The earliest groups which developed into the Brethren movement met in Dublin from about 1825. This residential conference therefore begins a celebration of the movement’s bicentenary.
The conference will take a biographical theme. Henry Pickering’s Chief Men among the Brethren (1918, 2nd ed. 1931) has been highly influential within the movement, and exemplifies a literary genre which Brethren have continued to love: biography, especially collective biography of exemplary individuals. Such writings, both books and series of magazine articles, illustrate and inculcate key themes in Brethren spirituality and practice, sometimes by challenging alternative views.
Who was chosen for biographical treatment in collective works? Perhaps equally importantly, who was omitted? What do these works say about Brethren understandings of history and of the movement’s history, and about the world in which the subjects lived? More broadly, what impact have biographies had? What intents lay behind biographies of Brethren women? What about memoirs by those who have left the movement? These and other questions invite exploration.
Five plenary addresses will explore aspects of the theme. We also welcome offers of twenty-minute papers on relevant topics, including neglected figures, ones who lived after the publication of Pickering’s second edition, or ones from countries other than Britain and Ireland. Following the success of our recent mixed-mode conferences, this residential conference will again allow for in-person and online participation. We welcome papers for presentation in absentia; it will also be possible to present online. A selection of the papers will be edited and published as a volume in the Studies in Brethren History series.
The deadline for offering breakout papers has now passed, and we look forward to hearing speakers from various parts of the world.
