Young Center Hosts 2011 Dale Brown Book Award Winners, Explores 'Bonnet Books', Civil War-Era Anabaptists

Fall Events for Elizabethtown College Center Include Discussions on Diversity and the Ancestry of Amish Romance Novels

Related Media

"An Amish Paradox"

ELIZABETHTOWN, PA (10/06/2011)(readMedia)-- Elizabethtown College's Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies welcomes the 2011 Dale Brown Book Award winners -- David L. McConnell, professor of anthropology at The College of Wooster (Ohio) and Charles E. Hurst, emeritus professor of sociology at The College of Wooster -- to the Bucher Meetinghouse at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 18.

The authors of "An Amish Paradox" will speak on "Diversity and Change in the Holmes County, Ohio, Amish Settlement." The lecture explores their reasons for and methods and experiences in studying the group, with focus on the dialectic and dilemmas that characterize Amish attempts to adapt and yet stay true to their cultural and religious heritage in the areas of family, education, economics, and health care. They also will briefly comment on the Amish community as a model for and its future in American society.

Steve Longenecker, professor of history at Bridgewater (Va.) College, presents "Civil War-Era Anabaptists and the Modern Nation-State," at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27, in the Bucher Meetinghouse. Longenecker, an author and specialist in American religious history, will discuss the growth of national government during the Civil War and the consequences of this growth for Anabaptists.

At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, the Young Center hosts Snowden Lecturer Valerie Weaver-Zercher, who presents "Thrill of the Chaste: Tracing the Ancestry of the Amish Romance Novel." The writer and editor, whose work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and The Christian Science Monitor, among other publications, discusses the connections between recent Amish-themed novels and much older novels of the same genre.

An internationally recognized scholarly research institute, the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College conducts and promotes research about Anabaptism and Pietism and interprets the life, faith and culture of Anabaptists and Pietists through public lectures, exhibits and conferences. For more information about the Young Center, please visit http://www.etown.edu/centers/young-center .

Elizabethtown College, in southeastern Pennsylvania, is a private coed institution offering more than four dozen liberal arts, fine and performing arts, science and engineering, business, communications and education degrees. Through personal attention, creative inspiration and academic challenge, Elizabethtown College students are encouraged to expand their intellectual curiosity and are given the opportunity to become a bigger part of the world through experiential learning-research, internships and study abroad. Elizabethtown College's overall commitment to Educate for Service is fulfilled as students are taught intellectually, socially, aesthetically and ethically for lives of service and leadership.

Visit www.etown.edu for more information about Elizabethtown College.

Media Contact:

Elizabeth Harvey

Manager, Marketing and Communications

Marketing and Communications

Elizabethtown College

harveye@etown.edu

717-361-6412 (o)

717-371-2631 (c)

Map and Directions