News of the extended network of faculty, alumni, students, visiting researchers, and mission partners is regularly updated, and some of the big ideas or major events in Global Christianity are covered in the CGCM News.
BU Undergrad Earns Prize for Work on China Historical Christian Database
Solomon Shuangyu Liang, a BU undergrad history major, has just received the Outstanding Student Researcher Award for his excellent work with the China Historical Christian Database. Liang has received 4 grants from the BU undergraduate research program (UROP) over his years at the university. Liang will also be helping to facilitate the workshop highlighting the capacities of the Database, which will take place on November 19-21, under the leadership of CGCM affiliates Dr. Daryl Ireland, Dr. Eugenio Menegon, and Alex Mayfield.
Read more about Liang's story here!
New Book: Making Christ Present in China
Congratulations to Dr. Michel Chambon, who has just published Making Christ Present in China: Actor Network Theory and the Anthropology of Christianity with Palgrave Macmillan. The work focuses on material culture and uses actor-network theory to investigate the development of Christianity in Nanping, China. Dr. Chambon, who graduated with a PhD in anthropology, was an affiliate of the CGCM while studying at BU.
Zimbabwean Gospel Music: Upcoming Presentation with Filmmaker Dr. Jim Ault
We are pleased to welcome award-winning documentary filmmaker Dr. Jim Ault, who will visit BU virtually to give a presentation on his new film, Machanic Manyeruke: The Life of Zimbabwe's Gospel Music Legend, on November 24. The presentation will take place from 12:30pm-1:45pm EST.
If you would like to attend Dr. Ault's presentation, please email Morgan Crago (mcrago@bu.edu) to request the Zoom link.
See a preview of the work below!
Jonathan Calvillo Interviewed on His Work on Faith & Ethnicity in Santa Ana
In October, Dr. Jonathan Calvillo's new book, The Saints of Santa Ana: Faith and Ethnicity in a Mexican Majority City, is coming out with Oxford University Press! In this audio interview, Calvillo explains how his experience of growing up as a child of Mexican immigrants and attending pentecostal churches first directed him to this field of research. In addition, he gives an overview of the chapters of the book, elaborates on his comparative findings on Catholics and evangelicals, and argues for why his work is important for the wider field of World Christianity.
After describing the surprises he uncovered in the historical side of his research, Calvillo closes with a reflection on the similarities between the religious practice of the immigrants of Santa Ana with those of Christians around the world. He urged that “if the Christian church in the US wants to remain intelligible to Christian churches in other parts of the world,” it must look to this “beautiful and wonderful resource in the immigrant communities within our borders.”
Workshop: Mapping Christianity in China, 1550-1950
Dr. Daryl Ireland, Dr. Eugenio Menegon, and Alex Mayfield are hosting a workshop entitled "Mapping Christianity in China, 1550-1950: Developing Relational and Geospatial Tools for the Study of Christianity in China," which will showcase their China Historical Christian Database. The database is a geo-spacial tool that allows scholars to see the interconnections between all kinds of Christian leaders, groups, and institutions in China across four centuries.
Check out the workshop program to see what is being highlighted each day. To register for the event, click here.
Watch CGCM PhD candidate Alex Mayfield describe the workings of the database in this video:
Andrew Barnes to Speak on the Christian Black Atlantic & Ethiopianism
Dr. Andrew Barnes, Professor of History at Arizona State University, will give a virtual lecture entitled "The Christian Black Atlantic: Orishatukeh Faduma and the Ethiopianist Appropriation of Evangelization through Poor Relief." The lecture will take place on Tuesday, October 20, from 2pm-3:15pm. If you would like to attend, please contact mcrago@bu.edu to request the Zoom link.
Dr. Barnes argues that many Europeans saw Africa's colonization as an exhibition of European racial ascendancy. African Christians saw Africa's subjugation as a demonstration of European technological superiority. If the latter was the case, then the path to Africa's liberation ran through the development of a competitive African technology.
Barnes will chronicle African Christians' turn to American-style industrial education, particularly the model developed by Booker T. Washington at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, as a vehicle for Christian regeneration in Africa. Over the period 1880-1920, African Christians, motivated by Ethiopianism and its conviction that Africans should be saved by other Africans, founded schools based upon the Tuskegee model.
Though the attempts by African Christians to create industrial education schools ultimately failed, Barnes will highlight the success of transatlantic black identity and Christian resurgence in Africa.
See the flier here.
Alumnae Receive Grant to Study “The Christian Home” in Global Protestant Thought
Calls for Contributions for Upcoming Publications in World Christianity
Dyron Daughrity of Pepperdine University is announcing a new 25-book series with Bloomsbury Academic called Christians in the City: Studies in Contemporary Global Christianity. He is currently looking for authors. Please contact him and see the flier if you are interested!
In addition, Routledge Publishing has an upcoming project titled The International Handbook of Sociology and Christianity. Dennis Hiebert of Providence University College is the series editor. See the call for contributions here!
Alumna Dr. Ruth Padilla DeBorst to Speak at Mission Conference
During October 15-17, Missão ALEF will be holding a virtual conference entitled "Igreja e Cidade: Vocação e Missão." One of the featured speakers is Dr. Ruth Padilla DeBorst ('16), CGCM alumna, presenting alongside other featured speakers--Mac Pier, Ed Stetzer, Samuel Escobar, and Viv Grigg.
See the conference promotional video below, and click here to register!
Dana Robert Featured in Interview Series on History as Christian Vocation
Dr. Mark Hutchinson, Professor of History at Alphacrucis College (Sydney, Australia), has recently hosted a series of podcasts on the practice of history as a Christian vocation. So far, the interviewees include Mark Noll, Tim Larsen, Beth Allison Barr, Rick Kennedy, and BU CGCM Director, Dana Robert.
In her contribution to the series, Robert describes the ways faith and church-related commitments have been at work throughout the course of her intellectual trajectory. In this autobiographical account, she describes first learning about the impact of race and national origin on religious affiliation as she grew up attending school in rural Louisiana. Moving into a discussion of her academic historical work, she describes her experiences as one of the few early women missiologists, her specific sense of calling in writing American Women in Mission, her work for the United Methodist Church, and other ways that faith and historical study have intersected in her life.