Anglo-Israelism and the British Imperial Imagination
Submission deadline: 20 December 2023
Anglo-Israelism is a religious movement that identifies the Anglo-Saxon peoples of Britain and northern Europe as the ethnic descendants of biblical Israel. It emerged in the eighteenth century and reached its peak in the early twentieth century, gaining favour among the upper echelons of society. Although the presence of official Anglo-Israelist organisations began to decline in England in the 1970s, Anglo-Israelist themes have been and continue to be influential in England and abroad. Despite this significance, Anglo-Israelism is not well understood by scholars or the public.
This symposium aims to bring together scholars with research interests in Anglo-Israelism, Christian Zionism, and British Imperial History with the aim of considering the influence of Anglo-Israelism on the trajectory of the British Empire and its modern legacy, as well as the role of biblical thinking in the modern world.
This is the first of two symposia that will be held related to the project, with the second one scheduled for February 2025, and we aim to publish an edited volume following this. As such, this first symposium is meant to be exploratory in its scope.
Academics working within these and related areas are invited to propose papers as the basis for discussion within the symposium, which will take place at the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM) in Bedford, UK, on February 22-23, 2024.
Paper proposals with a 300-word abstract and details of academic affiliation should be submitted to Dr Sean Durbin (S.Durbin@mmu.ac.uk) by December 20, 2023.
Thanks to support from the British Academy we are able to offer some travel and accommodation stipends to participating scholars.
