Interdisciplinary Symposium

Cotton Mather’s Biblia Americana, the Early Enlightenment and the Rise of Pietism in America:
Historical and Intellectual Contexts in Transatlantic Perspective

Date: October 23-25, 2008, Universität Tübingen (Germany)

The editors of Cotton Mather’s Biblia Americana (c. 1693-1728), a massive unpublished commentary on the bible by one of New England’s leading Puritans, will convene an interdisciplinary symposium at the University of Tübingen (10/23-25/2008).

(See our website at www.bibliaamericana.gsu.edu and http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/

We invite scholars from around the world to discuss Mather, the Biblia Americana, and its contexts at the historical location of Tübingen’s castle. The aim of the symposium is to explore hitherto neglected lacunae in the historical and intellectual world of Cotton Mather and Puritan New England during the period of the early Enlightenment (c.1650-1750). How exactly were the contemporary philosophical, scientific, historical and exegetical discourses from Europe received across the Atlantic and in which ways did Mather engage with them in his ongoing interpretation of the scriptures that eventually cumulated in the Biblia Americana? What connections were there between the Pietist movement in Europe and the transformation of Puritanism in the British colonies, which then led to the Great Awakening? And what role did Mather play in the international network of Pietism as well as in reforming the faith of his fathers under the influence of the new currents in international Protestantism?

Proposals for 30-minutes presentations exploring any aspect of the following topics are particularly welcome:

(A)The historical and intellectual world of Cotton Mather and Puritan New England

(1) The impact of the Early Enlightenment philosophy and Newtonian science on Puritan
ism and its understanding of the bible
(2) The challenge of historical criticism: Puritan reactions to Hobbes, Fisher, Spinoza, Simon, LeClerc, Toland, Collins, Blount, Cudworth, and the Cambridge Platonists
(3) The changing hermeneutical methods of Puritan theologians: from typology, allegory, and the fourfold method to contextual criticism
(4) Puritan perspectives on the Church fathers, Rabbinical commentators and Jewish-Christian scholarship of the Renaissance
(5) Esotericism, magic beliefs and occult knowledge in New England during the Early Enlightenment
(6) The rise of American Pietism, and the connection to European Pietism, especially
to Francke’s Halle
(7) The ecumenical movement in New England
(8) From Cotton Mather to Jonathan Edwards: similarities and differences
(9) Constructions of gender, class, race, servitude, slavery, Native Americans in
theological perspective

B) Cotton Mather’s Biblia Americana:

(1) Mathers exegetical theory/practice and his reaction to the hermeneutical revolution
(2) Christian Hebraism in the Biblia: Rabbinic commentaries, Jewish-Christian scholarship, translations, adaptations, innovations
(3) The Church Fathers, Renaissance and Reformation scholarship in the Biblia
(4) Greek and Roman Classics in the Biblia
(5) The Problem of plagiarism, intellectual property, and use of sources in the Biblia
(6) Mather’s rhetoric and literary style in the Biblia
(7) Ecumenism and interreligious perspectives on Catholics, Jews, and Moslems
(8) Mather’s reactions to the political changes in New England after 1688
(9) Esotericism, magic occult knowledge in the Biblia
(10) Echoes of the witchcraft-crisis in the Biblia
(11) Apocalypticism and millennialism in the Biblia

Contributors of the best papers will be invited to submit their revised and expanded presentations for inclusion in a collection of essays to be published by a suitable academic press. Please submit proposals (in English) of 2 to 3 pages outlining your argument and its relevance to the symposium’s theme. Deadline: December 1, 2007

Send three (3) hard copies by surface mail or one by e-mail to:
Professor Jan Stievermann, Department of English, American Studies Program, University of Tübingen, Wilhelmstr. 50, D-72074 Tübingen, Germany; j.stievermann@uni-tuebingen.de
and to
Professor Reiner Smolinski, Department of English, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302-3970; rsmolinski@gsu.edu