Quaker Studies: An Overview: The Current State of the Field (Brill Research Perspectives in Quaker Studies)

In this introductory volume to the Brill Research Perspectives series on Quaker Studies, Quaker Studies, An Overview: The Current State of the Field, C. Wess Daniels, Robynne Rogers Healey, and Jon Kershner investigate Quaker Studies, divided into the three fields of history, theology and philosophy, and sociology. With a focus on schisms, transatlantic networks, colonialism, abolition, gender and equality, and pacifism from Quaker origins onward, Healey explores the rich diversity and complexity of research and interpretation that has emerged in Quaker history. Kershner explores comparisons and divergences in contemporary Quaker theology and philosophy. Special attention is paid to Quaker biblical hermeneutics, mysticism, ethics, epistemology and Global Quakerism. Daniels looks at the sociology of Quakerism as a new field of study that has only recently begun to be explored and developed. He surveys the field of sociological work done within Quakerism from the 1960s to the present day.

Jon R. Kershner, Ph.D. (2013, University of Birmingham), is Honorary Researcher in Quaker Studies at Lancaster University. His publications include John Woolman and the “Government of Christ”: A Colonial Quaker’s Vision for the British Atlantic World (Oxford University Press, 2018).
C. Wess Daniels is the William R. Rogers Director of Friends Center and Quaker Studies at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. His Ph.D. is in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary. He has published widely on renewal, culture and change within the church. His most recent book is titled A Convergent Model of Renewal: Remixing the Quaker Tradition in a Participatory Culture (Cascade Books, 2015).
Robynne Rogers Healey, Ph.D. (2001), University of Alberta, is professor of history and co-director of the Gender Studies Institute at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia. Her publications include From Quaker to Upper Canadian: Faith and Community Among Yonge Street Friends, 1801-1850 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006), and multiple chapters and articles on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century transatlantic Quakerism.