Cambridge Center for Christianity Worldwide Seminar, 17 March 2026

By gesl February 24th, 2026 in CCCW

Intricate Entanglements: A Missionary Collection of Spiritual Artifacts from West Africa at the Übersee-Museum Bremen

Professor Birgit Meyer, Utrecht University

When: Tuesday 17 March 2026, 4.00–5.30pm GMT

Where: Lecture Room 7, Faculty of Divinity & Online

The starting point for this lecture is my work in a collaborative, international research project – the Legba-Dzoka Project – which investigates the origin, significance and future of a missionary collection from the Ewe-speaking region (now south-east Ghana and south Togo) held at the Übersee-Museum Bremen. This collection, consisting largely of spiritually charged artefacts – dzokawo and legbawo – was given to the museum by Carl Spiess, a missionary with the North German Mission, around 1900. I understand these artefacts as time capsules that contain complex connections between mission, museum, colonialism and conversion and can thus be interrogated as witnesses to this complex history of interdependence. In my lecture, I will a) trace the history of the collection's origins in the missionary-colonial context, b) critically examine the Eurocentric attribution of terms such as ‘idol’, ‘fetish’ or ‘magic,’ c) develop an alternative understanding of the artefacts in the collection as carriers of power, which understands them as an expression of the indigenous Ewe knowledge system, and d) discuss multiple positions formulated vis-a-vis the possibility and desirability of a return of the items in the collection to Ghana and/or Togo, ranging from downright rejection in the name of “idolatry”, to recognition as valuable cultural assets and forms of heritage, to an their embracement as spiritual forces. Arguing that these positions evolve around the secular-religious boundary, I will pay special attention to the notion of heritage, which is situated at the core of that boundary.

Professor Birgit Meyer (PhD, 1995) is Professor of Religious Studies at Utrecht University. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she studies religion from a material and postcolonial angle. She directs the research program Religious Matters in an Entangled World and co-directs the collaborative Legba-Dzoka research project.

Download a flyer here.

Cambridge Center for Christianity Worldwide Seminar, 3 March 2026

By gesl February 24th, 2026 in CCCW

A Dialogue through Time: Revisiting the Cambridge Seven in Contemporary China

Dr John Usher, International School of Qingdao in Shandong, China

When: Tuesday 3 March 2026, 4.00–5.30pm GMT

Where: Lecture Room7, Faculty of Divinity & Online

Abstract: History is a dialogue between the subjects and the interpreters, shaped over time as new evidence, circumstances and perspectives emerge. One hundred and forty years ago, seven young men associated with Cambridge set sail for China, "Never before," The Nonconformist effused, "probably, in the history of missions has so unique a band set out to labour in the foreign field..."

This moment coincided with the height of the Western missionary movement and the British Empire, when China's so-called "open century" came at the cost of Chinese sovereignty. The China of a century and a half ago is almost unrecognisable from the China of today. This paper offers a reflective dialogue with the Cambridge Seven, grounded in personal experience and informed by historical and missiological analysis, comparing and contrasting contemporary China with the China of the late Qing, early Republic and Warlord Era.

Dr John Usher teaches at the International School of Qingdao, China. He is the author of Cecil Polhill: Missionary, Gentleman and Revivalist Vol.1, 1860-1914 (Brill, 2020), and the forthcoming Cecil Polhill: Missionary, Gentleman and Revivalist Vol.2, 1914-1938. His research combines historical and missiological analysis with reflective engagement shaped by long-term experience in contemporary China.

Download a flyer here.