Research
The research agenda of the Center for Global Christianity is driven by the interests of the people who are part of its community. Reports about their ongoing work will be posted from time to time.
Digital Humanities: Mapping Christianity in China
On November 19-21, 2020, the Center for Global Christianity and Mission convened a workshop on “Mapping Christianity in China, 1550-1950.” The Center launched the China Historical Christian Database (CHCD) project in 2018 to map where every Christian church, school, hospital, monastery, orphanage, publishing house, and the like were located in China between 1550 and 1950. The project also seeks to identify who worked inside those buildings, both foreigners and Chinese. The goal is to build a tool that can create spatial maps of when and where Christians were located in China, and a resource that can generate social network maps... More
Mission Records as Method: Towards a Microhistory of Global China
A Virtual Workshop with Dr. Eugenio Menegon Thursday, July 30, 2020 Eastern Time (US and Canada) 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM Reading: https://www.academia.edu/42008729/_Telescope_and_Microscope._A_micro-historical_approach_to_global_China_in_the_eighteenth_century_2019_ This event is part of the 2020 summer events hosted by the Humanities Unbounded MicroWorlds Lab at Duke University. The MicroWorlds Lab is a collaborative humanities research project with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. We have two years' experience in organizing a wide range of workshops and other activities in support of researchers learning and developing their skills in microhistorical analysis. We support researchers at all levels—from undergraduate to mature scholars—and in a variety of disciplines. Please find more information about our lab at: https://sites.duke.edu/microworldslab/. This... More
Associate Director Daryl Ireland’s New Book on Chinese Revivalism
Dr. Daryl Ireland, Associate Director of the CGCM and Research Assistant Professor of Mission, has written a new book on revivalist Christianity in 20th-century China entitled John Song: Modern Chinese Christianity and the Making of a New Man (Baylor University Press, 2020). This work is now available for pre-order, and will be available in August 2020. See Chloe Starr's praise of Ireland's work and learn of a discount code for purchasing the book here. Congratulations to Dr. Ireland for this great achievement!
Film Reveals Practice of “Quarantined Faith” in Rome, Italy
Dr. Jenn Lindsay has produced a film, Quarantined Faith: Rome, Religion and Coronavirus, documenting the story of quarantined Easter, Passover, and Ramadan this past spring. The film includes interviews with Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, and Jewish religious leaders who described how their communities kept their traditions in new ways during the pandemic. Lindsay's goal is to show how these people "maintain resilience and connectedness, and how the crisis has called them to draw more deeply on their spiritual resources." Lindsay received her PhD from Boston University's Graduate Division of Religious Studies. View her documentary here, and read her interview with Bostonia magazine here.
Peggy Bendroth’s Work on Mid-20th Century US Women
Dr. Peggy Bendroth, CGCM visiting researcher, is working on a project entitled "Not Feminists, But..." This research focuses on US mainline Protestant women from the 1920s and 1970s, between women's suffrage and the beginning of second-wave feminism. Watch her describe the surprises she has encountered along the way in this short video.