In this course, participants will hear from authors of The Creation of Modern Quaker Diversity, 1830-1937 who will discuss their research on the various changes and crises Quakerism underwent globally during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Participants will learn about many underexplored areas of Quaker history, including the tensions and schisms which formed between Quaker communities over subjects like slavery and abolitionism, appropriate engagements with 'the world' and state, and the form and structure of Quaker worship. These debates, among several others of the period, shaped the development of Quakerism as we know it today.
This course will be divided into six sessions over the course of six weeks. Each session will feature the authors of specific chapters of The Creation of Modern Quaker Diversity.
Afterwards, participants will have time to ask questions and be encouraged to reflect on how they might implement this knowledge in their own communities. For instance, how might this knowledge help us to address ongoing tensions or injustices stemming from decisions made in the past?
“Quakers & Empire" --Thursday, 18 September 2025 from 19:00-20:30 BST with Sylvester A. Johnson and Stephen Angell
Stephen W. Angell is the Leatherock Professor of Quaker Studies at the Earlham School of Religion. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of 11 books and numerous articles and book chapters, including (with Hal Weaver and Paul Kriese) Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights (Quaker Press of Friends General Conference, 2011). He is a member of Oxford Meeting, part of Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting. Sylvester A. Johnson is Professor of Black Studies at Northwestern University. His research has examined religion, race, and empire in the Atlantic world; religion and sexuality; national security practices; and the impact of intelligent machines and human enhancement on human identity and systems of racial domination.“The Peace Testimony and the Crisis of WWI" -- Thursday, 25 September 2025 from 19:00-20:30 BST with Robynne Rogers Healey
Robynne Rogers Healey is a professor of history and the codirector of the Gender Studies Institute at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia, Canada. Her publications include From Quaker to Upper Canadian (2001), Quaker Studies: An Overview (2018, with C. Wess Daniels and Jon Kershner), Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690–1830 (2021), Quaker Women, 1900–1920 (2023, co-edited with Carole Dale Spencer), and many articles and chapters in the field of Quaker history.“Quakers and Reform in Nineteenth Century America - Friends' Responses to Antislavery, Women's Rights, and the American Civil War" -- Thursday, 2 October 2025 from 19:00-20:30 BST with Julie Holcomb
Julie L. Holcomb is professor of museum studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Holcomb's research interests include Quakers, abolition, and the Civil War. She has written three books, including Moral Commerce: Quakers and the Transatlantic Boycott of the Slave Labor Economy (Cornell University Press, 2016). She has held faculty research fellowships at Haverford College and Swarthmore College. Holcomb also serves as editor of Quaker History. She is at work on a biography of nineteenth-century Quaker reformer George W. Taylor.“The Loss of Peculiarity and the New Quaker Identity" -- Thursday, 9 October 2025 from 19:00-20:30 BST with Emma Lapsansky-Werner
Emma Lapsansky-Werner: A member of Lansdowne Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, Lapsansky-Werner is an optimistic veteran of the 1960s social-justice movements, who—like Anne Frank—continues to choose to believe that people are basically good, at heart, and that a world of international human respect and compassion is in what Martin Luther King called that "long arc of history that bends toward justice." Lapsansky-Werner is the proud and grateful parent of three Friends-schools graduates who are continuing their family's multi-generational, international social-justice-warrior traditions in the fields of medicine, education, child-protection advocacy, scholarship, climate-change awareness-raising, journalism, entrepreneurship, and the arts.“The Revival: 1860-1880" -- Thursday, 16 October 2025 from 19:00-20:30 BST with Thomas D. Hamm
Thomas Hamm is Emeritus Professor of History and Quaker Scholar in Residence at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, where he retired after 36 years on the faculty in 2023. He is the author of several books on Quaker history, including, most relevant to this topic, The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800-1907, and a number of book chapters and articles. He is a lifelong Friend and currently is presiding clerk of the New Association of Friends.“Quakers and 'Religious Madness'" --Thursday, 23 October 2025 from 19:00-20:30 BST with Richard Kent Evans
Richard Kent Evans earned his PhD in North American Religions from Temple University in 2018, then taught Quaker Studies at Haverford College until 2023. He is the author of MOVE: An American Religion (Oxford, 2020).
