Nineteenth Century Theology Unit
In 2025, we will have three sessions:
The History of Religions School
This panel seeks to explore the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule (History of Religions School), a scholarly movement that emerged around 1884 in Göttingen and rose to prominence in the early 20th century and significantly shaped the academic study of religion. The movement included notable scholars like Wilhelm Bousset, Rudolf Otto, Hermann Gunkel, Johannes Weiss, and Wilhelm Herrmann, among others. They introduced comparative, historical, and phenomenological methods, encouraging scholars to study religions not in isolation but as evolving traditions influenced by social and cultural exchanges. Through its influence on centers of theological and religious scholarship, such as the University of Chicago, the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule left a lasting mark on the academic study of religion in North America, promoting a cross-cultural understanding that has become a foundational approach in the field. However, some of the school's underlying assumptions—such as its framing of religious traditions with stable boundaries and its often racialized views on ethnicity and religious identity—are more controversial and critically examined in religious studies.
This panel examines the social and cultural development of this movement as well as philosophical influences and theoretical foundations. Papers may address how its perspectives on religion, culture, and identity continue to shape in often unseen ways both descriptive and normative approaches in theology and religious studies today. Papers could also delve into the works of individual theologians, including E. Troeltsch, Adolf von Harnack, George Burman Foster, Shirley Jackson Case, and others, focusing on their connections to the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule.
The panel will feature invited panelists.
Revisiting Personalism: In Boston and Beyond
In 2025, the Annual Meeting returns to Boston, approximately 150 years after Borden Parker Bowne (1847–1910) returned to the U.S. from his European studies at Paris, Halle, and Göttingen, where he was deeply influenced by Hermann Lotze. Bowne taught for many years in the School of Theology at Boston University, he founded the Graduate School and the Philosophy Department, and he became known as the “Father of Boston Personalism.”
The Nineteenth Century Theology Unit, the Pragmatism and Empiricism in American Religious Thought Unit, and the Wesleyan and Methodist Studies Unit jointly invite papers on the subject of (Boston) Personalism and especially addressing topics that arise in light of the Annual Meeting’s theme of “Freedom.” Papers may consider nineteenth and early twentieth century philosophical and theological movements that influenced the development of Personalism (as it arose in affirmation of or in contradiction to them) as well as persons, positions, and movements that were directly or indirectly influenced by Personalism, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and the American Civil Rights Movement or attempts at West European Integration after World War II. We also invite papers that delve into original personalist thought and its relevance in contemporary discussions of personalism, connecting past and present by considering how early personalist thought continues to be relevant in our world today.
A co-sponsored session with the Kierkegaard, Religion, and Culture Unit
Religion and Literature in the Nineteenth Century
The objective of this session is to explore how religious ideas connect with the broader world of literature in the nineteenth century. Recent works in nineteenth-century literary studies increasingly acknowledge the critical role of religion, but the analyses of literary works from this era often sideline specifically theological reflections. This session seeks to illuminate the intrinsic relationship between religion and literature in the nineteenth century, encouraging paper proposals that investigate this relationship from a theological perspective. The works of nineteenth century authors grappled with themes such as the divine; the infinite versus the finite; ethical living; the problem of evil and other paradoxes inherent in Christian beliefs; the nature of faith; the role of imagination for spiritual understanding; and the nature of religious experience.
We invite papers that explore these and other themes in fresh ways and thereby contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between religion, theology, and literature. Papers might engage various literary, religious, and theological authors in the nineteenth century, such as L. Tieck, W. Blake, F. Dostoevsky, G. MacDonald, and others, including authors from the global South. Papers on S. Kierkegaard and literature are particularly welcome.
Our Unit focuses on major themes, thinkers, and movements in nineteenth century religious thought and theology — from the French Revolution to World War I — and on the relation of religious thought to its historical, political, and cultural contexts. Each year the Unit selects two or three focused topics and predistributes papers before the AAR sessions.