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Johann August Neander's Influence on American Church Historiography: Translation and Knowledge Transfer
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 June 2023
Abstract
This article examines the English translations of works by Johann August Neander (the reputed father of modern church history) in order to consider his transatlantic influence. American editions of Neander's work supported the development of church historiography in nineteenth-century America, and influenced the direction of mediating theology at American academic and religious institutions. Besides identifying the agents who championed these translation efforts, the article explores how translations of church history texts supported knowledge transfer from Germany to America. Neander's books received positive attention in the translation culture of the 1830s, and he gained a reputation as a model scholar of church history.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2023
Footnotes
Parts of this article were presented at the meeting of the American Society of Church History in New York in January 2020. I wish to thank several institutions and individuals: this Journal’s reviewer for his/her insightful comments and suggestions; Beth Schweiger for her helpful comments; Melissa Mead of the Archives at Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester, New York, for her assistance with the Johann August Neander collection; archivist Jeffrey Wayno of the Burke Library at Columbia University Libraries for directing me to Henry B. Smith's sources at the Union Theological Seminary Library; and archivists for locating the Joseph Torrey collection at the Silver Special Collections Library, University of Vermont.
References
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66 Ibid. 157.
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68 Ibid. 183.
69 The Princeton professors welcomed the work of Ernst Hengstenberg: ‘Gallerie der bedeutendsten jetzt lebenden Universitätstheologen Deutschlands’, Deutsche Kirchenfreund v/4 (Apr. 1852), 129–39 at p. 135.
70 Torrey, ‘Translator's preface’, in Neander, General history, ii, p. iii. Torrey himself travelled to Europe to study and was skilled in translating German texts: ‘Torrey, Joseph’, in Rossiter Johnson and John Howard Brown (eds), The twentieth century biographical dictionary of notable Americans, x, Boston 1904.
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74 Ibid.
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