复国主义一直被视为一种地区性的宗教运动，与其起源于北美新教分离开来。我的比较方法将在南非和美国进行历史和民族志研究。我将寻求将这两种数据体带入彼此的批判性对话中，分析不同地点的犹太复国主义，将其作为单一现象的紧密相关组成部分。其次，关于犹太复国主义的历史学术研究很少，无论是在北美还是在南非。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，我的目的是阐明迄今为止不为人知的犹太复国主义起源的故事，作为19世纪晚期盎格鲁-撒克逊世界出现的一种信仰治愈运动，以及它传播到南非的复杂过程。通过设计一种跨国的、比较的方法来研究犹太复国主义——我的目标是适用于其他宗教运动——我将寻求在非洲和北美的宗教研究中发展我的智力领导力。通过与一位研究相关课题的资深同事建立师徒关系，以及与一个国际咨询小组建立跨学科合作，这些技能将得到加强。我将接受管理技巧和公众参与策略方面的培训。我的研究成果将通过高质量的研究成果（专著、同行评审文章和编辑卷）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人。这些活动将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，以及在剑桥思想节上的公开演讲。

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.