Revival and Awakening
American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents
Contents
Prelude: A Song of Assyria
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration and Names
Introduction: Religious Reform, Nationalism, and Christian Mission
Chapter 1: The Church of the East before the Modern Missionary Encounter: Historicizing Religion before “Religion”
Chapter 2: A Residence of Eight Years in Persia (1843): Mr. Perkins of West Springfield, Massachusetts, meets Mar Yokhannan of Gawilan, Persia
Chapter 3: Printing the Living Word: Moral Reform and the Awakening of Nation and Self (1841–70)
Chapter 4: Being Together in the Living Word: The Mission and Evangelical Sociality (1834–70)
Chapter 5: Death, the Maiden, and Dreams of Revival
Chapter 6: National Contestation and Evangelical Consciousness: The Journals of Native Assistants
Chapter 7: Continuity and Change in the Late Nineteenth Century: New Institutions, Missionary Competition, and the First Generation of Nationalists
Chapter 8: Retrieving the Ruins of Nineveh: Language Reform, Orientalizing Autoethnography, and the Demand for National Literature
Epilogue: Mirza David George Malik (1861–1931) and the Engaged Ambivalence of Poetry in Exile
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration and Names
Introduction: Religious Reform, Nationalism, and Christian Mission
Chapter 1: The Church of the East before the Modern Missionary Encounter: Historicizing Religion before “Religion”
Chapter 2: A Residence of Eight Years in Persia (1843): Mr. Perkins of West Springfield, Massachusetts, meets Mar Yokhannan of Gawilan, Persia
Chapter 3: Printing the Living Word: Moral Reform and the Awakening of Nation and Self (1841–70)
Chapter 4: Being Together in the Living Word: The Mission and Evangelical Sociality (1834–70)
Chapter 5: Death, the Maiden, and Dreams of Revival
Chapter 6: National Contestation and Evangelical Consciousness: The Journals of Native Assistants
Chapter 7: Continuity and Change in the Late Nineteenth Century: New Institutions, Missionary Competition, and the First Generation of Nationalists
Chapter 8: Retrieving the Ruins of Nineveh: Language Reform, Orientalizing Autoethnography, and the Demand for National Literature
Epilogue: Mirza David George Malik (1861–1931) and the Engaged Ambivalence of Poetry in Exile
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Review Quotes
Reading Religion
"A fascinating and detailed account on the complicated and essential role that American Congregationalist, and later Presbyterian, missionaries played in 'the development of a secularized (but not desacralized) national identity among the indigenous Christian population' of Urmia, Iran, and its surrounding territory in northern Mesopotamia."
Webb Keane, author of Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter
“Becker’s masterful work bears on some of the key problems in the contemporary study of religion and modernity. And there are few regions of the world where these issues are more fraught than this once—but certainly no longer—obscure corner of the Middle East. This is a book full of surprises and insights, revealed with a sure hand and impressive erudition.”
Leigh Eric Schmidt, author of Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality
“Becker’s command of Syriac and Neo-Aramaic allows him to open up a Protestant missionary archive otherwise inaccessible to historians of American religion. The novelty of that research is matched by his ingenuity in engaging larger questions about modern formations of nationalism, religion, liberalism, and secularism. From the American Protestant outpost in Urmia, Becker draws a sparkling picture of a ‘missionary modernity’—a portrait marked by both historical subtlety and theoretical sophistication.”
Talal Asad, author of Formations of the Secular
“Unraveling the complex process in which the American Protestant project of moral and religious reform helped to stimulate the development of ‘Assyrian’ national consciousness, Becker provides an excellent example of how secular modernity could be configured in a non-colonial missionary context in the encounter between two different Christian communities.”
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
"This book makes a much-needed contribution to the field of the history of Middle Eastern Christianity and the study of American missions. Becker’s elegant writing style, nimble use of theory, and admirable command of an extensive archive make this book accessible to graduate students, faculty, and perhaps advanced undergraduate students. Revival and Awakening will be of interest to scholars in the fields of history of Christianity, Syriac studies, Middle Eastern studies, mission studies, American religious history, and postcolonial studies."
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History: Middle Eastern History
Religion: Christianity | Comparative Studies and History of Religion | Religion and Society
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