Emotions and Christian Missions: Historical Perspectives

This book explores the ways in which emotions were conceptualised and practised in Christian mission contexts from the 17th-20th centuries. The authors show how emotional practices such as prayer, tears, and Methodist 'shouting', and feelings such as pity, joy and frustration, shaped relationships between missionaries and prospective converts.


Author: Claire McLisky
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: 09/14/2015
Pages: 266
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.50w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781137528933

About the Author

Claire McLisky is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Research Fellow at Griffith University in Australia. She has published articles on humanitarianism, settler colonialism and the role of emotions in Christian mission. Her current project compares the emotional economies of early colonial missions to Greenland and Australia.

Daniel Midena is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, Australia, working on the intersection between science, religion and colonialism in the South Pacific. His past research was on the ethnographic activities and natural world view of German missionaries in New Guinea from 1886 until 1930.

Karen Vallgårda is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She is the author of Imperial Childhood and Christian Mission: Education and Emotions in South India and Denmark, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) as well as articles on Christian mission, colonialism, religious conversion, the history of emotions, gender, race, and childhood. Her current project explores the emotional practices of divorce in Denmark.