Religious Studies faculty will discuss how the MSU Libraries’ Special Collections informs their teaching and research as part of the Collecting Religion Lecture Series offered this semester. Hosted by MSU Libraries and organized in collaboration with the Department of Religious Studies, the series will highlight how rare and historical primary sources bring Religious Studies to life.
The series kicks off on Thursday, Jan. 30, and runs through Thursday, March 13, with each lecture running from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Green Room on the fourth floor of the West Wing of the Main Library. Attendees are encouraged to bring their lunch. Coffee and tea will be provided.
Each session will offer a window into a specific collection and its connection to the presenter’s work. Attendees will be able to view the materials with ample time for discussion.
This lecture series was created by Tad Boehmer, Special Collections Librarian, and Amy DeRogatis, Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Religious Studies, to showcase the strong connections between Religious Studies faculty — their research and instruction — and some of the materials held at the Murray and Hong Special Collections.
“This will be an exciting opportunity to hear world-class scholars speak about truly amazing items dating back centuries and telling the fascinating stories of individuals and groups with a wide range of beliefs about life, death, and the end of the world,” Boehmer said. “Those attending the talks will also be able to see some of these items in person and to ask questions directly to experts. This series is a testament to the deep ties between MSU Libraries and university faculty, and to the dedication of both to promoting primary source literacy and research. Audience members will also learn about the role of the Murray and Hong to steward and make available truly significant intellectual and cultural resources right in the heart of campus.”
The following is the scheduled for the Collecting Religion Lecture Series:
- Jan. 30 – Laura Yares, Assistant Professor
- Feb. 6 – Morgan Shipley, Associate Professor and Foglio Endowed Chair of Spirituality
- Feb. 20 – Amy DeRogatis, Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Religious Studies
- Feb. 27 – Jyotsna Singh, Professor Emerita
- March 13 – Christopher A. Frillingos, Professor
Established in 1962, the Murray and Hong Special Collections now holds more than 500,000 printed works, numerous manuscript and archival collections, and an extensive collection of ephemera. The collection recently was moved from the basement to the third floor of the East Wing of the Main Library after undergoing a $13.8 million renovation project that increased the scale of the collection to 26,000 square feet. The newly renovated Special Collections space became fully operational as of Jan. 6, 2025.
Laura Yares
Thursday, Jan. 30
Yares opens the series with a discussion of the Chamberlain-Warren Samaritan Collection, a rich archive with a complex history. Her research traces the provenance of the collection, from its origins with the Samaritan community of Nablus in Palestine to its eventual arrival in East Lansing.
“My project began with the Samaritan community of Nablus, where the objects in this collection originated, and followed their journey to East Lansing,” Yares said. “By reconstructing this story, I’ve been able to explore a range of historical issues, but I have been especially interested in uncovering how religious educational organizations have been involved in the extraction of sacred objects from their communities of origin.”
Yares will examine ethical questions surrounding ownership and repatriation and offer insight into how sacred objects are transported and contextualized abroad.
“My research takes these questions seriously as I trace why and how objects like the ones in the Chamberlain Warren Samaritan Collection were transported abroad,” Yares said.
Morgan Shipley
Thursday, Feb. 6
Shipley’s presentation will engage with material from the Simmons Collection, which consists of an archive of largely unpublished work by husband and wife V.L.R. and Nellie S. Simmons of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Comprised of five typescript and manuscript works, one published volume, and 21 hand-drawn educational charts, the Simmons Collection offers insight into the work, mindset, and spirituality of a self-professed Native American (“an Indian by choice”).
A syncretic and creative mash-up of indigenous folklore, science, religiosity, and cultural appropriation, the collection weaves between (re)presentations of Native American legends, “translations” of Native American language, and the development of a new age cosmology that embraces the fields of astronomy, astrology, evolutionary biology, psychology, anthropology, mysticism, and spirituality.
Shipley’s presentation will explore what the Simmons Collection tells us about the emergence and construction of alternative and new religions, and the way in which many contemporary new age spiritualities operate through iconoclastic “re-tellings” of previous religious and spiritual systems.
Additionally, Shipley will discuss how he uses the collection in relation to two courses, New Religions (REL 380) and Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion (REL 301), demonstrating how using material culture as a method of study opens up various lines of inquiry, while also demonstrating to students the heuristic value of using primary material to unpack the manifestations and machinations of new religious movements.
Amy DeRogatis
Thursday, Feb. 20
DeRogatis will discuss 19th-century prophetic charts that were used by prophecy preacher William Miller and his followers during revivals while they anticipated the end of the world in 1844. The charts, as well as an explanatory text and banner fragment that flew from a Millerite revival tent, are housed in the MSU Libraries’ Special Collections and the MSU Museum.
DeRogatis will situate these sources in 19th-century U.S. religious history and describe how she uses these and other material objects to bring religious history alive in her courses.
“These beautiful and deeply significant sources provide an important view into the lived experience of people calculating and anticipating what they understood to be the end of time,” DeRogatis said.
Jyotsna Singh
Thursday, Feb 27
Singh will discuss The Alcoran of Mahomet, Translated out of Arabique into French by Sieur Du Ryer, Lord of Malezair, and Resident for the King of France, at Alexandria. And Newly Englished (translated) for the satisfaction of all that desire to look into the Turkish vanities. By Alexander Ross.. London, 1649.
While acclaimed as the first English translation of the Holy Qur’an, Alexander Ross’s “Englished” version is a derivative translation from French, reflecting both the author’s non-mastery of the original Arabic and limited French. A questionable translation, this book is nonetheless historically significant in defining the complex responses of Christian Europe to Islam in the early modern period. For English readers, there was no Islam or Muslims, but Mahomet and “his” religion, followed by “Mahometans,” which evoked both animus and fascination. On the one hand, for Christians in Europe, Mahomet’s religion was not merely “alien” or other, but also shared some similarities with their monotheism and Abrahamic roots. Yet, Islam nonetheless posed a threat to Christianity – with Mohammad being viewed as a fraudulent Prophet.
Thus, writing in 1649, Alexander Ross reflected these cultural anxieties in his contextualization of the text: “Now at last after a thousand years” “the great Arabian Imposter” has ‘by way of France arrived in England.” This ‘Imposter’ — the Prophet Muhammad, finally appearing with the first publication of the Qur’ān in English, was justified by Ross in a preface – ‘A needful Caveat or Admonition for them who desire to know what use may be made of, or if there be any danger in reading the Alcoran.’ It is this Caveat, along with other prefatory materials that frame the translation of the Qur’an, which make it an important cultural text in the history of Christian-Muslim Religious encounters. For instance, as a translator “to the Christian Reader” Ross reveals England’s belatedness in translating Mahomet’s book in Europe: “The Alcoran hath been already translated into almost all languages of Christendome… Latin, Italian, French, etc.” And in the Caveat, while undermining Islam as a fraudulent, blasphemous religion, he also compares its “damnable errors” to all “earlier blasphemies” including those found in Christian heresies. Thus, Christianity itself comes across as somewhat divided, not surprising given the fact Ross was the Chaplain for King Charles I who had been executed by the Puritans, weeks before the publication of The Alcoran of Mahomet.
Christopher A. Frilingos
Thursday, March 13
If you walked into a grocery store in central Florida in the late 1980s, you might have seen a small book among the tabloids and issues of TV Guide. The book, On borrowed time; 88 reasons why the rapture could be in 1988, was written by Edgar C. Whisenant, a former NASA engineer who died in 2001. The title refers to the “Rapture,” a belief among some Christians that the faithful will be spared the turmoil and horror of the “End Times.” Whisenant’s book offers readers a timetable of these events. When 1988 passed without a rapture, Whisenant published a sequel: The final shout: rapture report 1989 (World Bible Study, 1989).
Copies of both books are now in the Radicalism Collection, part of the MSU Libraries’ Special Collections. To set these items in context, Frilingos will discuss the broad tradition of apocalyptic expectations in the Christian religion. He also may consider the problem of “apocalyptic failure.” What happens when a prediction of radical transformation does not come to pass? In addition, Frilingos will discuss an assignment from his Religious Studies course, Apocalypse Then and Now, involving MSU’s vast collection of comic books and graphic novels.
