academy who joined the confederacy, then was the captain of the uss virginia. so there are certainly were tensions in the navy and out how to manage all of those tensions was a real challenge for the secretary of the navy. and of course then question is still afterwards the confederacy is no longer. what do you do with all those confederate naval officers of them wanted to come back and i think rightfully so. the us navy decided no, if you served in the confederate navy, you're not welcome in the us navy, right. we'll take one final question. anyone has one. perfect. all right. well, i think that that concludes our panel for today. you so much for being here. and thank you so much to our panelists.

well, hello, everyone. we're so excited to have you guys with us today. i'm ronald angel johnson. i'm the lynch here of history at baylor university, the coeditor of the journal of the early republic. i'm delighted to welcome you all to this afternoon's roundtable to discuss and outstay ending new book by one of the profession freshman's best scholars on the international dimensions of the early u.s., early u.s. religion and reform. the book is missionary diplomacy, religion in 19th century american foreign relations this year by, cornell university press, the book's author emily conroy-krutz, is an associate professor history at michigan state university. she is a historian of the global history, the 19th set of 19th

century america. in addition, missionary diplomacy. emily is, the author of christian imperialism converting the world in the early america. that is one of my favorite books of all times. i thought until this i did it in very nice job, emily. and she is also the coeditor of a book that came out last year the early imperial republic from the american revolution to the us mexican mexican war. here. i want to take a quick word because. the difficulty for me as chair today is that job is to get everybody else to talk, including you all. but if you don't mind, just indulge me for a second to give you just a quick word. this i did. i just want to give a quick word about the book and its author i found this book to be compelling, particularly in its storytelling about diplomatic impact of some extra human beings of whom of us know little. the book's author, emily lee. in addition to being an exceptional, works tirelessly

organizations to make the professional academic career safer more open, more advantageous for all members at all stages. our profession and i am proud to be here today to discuss her outstanding new book. now, what we're going to do today? we're going to we have four very fine scholars i'll introduce momentarily to discuss the book from different angles. each panelist offer us about 5 to 7 minutes of comments. i'll ask a couple of larger questions of the panel afterwards. we'll have a response from emily and then we'll open the floor up for comments and questions from you all. and again, we're so excited to have you all with us here today. our first panelists for the day is dr. ben wright benn is an associate of history at the university of texas at dallas. he's the author of bonds of salvation, how christianity inspired and american abolitionism. he is also the coeditor of four books, including the two volume american jump, a massively

collaborative open u.s. history textbook american revolutions in the digital age and apocalypse and the millennium in the american civil war. his articles have appeared in a variety of venues, ranging from the american historical review to washington post. his current research focuses on the intersections of missionaries empire, power and abolition. in the early 19th century west africa. ben, thank you. thanks to these other excellent panelists. thank you, emily, for writing this book. and thank you all for being here. this outstanding book is rigorously researched and elegantly narrated. the students in my 19th century grad seminar also encouraged me to say that it works great in the classroom but i'm going to spend my time highlighting the significance of, its scholarly interventions. emily is a leader. our profession in many ways, particularly through her lauded

service to two organizations, the society for historians of american foreign relations, or schaffer in the society for historians of the early american republic or shear. it's a well-worn cliché to call the book a game changer. but to demonstrate why missionary diplomacy truly deserves the title, i want to situate it within scholarly conversations in both of these communities. this was easier for me to do which year where i too am a member. but let me start with schafer, where my strategy was to consider missionary diplomacy in relation to. the last ten years of winners of schafer's two major book prizes. this strategy had its limitation since as the list of prize winning books skewed heavily towards post 1945 history. and i think that reason alone missionary diplomacy essential as it exposes just a back story to the most notable narratives in american foreign relations, but in fact, that many important developments within the diplomatic state occurred earlier than is generally

acknowledged. by the way, this critique that schafer devotes insufficient to early histories of american foreign relations is, like most of my good ideas stolen from emily. she made this point first and better in her banal lecture and ensuing article in diplomatic history. read it if you haven't already. but let me put a few of my favorite schaefer prize winners in conversation with missionary diplomacy. daniel emory was outstanding. how to hide an empire. laudably covers indeed removal, but this history of the greater united states largely occurs after 1945. missionary diplomacy shows us that century earlier, missionaries mapped their colonization of the world souls, insisting that their empire ought not be hidden and their entanglements which justified american military expansion, particularly in the pacific. explain why what immer calls the modern american pointillist empire differed so much from.

the continental logo map. madeleine sue's powerful the good immigrants explains how missionaries brought chinese exchange students to the united states. but missionary diplomacy reveals a greater role for missionaries in shaping american understandings and often misunderstandings of asia and asian cultures. this book shows how writings were understood as essential expert testimony for better and very often for worse. and quickly, a note from my fellow historians of religion. so much of this missionary testimony pulsed across the nation. as we see this book well before the 1893 world's parliament of religions, that moment that most historians of religion point to again and again and again and again. but back to schaffer's prizewinners. in the last decade, two of the 20 winners focus on events prior to the 20th century. both explore global impacts of slavery and abolition. matthew carbs this vast southern empire, explains the outrageous influence of enslavers on american policy. but missionary diplomacy reminds

us that enslavers were not the force connecting the u.s. the world. if we compare diplomacy's tug of between missionaries and the diplomatic state with karp's account of enslavers stranglehold over foreign relations, it only the terrifying political of enslavers and their allies, the missionaries of course outlasted chattel slavery and we see their influence tangentially. roberta saba's, american mirror saba tracks the influence of american reformers on a brazilian emancipation in many of whom actually had connections. the missions and movements that are underexplored the text. but considering american mirror alongside missionary diplomacy, also shows how emancipate and salvation were so often dependent on and in service. american capital. all right. let me leave schafer shear and consider how missionary diplomacy should reconfigure some our understandings of the early republic most generally,

and even broader than the early republic itself. missionary primacy adds new depth to barlow's argument in a government of sight that the girl early of the federal government was often hidden from a general public. questions of a strong state. weak state. in the newest variant, the imperial. excite historians of the early. most of these look back to british historians. michael braddock, john brewer. patrick o'brien who speak of the rise. the fiscal military state. for example, max eddings, a revolution in favor of government influentially that americans use this tradition as the underlying rationale for their own state. similarly, max new map of empires exposes the long tail of late 18th century british imperial and gautham rao has argued in the william mary quarterly that the early united states governments quote imperial aims and practices picked up where britons came to

an unexpected halt. but missionary diplomacy forces us to the role of missions in this rise of the american imperial state. particularly as it directed its gaze beyond the continent. this entwined relationship between, religious leaders and government officials captured by missionary diplomacy, extends what laurie dagher calls the mission complex in her cultivating empire. in andrew benjamin's reflection, federalism and the power of the state in early republic insists that, quote, the farther from the interior a policy traveled, the more the gulf widened between the claim of power and actual. now, shakman was referring to continental concerns, but missionary diplomacy complicates the simplicity of this observation. particular, when we think in a more global context to, continue contextualizing missionary diplomacy amid scholarship on overseas endeavors. in the early republic, we turn to hannah farber's underwriters, the new nation, and brian

willows with sales whitening every c farber argues that merchant capitalists and their need for maritime insurance functionally created the state the early republic. and rouleau argues that sailors were the principal agents in overseas american foreign relations. now, while sailors may have been the more ubiquitous on the ground, agents and merchants indeed necessitate today the development of the american fiscal military state. missionary diplomacy is convincing and demonstrating that the american diplomatic state was forged through cooperation and contestation with american missionaries. so in conclusion, this book is indeed a game. it's importantly revisionist, and it's also boldly trailblazing. by connecting disparate, historic griffins in ways that breathe life into both the study of early american republic and foreign relations, it is sure to inspire a generation of new scholars. it certainly has inspired me that. emily. thank you all.

thank you, ben. our second our second panelist this afternoon is, dr. gale kenny. gail is assistant professor in the department of religion at barnard college. her research focuses religion, gender and empire. the late 19th and early 20th century united states, and especially on protestant. her second book, christian imperial white, protestant women and the consecration of empire came out just this past february. congratulations. yeah. and table. so i echo everyone's gratitude towards emily for writing this book and full disclosure, emily, as well as ben and i have kind of writing books together for the past several years and reading each other's drafts. so i had read almost every chapter of this book, not in the right order.

and with the right chapter, titled or not any chapter titles. so it was a pleasure this these past couple of weeks to like read the book in its final form and see how all of the parts came together as a whole. and i will begin also by saying something that doesn't always apply to academic history books that missionary diplomacy a great read beyond the book's core argument. i'll talk about more in a moment. the book is comprised of fascinating case studies that provide snapshots of dramatic, some more well-known than just as an we learn about the unremittingly protestant proselytizer king, a congregationalist missionary as well as a u.s. consul in greece in the 1840s and 1850s who was put on trial for his frequent attacks on. the greek orthodox church, after a court in greece sentenced king to 15 days of prison and banned him from the country thereafter. there was a public outcry in the united states from missionary

supporters that resulted in an investigation by diplomats, events really through these sorts of negotiations. as greek officials were called upon, abide by existing treaties. the united states and the u.s. minister constantinople successfully, king's sentence in exile reversed. king story illustrates multiple themes that emerge the book and through its kind of different examples and case studies. first, we can see missionaries classified themselves and were often kind of by default, classify as in the same category as american merchants and sailors. when it came treaty protections. king story also shows the expectation that missionaries had for the u.s. government to have their back when they ran into difficulty. or, as emily describes it, missionary troubles. the outpouring of support for king in the united states when he was arrested put on trial highlights the growing role of a

missionary public who made missionary problems into a domestic concern that politicians couldn't ignore. finally, and perhaps most obviously especially to those who don't spend a lot of time studying missionaries, king's desire to proselytize, even though that was sort of in violation of local laws while condemning local traditions. in this case, the greek orthodox church and its theology, and really trying to kind of provoke the greek government and and the church and make him into a kind of stereotype of missionaries potentially or perhaps boorish behavior abroad. while many missionaries in missionary diplomacy in other accounts approached their new with far more tact and diplomacy than king. almost all missionaries were fully confident that they had the right to preach the gospel in all parts of the world, whether they had been invited to do so or not. as contrary, kretz argues, i feel this is weird to say conricus regrets instead of

emily. but i'm doing it, so bear with me has gone courts argues throughout missionary diplomacy. the missionaries certainty of their global efforts to convert the world to protestantism provoked a variety of responses from the u.s. government's nascent state department and diplomatic corps of not all missionaries sought to provoke. like jonas king, some found ways to work with existing governments, and in some cases this made them unintentional players in political contest states they could not fully anticipate or even times understand. in the last two chapters of the book, we see a kind of different side of missionaries where they act as the titles of those chapters are witnesses and humanitarians with respect to genocide in congo and in armenia or in the ottoman empire, across the 19th century, different presidents in diplomatic officials sometimes chose to defend these foreign missionaries and extract them from entanglements, while at other times missionaries were

deemed troublemakers who pulled the u.s. into dicey diplomatic missionary diplomacy. he shows us that while protestant missionaries did not always wield enormous power influence in their mission fields, their actions, and often their mischievous natures would have a major role in shaping the development of u.s. foreign policies in the 19th century and beyond. through her narrative cuts offers a vital history of missionaries role in educating americans about the world. as we tracked different missionaries across the ottoman empire, china, japan and in korea in the u.s. territories of hawaii and the philippines and in congo, we are also introduced several key ideas in the book that merit our attention and hopefully our discussion as the panel continues. conroy kretz examines the legal entanglements that arose concerning citizenship rights for missionaries and for their foreign born children, for example. and she shows the complicated related to the policy of extra

territoriality. think i set that right so that it's a little boring. it's also introduces the concept of missionary patriotism. on one level, this idea of missionary patriotism captures the ways missionaries understood themselves as representatives of the united states. it also speaks to their desire to distance themselves from some u.s. policies they found objectionable as they advanced alternative of how the u.s. might exert power around the world and in the of christianity, missionary patriotism, a reference to the sometimes ambiguous that missionaries had towards their government echoes conrad conricus is of a similar phenomenon in her book christian imperialism. i was also thinking about these two books, christian imperialism and missionary diplomacy in relationship to each other in a different way. and i'll spend the rest of my remarks focusing on this point that is kind of around this idea of religious freedom and how it is mobilized and comes up in

this book. so if emily's first book, christian imperialism, focused in part on the ways american missionary created hierarchies of hedonism, this quote as part of their assessment of where to deploy missionary is around the world. missionary diplomacy. she kind of turned the tables on this. and in these kind of anecdotes and case studies of missionaries abroad, we see instead local governments and local people to the americans among them, these americans who have sort of arrived and set up their missionary as culinary carts, narrates missionaries complaints to the u.s. government about their own rights. we can see just how different americans very concept of and religious freedom was from that of most of the world as religious studies scholars have long noted, american protestants conception of religion as something that individuals voluntary voluntarily chose this became norm for defining

religion in imperial processes and treaties that codified american style of religious freedom. so in other words, religion is something that an individual decided for themselves, but they chose. 19th century missionaries insist that their protestant religion and their ideals of religious freedom benefit legally separated religion from politics and from the kind of mixture of religion and politics and other category is that they attributed to what they ethnic religions. this is what made protestantism and protestant christianity universal and therefore in their minds superior to all other religions. what missionary illustrates, however, is how vary conception of religion as a voluntary and personal choice became a profound and destabilizing challenge to many of the existing political and social orders that understood religion and religious totally differently throughout most the

world then and, arguably now. religion was not a voluntary chosen belief or a matter of opinion. as thomas jefferson once put. religion was instead a familiar role and a community identity. an indicator of one's social and political status. it was embedded with all of these categories that we might think of as a secular a people might have overlap religious commitments as well, rather than singular protestant identity that missionaries demanded of their converts. as we often see in missionary diplomacy, missionaries found themselves in trouble, not necessarily because of their specific protestant and practices, but rather because of their refusal to abide the religious norms of their hosts, governments and ordinary responded to the missionaries, disruptive of religion and their demands for the missionaries religious freedom as was the case with jonas king when he was put trial in greece. and i think we can also see this

dynamic playing out in more diffuse ways in the as well, a kind of not but a sort of running point that comes up in multiple is that there were widespread in china throughout the 19th century and in different places that. western missionaries stole children from their families in order to use their body parts, make medicine. how would we interpret something like this? one way we can see this is a response to just the kind of social disruption and that these missionaries are bringing with their very ideas. you know, a child could convert and become a protestant. like, what would that mean? what would that mean to their place, in their family and in their community? although u.s. missionaries and diplomats throughout the book, as we see frequently claim that the answer to these troubles that missionaries are causing is to separate spiritual matters from missionaries. involvement in secular things like politics. this itself was a foreign concept. many people who were on the

receiving of these missionaries in conversation with by she's a winger who writes as a great book on empire and religious freedom. elizabeth shenkman heard lauren turk, conrad, chris, both the promise and the cudgel of freedom as missionaries used it to defend themselves and their of converts. while using it to disrupt and dismantle political and religious systems they deemed to be the products of quote unquote bad religion. so i will end briefly with maybe questions that emily can respond to, if she wants or i can be part of her conversation. so the first is, in the conclusion of book, this is a spoiler. emily emphasizes change over time and how the kind of relationships between missionaries, the state department that existed in much of of the book that she's writing really start to change and shift the early 20th century as the state department becomes much bigger and much more

powerful. and as changes are happening within these missionary organizations as well. but i think there's also ways that there are continuities that the book pointing out things that are sort of laying a groundwork for norms that become naturalized into the 20 and 21st century. religious freedom is one of those. it is kind of an inherent part of u.s. foreign policy of human rights laws and doctrines. and i think we can see these these kind of moments where it's being brought up and dealt in the 19th century as as like the groundwork for that. and so i was wondering if emily could maybe speak to other continuities that she saw. as she was writing. and then the other question is broad and it has to do with method and how these cases these there's great and like how you found them and you choose to chose them. and if there are any that you found, i feel this. emily, you're so far away. there's. if there's any cases that you found that didn't make it in, but that you wanted to tell the world about.

so will. and there you. may be mind holding to get you to your response. i know it's rough. i know it is wrong. thank you so so very much. thank you. gail. our third. i third panelist is dr. andrew preston. andrew is a professor of american history and a fellow of claire college at cambridge university. he has published ten books including thwarted the spirit shield of faith, religion in american war and diplomacy. andrew great. thanks, ron. okay. so i want to begin slightly differently in talking about emily's book. can i see your copy of the book? she sure. so afraid. those of you who haven't seen it, i highly recommend going to the book exhibit to actually see this book as artifact as an actual book because it's extraordinary. it's really really beautifully.

the cover design is is incredible and it just sort of very artfully frames the themes that emily is going to be discussing. my first question to you, emily, and you may not have to answer this now. it's a complicated question. is this was this something that lizzie, your daughter, did? because the acknowledgments she talks about lizzie having of drafted some of the first initial covers. and i'm wondering if if somebody that young was able to accomplish something like this and we can't judge a book by its cover. but i think in case we can judge a book by its cover, because an extraordinary cover and it does match the extraordinary substance of the contents inside, as we've been hearing. thank you. as we've been hearing. so far from the previous panelists, ben and gail, it is an it's a remarkable book. and it's a remarkable book in many ways that is going to appeal to a wide variety of scholars and share. schaefer certainly in a way, but also in other learned societies and scholarly organizations, it

has. the book a lot to say to a lot of people as i was thinking about my remarks, might five or 6 minutes that we've been allotted for talking about a rich and complex book. i was really kind of stuck like. how do you reduce, you know, something so extraordinary to really five or 6 minutes? and i was gazing at my bookshelves and. and actually this hit me, i was putting your book up on my bookshelves because i've got a little sort of, you know, missionary, which i'm now going to call it or missionary intelligence section on my shelves. and i looked and i had integral and then david hollinger and jean povich and melanie mcalister. and if you don't know those books, emily's as a kind of foundation for that whole series that isn't intended to be a series, but have scholars who have looked at the american missionary experience in the world and how it's shaped american foreign relations and what emily's book does is not only chronologically sort of, you know, provide the foundation for what follows in this arc that goes to the late 20th,

early 21st century, ending with melanie mcallister's very, very good book on which is kind of the outlier because it's on evangelical missionaries but they're on protestant missionaries. emily's book in terms of the interpretations in the historiography also lays the foundation then a lot of these other other scholars have have picked up on looking at how protestant missions and protestant missionaries have forward and the project of american empire in american and germany. but in ways that are very different to how a previous generation of scholars looked at these issues in the 1960s and 1970s, where protestant missionaries simply the tip of the imperial spear, and they were old fashioned imperialists and almost like cardboard, cut out caricatures rather than fully very complicated actual historical actors. one of the things that i love about i mean, a lot in this book that i love the category that emily devises, which i think you're the first to use is this idea of missionary intelligence of missionaries as bringing americans to the world, but also

world to americans and providing kind of that brain trust for what's going on in the rest of the world, informing american attitudes towards, the rest of the world in the way that emily uncovers this through her really imaginative use of sources, although it's not it's not as imaginative as you might expect. and that's actually a compliment that. i'll get to that. i'll get to in a second, i think is really one of the book's signature contributions. and what i meant by it's not as imaginative as we might expect. there is a lot of imagination there. don't worry. it is. is that a long time? those of us who were working on religion and american foreign relations were told or told ourselves that we had to read between the lines or read against the grain, read the archives against the grain, because there just wasn't a whole lot of religion in american diplomacy or american foreign relations. and we had be very imaginative in a way that maybe medieval scholars might be people who are working without written records might have to be, because, of course, american policy wasn't conducted either on the ground or at very high levels,

explicitly with religion in mind. and so we had to sort of read between lines and read against the grain. and as emily, in a way that i don't really know of any other scholar emily shows that that's just not that actually. it's it's everywhere in the archival record. and you can find as gail saying, you can find lots of stories through just relentless digging and going to all of different archives and knowing what to look for. and then once you know what to look for, it's there. and emily knew it was there and she found it. and so she's really able demonstrate this causal to put it in a kind of maybe very basic very basic. emily also shows there's no need to if you if you want to demonstrate religious influence on american war in diplomacy, no need to find instances in which religion trumps the national interest, which which is a sort of long standing cudgel that people who are skeptical of a religious influence or a religious role in an american relations always wielded in order to demonstrate a religious influence, have to find instances in which religion

trumps the national interest in which religion overcomes material interest, strategic interest, economic interest, sorts of other interests in order to demonstrate that it has this influence and my response to that has always been that that's a false question, because there is no objective national interest just there for someone to come across and find, here's the national interest, and that's the control that is neutral and and non changing that. all americans agree on which of course, is absurd. i mean, if you ask americans, let alone at any point in history, what the national interest you'll get a hundred different 100 different questions or 100 different answers, rather. what emily shows is that religion doesn't have to have this special place in the causal in order to have an influence. it contributes to americans consider to be the national as a whole and how that national interest changes. so it's quite a complex job that she's doing in this book with an overwhelming amount of sources and does it really successfully. okay, i am, i'm actually not

running at a time. i'm slightly over time. so let me finish up very with two with with a couple of observations. okay. i just wanted to draw out a couple of themes that are in the book, but wanted to sort of draw them up more explicitly and then finish with asking emily a question as well. so one of the things that i think is implicit in the book that emily doesn't bring out, maybe as much as she could, is that the american missionary enterprise was the product of european imperialism and globalization. it's not just an american and. it's there in the book. it's really there already. and it could be brought out a little bit more and how i got thinking about this and that's not a criticism of the book, but it made me think of your book. it made me think of christian imperialism, which isn't about european imperialism either, but thought of the christian denomination as opposed to the american or denomination. not the right word to use in this context, but the the sort of foundation for things that

there's a kind of christian exceptionalism here and and and not just in american exceptionalism. it's a kind of christian empire. and not just an american empire. and i think a lot of that comes from the fact that this american outreach to the of the world happens in this european imperial moment of a century between the 1830, 1840s and the 1930s, 1940s, a lot scholars of american empire have, of course, couched the rise of american empire in terms of the european experience and what the europeans done in the rest of the world. and i think emily is providing a different perspective on this. this rich and really interesting. the other point i wanted to draw out that i think gayle has already talked about in better ways than i could, is notion of missionaries as imperialists, but as a different kind of imperialist and projecting a different kind of empire. in the book, emily says that quote, missionaries could be a major asset or a major hindrance to the work of american empire

or the projection american power abroad and. of course, they could be both. and that's what that's what what they could be both simultaneously. and that's what emily's book, i think, is really, really good at demonstrating and in this sense, missionaries are. so as i was saying, imperialists of a different kind. gail mentioned their extra territoriality because. daniel insofar as in the room, i think we should also think about it not just extraterritorial but as a kind of normative empire where missionaries as gail saying, were advancing rights that they considered to be but of people in the rest of the world course had never heard of these rights, let alone considered them to be universal and in advancing those universal rights, most often religious freedom, but also other liberal or individual rights or norms, were at a very particular american context. they were bringing the state often, reluctantly behind them in enforcing these this kind of empire of liberalism, or what

eric hobsbawm is called a humanitarian empire, an empire of human rights. and that's really what missionary is are at the forefront. now, hobsbawm is talking about a later period in the 20th century, and looking at the tensions between americans and other western organizations, countries advancing, a project in the name of universal rights for women or for religions or for any other sort, any other kind of group along lines. two parts of the world that are never heard of these rights and that violates local customer tradition or local politics or local religious norms. and it's that tension that then missionaries are advancing that then the state comes in and enforces that advances what is a really, really a really interesting new type of empire that emily sets that sets stage for in the 19th century. okay just to finish up, i did have other questions that i won't go into, but i'd love to hear what emily about this. i'd love to know where mormons fit in. she doesn't look at mormons in the book. that's not part of the book's remit, but a mormon missionaries

already in the late 19th century were going all over the world. catholics. these are next steps i would love to know what emily is doing next, how they fit in with what she's going to looking at. and i wait. her answer with her answers, because there are lots of questions there with excitement and anticipation. thank you. thank you. thank you, andrew our fourth panelist discusses lovely book is dr. melissa borja. melissa is assistant professor of american culture in asian pacific islander american studies at the university of michigan. she is a historian of religion, race and politics and the author of follow the new way. america resettlement policy and religious change which and in that book if you don't mind she got the thomas wilson memorial prize. but it's also advised princeton's religion and forced migration initiative, and she is the lead investor later of the really virulent hate project.

let me so first of all, it's a delight to see this book imprint, because there's in the middle of the pandemic of the things my. the other one let me try that over again. so the delight to be able to to talk about this book because in the midst of pandemic four years ago i learned that i had a fellowship at the the warren center, harvard, where i then was able to spend a year zooming in in my pajamas and talking about this with emily in its early stages. and she and i were to workshop our chapter and talk about it and cheer each other on. there's nothing like bonding over trying to write a book in the middle of a global pandemic. while also trying to parent and

stay alive. and so, yes, this book is really the product of much commitment and dedication and congratulations. i going to comment about the religion dimensions of this project. i am a religion. i got a little nervous when we were talking about early american history because i'm an american studies professor now. i don't know what happened before 1965. so i'm going to just focus on religion here and and the that i always say when i'm talking religion at age is we have continue to take religion seriously. this is not the first time anyone's said that that in this space but i do think that at age there is a lot of attention, other themes and religion often gets short shrift. but as i like to say, religion is a lot like neoliberalism and start like and toyota corollas. once you start paying attention, you see it everywhere.

religion is everywhere. once you start caring about it. and i think book is a perfect example, bill, of how once you start taking it seriously and opening your eyes and looking for it, you realize it's there. and it's also really, really important. now, i had my book announced earlier. the book is about a more recent period in american history, the late 20th century, going into the 21st century, a little bit. but what really shocked about reading emily's book is fact that it felt so relevant. it was almost like you were writing the people i wrote about, except appeared a whole century earlier. so i want to give a few examples just to illustrate how, i think, the story she tells is relevant to even those of us who study a later period in history. so let me begin these roles which, by the way, organize izing the book in terms of roles of missionaries was utterly

brilliant. i loved that. so let's talk about these roles. missionaries, experts and sources of knowledge, which i should add flood knowledge. as you make very clear. so when i was reached writing my book, i was fascinated to see how one resettlement agency, when they knew they needed educate americans about who hmong people and vietnamese and lao people were but well, the thing we should do is literally and paste writings. a missionary from the early 20th century and then photocopy it and distribute it to all the people across america who will be resettling asian refugees. that's literally what the lutheran immigration refugee service did. they just copied and pasted writings and thought, this is going to be really valuable religious content. so that is what people did in 1980s. they also had all of these events where they would bring

together saint paul church leaders and say, hey, we have a missionary who served in southeast asia. they can definitely teach you all about all that you need to know about southeast asian refugees. and so that is what in the late 20th century and i think it really built on this history that you beautiful lee lay out it was an practice treating missionaries as critical sources of information as emily also points out, missionaries are humanitarian. they are doing all sorts of work to provide care. other people, benevolent care, benevolent. i should, you know, maybe use some quotes here. they really benevolent tensions they were doing humanitarian work, education they were doing missionary medicine. they were serving as physicians. again, i saw this all over. but the archives when i was researching book and again in the 1970s and 1980s, we would not have had refugee relief had

it not been missionaries doing that work in refugee camps in thailand. we would not have had hospital in some of the largest refugee camps had it not been staffed by missionaries. and once again, i realized as i was reading emily, but oh, there's a longer history to that as well. finally, and most complexly and complicated i think it's important for us to see missionaries as extensions of the state. in my book i talk a lot about public private governance, church state governance, thinking about religious institutions often do the work of government. and i would add religious individuals will do the work of government. so in the case of what i study, which is refugee resettlement, the government actually outsources a lot of work to religious which then outsource to congregations and religious people do the work of the state. and once again, as i read book, i realize there's a longer history of. religious individuals and institutions doing the work of the state in one way or another, and also sacrificing and

obscuring the sins of the state. so when detail that i can't let go of is when missionaries were talking about the colonization of the philippines. they were saying, wow, this is just so private. so can you believe that? god just gave us this mission field in our lap? wow. what was interesting is the same providential language was used later on in the late 20th century when people who were well aware of war being fought by the u.s. in southeast asia, said, well can you believe that god just dropped people to be missionaries in country? how providential is that? so some of the same logic and stories, religious logic, were a century earlier than the period i study, knowing that there is overlap between the sacred and the secular blurry boundary between what's religious, what's not religious. she points all of the ways where that was uncovered, both for

people and there were conflicts. it was helpful for me to see that there was a history to discuss it with that blurry boundary and because it's i noticed also. so i have some some questions as i think about the legacy the other phenomena she describes this book. i can't stop thinking about my own grandfather. so my parents immigrants from the philippines. my parents come from families who like to have a good time except. my grandfather, my maternal grandfather, everyone made fun of because he was very committed to right living. so they never had magazine scenes in the house like fashion magazines because it was not in keeping with this vision of right living. he was very orderly, very organized, very strict. he was a high school principal and. everyone in the family blamed that on the fact that he went, to a protestant school.

he went to a province. he went to silliman university, which established by presbyterian born missionary days in the early 20th century, right as the u.s. annexed the philippines. so even the family i have are shaped by the phenomena that she describes with these missionary diplomats. it's a broadly, i wonder if we collectively can think about how we can see legacies of the story she tells in this book and also how we might be able to see in unexpected places if only we pay attention. thank. thank you so much, melissa. and, you know, one of the great things about here and, you know, i read this book independently from everybody but you being in a class and you read book and when you're your classmates like picking out things that you picked like yeah i am smart. yeah. because i know it's only

listening. all these people like our up here to have all these wonderful things like, yes i did read the book correctly because i yeah. so many of those things. so thank you all. so much for such a rich understanding of the book. i want to make sure i give emily time to respond. so i'm going to hold some of my questions. but there's one question that i want to ask the panel, and i have several more, but i'm going to hold those because i want to give him the chance, one that i want to hear we really want to hear from the feedback from the audience here today. and this question comes out of discussions. we at the my colleagues and i johan and nora at the journal, they are republic public have on a regular basis and it is how does the scholarship that we're producing you know as historians as anthropologists how how does that scholarship is there a way for the scholarship to inform discussions and as i listened as i read the book and as i listened to our colleagues talking today, i couldn't help think about the the discussions

debates that are going on within our country about the place of religion or the role of religion in society today and policymaking. and so i'd like to ask our panelists if you have any of how emily's book missionary diplomacy might influence or inform some of those discussions. i'll say something quick in brief brief. this is incorrect. i think that there there is there's a challenge of how you write a complicated story in a way that's easy to understand. and this an incredible evidence of pulling that off. and so i think i think one of one of the lessons of this book is i mean, i think we all immediately can think of the ways in which religion is used as a tool of abuse domestically, internationally, i would continue to be wedded to american imperialism and all sorts of grave injustices.

that's obvious. and that needs to be said, of course, even though it's obvious. but what i think i like about this book is, is that it will push us to have to acknowledge that obvious truth, but have more nuanced and complicated conversations about about and its consequences. yeah. well, that's hard. that's hard to follow. ben's answer. and i think that in some sense there's you know, we all prioritize change over time of. course that's what we do. but i guess in that sense an answer to your question is that continuity is also is also important and obviously american the american religious landscape has changed immeasurably. american foreign policy has changed immeasurably. but the complicated, nuanced

role that missionaries play sometimes, it's not so complicated sometimes. it's not so nuanced, but on the whole the whole missionary enterprise. when it when it dovetails with human rights promotion, democracy promotion, learning, humanitarian ism, it's actually quite it's most of the time, clearly a kind of but a very complicated kind of empire. and there ways in which religion in the state absolutely dovetail. and there's a lot of but we're missionaries could be fierce critics of the state including an early 20th century in the 20th century philippines. and that's something that i think shines through in emily's book. and i that's actually been quite continuous and it always pushes american foreign policy in directions. as i said in my comments that policymakers themselves don't often want to go. yeah and i, i'm i handed over to emily i, i agree. i think i would say amen to everything you said. the thing i loved about this book and most of you brought up is that emily does take the

beliefs of the people that she writes about seriously. i came away from the book thinking and understanding. even when we're even when someone is acting out within sincere belief system in what they believe to be true, that doesn't mean individuals in good faith don't make mistakes. and i think he did a very job of showing that in this book. and i want to thank you for that. and with that, i want to turn over and have respond to any and everything heard here today. thank you all incredibly much. i'm very is this that one needs to be a button. are we good now. awesome. okay, so so thank you. and thank you to ben organizing this panel in the first place. also. so this is a really wonderful group of scholars to have up here talking about this project because all of you have been part of the conversation about

this book over the over many years. so the decision to write the book in the first place came in part out of at a conference that andrew ran in conversation with him as was debating between this and a very different book project and gave me the very good advice to stick with missionaries and do this project and ignore the advice of another mentor who told me to run as fast as i could, away from. so thank you. i'm i'm pleased most the pleasure yes and of course this work stands on the shoulders of sort of the spirit shield of faith. so so thank you and ben and gail course have been part of my writing group for these many years and i don't think i've ever heard ben say nice words about it before. so this is really nice. so thank you. and melissa talked about our workshop that was so incredibly transformative through through a very hard time and i am really honored to hear that you sort of read the book as and recognize

people you are talking about. because i certainly recognized the people that you wrote about as i was writing it as well. and i guess that would be sort of like answer to ron's question that he does ask the panel, right. is that these these conversations are very long and we like to sort of put sort of 19th century missionary conversations, a very different box than contemporary stuff. and i think it's i hope that the book will help to think a little bit differently, sort of how. we know what we think we know about the world, who we're in conversation with, how priorities for american foreign policy get set up and things like that. so i guess i just to situate book a little bit from what had hoped it would do, i wrote the book for multiple audiences i then spoke about my sort of schaffer and scheer side. i also hang out a lot in in church history and so i wanted to be able to speak to religious history audiences, relations, history.

it's 19th century stuff more generally and i hope at the book it sounds like it you go to the grad seminar you call it a very nice job of picking up on the themes. i was hoping to get at for religious studies. i sort of hoped that the book would have the will have the impact on our thinking. what the political influences of missionaries as well as the limits to their influence would be. as we think about connections, religion and empire and christian nationalism as well, it really matters that missionaries were able to shape u.s. relations in the 19th and early 20th centuries and it matters that they did so in spite of the fact that annoyed some diplomats right. were not always doing the diplomats wanted them to do, and yet they still had an influence and that that is important for us to think about sort of the role of religion in american society. i hope for foreign relations scholars that it will help us to sort of center more non-state

actors and to think about multiple who influence priorities. i think andrew said this really well, right. that there's no singular american state interest, there is no singular group of who are sort of defining what the role the u.s. should have in the world. right. missionaries are one of many important groups. i think they're a very important. but they are working alongside others and helping to sort of think about these this plurality of visions is really, really. and of i think also i hope also the book helps foreign relations people continue to take religion seriously and see how religion was indeed and remains central to the practice of american power. i also hope the book will help us to think about 19th century america a little bit more differently, to think what and where americans, where they were active in, the world sort of i think it was gayle talked about

what is citizenship is a major throughout the book i'm being worked out in practice on missionaries as one of the groups who helps to really define what does the u.s. state owe to its citizens when. they are abroad. the missionaries talk themselves all the time as american going about legitimate business which we can talk about a lot more if you want to or you read the book to find out more about that. but i think that that is a really important question right over the course of the 19th century, how citizenship being defined, what groups of americans get to make claims on the state and how i think this story helps to sort of add to that big conversation that 19th century historians have been having for a long time. yeah, and i think this and i hope it's expertise argument as well comes through for 19th century historians. one of things i really wanted us to think about sort of coming

out of this book is who the information diet that americans are reading, right? who is writing what what americans reading about what the world is like. and one of the things that's really powerful about sort of this missionary, which i wish i could credit for that phrase, but it is there's they describe it that way. so i am i'm cribbing from the missionaries, but the thing that's really powerful, that missionary intelligence is that it is something that certainly you're going to encounter if you are, you know, supporting missions and if you're interested in missions. so you're going and you're reading the missionary journals and, you're reading the letters from those missionaries, but you're going to encounter, even if you don't intend because sort of as you know, melissa had that great examples in the 1980s as well. right. it is getting missionary writings are getting of republished in other venues. it's getting sort of recycled in other people who are writing other books or reading missionaries as their sources. and so we see this really clear

influence on how. right. even if you don't realize your missionary intelligence, you are in the 19th century and that is going shape american foreign policy goals. it's going to shape what american citizens are thinking their state should do in the world. and it's really gratifying to hear that that was something that came through to readers here. i am so overwhelmed by all of these questions, i guess before i turn it over, i'm here from from you all all. there was one question i wanted to address, and now i can't find it in my notes because there are scribbles in multiple directions. i will turn it over because i can't find where my notes are this is. my handwriting is a mess and. this is the nice thing about moving marks. the 20th century from sheer world is, things are typed more often and so i'm losing my ability to read my own handwriting.

i apologize. the thank you so much and i'm looking forward to hearing further questions. so overwhelming. so i'm going to open up for questions. but before i do this, i just have to i have to make a confession here that i don't know that there's another group where. this would be apropos, but when i was a foreign officer at the us embassy in libreville gabon a year every the u.s. state department puts out the report annual report on religious freedom. and my sources for that to get particularly for people way out in the the areas of gabon where we could not reach them. my sources who write that report where the in country and so that methodology who continues to work in the 24 in the 21st century u.s. diplomacy. anyway thank you so much for listening to that. i don't know why i thought i need to say that, but i'm going to turn it over. i'm going to turn the floor over to you.

all right. now. and i'm going to ask if you wouldn't mind speaking this microphone to to give us your questions. our questions, our comments or confessions confessions. run. can you'll hear me? yes, i. good thank you all so much. thank you, emily, for this book. i would like to know from you how you would like to see well, especially as we have less teachers in the room how you would like to see the history survey to reflect your work in this book. that's true. oh, that's a great question. well, i assume you'll all this is just for ben and the american. yeah, but it might be helpful. i mean, i assume you're all going to be assigning this in your surveys now. that's what i that one thing that this will do for sort of survey conversations on the first place would be to help us surveys still tend to be pretty sort of 19th century. the continental story so let's

acknowledge the that americans are all over the world in the 19th century and that be i think a really helpful thing for our students to be encountering. and one thing that really struck me as i was talking about some of the stuff it the u.s. survey but it was the u.s. foreign relations survey this fall was i was talking, you know, a little bit about missions. and one of my students raised his hand and he you know, what about the separation of and state? and i think that that and i just laughed but i think that this is you know, that's a question our students have when we're talking about a lot of this stuff and it's a question they have the world we live in today and so i, i do actually think there's a space in the survey to sort of work in a about how does religion play into american power and american american the government and we can i think hear about you know first of all that 19th century americans had a different kind of

understanding of how that should work than we do necessarily in the 21st century. although we can debate that maybe going forward. but there was a lot more comfort in a kind of fuzzy line between the sacred and the secular. for many americans in the 19th century, those certainly not. and there was also what these missionaries and the missionary diplomacy shows us is a kind of common sense of the idea that these missionaries are in some ways going to advance the interests of the united states right. going to in several ways. right. potentially as sort of establishing goodwill about the u.s. in part, you know, some say about sort of, you know, boots on the ground, american influence making the way easier for american commerce, making the way easier for political influence and all this sort of thing. i think there are ways that we can sort of expand the the

survey to to think about how. how religion is sort ever present in american government in the 19th century. and i think that is something that our students are interested to learn more about and understand. thank you for. an excellent. hi. this was this was terrific. i want to note that so many of the. about the importance of this book and work and indeed your own claims have to do with this sort of precedence. right. all the themes, all the things that we're used to talking canonically in the 20th century, in the 21st should be be must be discussed in terms of the 19th century precedents and so i guess i want to ask a version of the same sort of how would your teaching change, not just we need more emphasis on the 19th century. you and i agree on that.

or that the 19th century is a cosmopolitan one for the united states, but i've always wondered, was this what would we say differently about what comes knowing what you've shown about the 19th century? i mean, that's your job. yeah. yeah. you and i have disagreed about job and job. it is. obviously differently. yeah, i, i don't know. i think that i mean, one thing i'll be thrilled when i see less of this sort of claims that some things are new that are old, but that's you not really an answer to the question and also, i guess maybe this is also an answer to the questions andrew left off on, you know, what's coming next. one of the things i think we're exploring in the next book is, one of the characters in this book is a man named arthur justin brown, who is a leader of

the presbyterian mission board and a friend, teddy roosevelt's. and one of those guys who was connected, a lot of the political players, while sort of leading one of these mission groups, he has this world tour in 1901 to 1902 to visit all the presbyterian missions and of the things i am sort of thinking, it goes with his wife jenny, who's really interesting as well. i'm looking into their their world tours going forward and trying to think about it as know how would this moment 1898 to 1902 that is talked about as a starting point 20th century american empire. how would our story change if we're looking at as the browns experienced it, as the culmination of a century. and so that i mean, stay tuned to see what that looks like in the future. but that is sort of the question. i'm i'm thinking about right now because i do think that there's. there's going to be i think that

telling those stories sort of with the knowledge that we're building on a long tradition will lead some different insights into what happens next. but but stay tuned for more on that. hey, i'll be the kibo. i will out myself as not having the reading for seminar today that i'm really excited for the book. so i have a question that hoping to gain some clarity on these recent questions. just if you can say a little bit where you end book and why you decided to end there, why you didn't take it all the way through the period that melissa is looking at or take daniel up on his invitation to go further. i was dragged kicking, screaming through world war one. i'll say when i first was thinking about this book, i like and it's going to end before world war one because i don't want to do it and it ends up going through 1924, in part because i wanted be able to

clearly connect it to 20th century conversations without having to do too much the 20th century, myself. but i do think that sort of to that point of sort of and change the guilt. asked about is is really important. i wanted to be able to say, you know, things are indeed changing the early 20th century, the, you know, consular system that is so incredibly to the 19th century story. right. that gets folded in in the early 20th century story, the missionary societies themselves are changing dramatically. you know, fundamentalism becomes a thing. and so i didn't want to end on a note sort of before some of those changes happen where you can say, okay, that's the 19th century. and then everything in the 20th century, it's a totally different story. i wanted to be sure we went far enough into the 20th century that we could see some of those continuities where sort of acknowledge institutional changes that happened, acknowledging the ways that things are going to be different going into the 20th century. there are still these legacies

that are going to be sort of drawing us through. so the third section of the book is sort of after a. the center section of the book does lot of globe hopping. so each chapter will take you at least three countries as we've different themes about missionary. the third part of the book is each chapter does a sort of a longer case study, a particular place. and i wanted to be sure, sort of get us to some of those big questions, but ends with world war one. it ends with the armenian genocide and sort of missionary roles in sort of working other kinds of american humanitarian, sort of shaping the response to that and we have an epilog that takes us to sort of a missionary. conference with presidents in place in the 1920s who are sort of continuing echo the same themes that we saw earlier the

century or in the 19th century. i should about sort of missions as advancing the work of the u.s. state abroad and also the daughter of one of the missionaries i talk about who introduces the u.s. to tofu. so thank you to her one of my favorite food groups and so was really about making sure that i could connect stories in that way and draw 19th century story forward in a way that hopefully folks who are more used to thinking about sort of the important stories of u.s. foreign relations starting after the second world war can recognize can recognize the people i'm talking about in the stories they want to tell. thank you for a great question. i thanks for this wonderful panel. and clearly, i need to read this book and i'm looking forward to it. i had a question that kind of picks up on some of these themes about which one of the things you said, emily, your students ask, what is you know, what about separation of church and

state? and then i was thinking about that in relationship to gail said that you say about missionaries which is that they of took this idea of voluntary religion and individualism you know which in the 19th century would be seen as a kind of progressive force. so i'm curious if this is the theme of your book or something that we take from the book, but did missionaries have a role in sort of you know, i what i'm looking at is that sounds like distinctions are made between mechanical identity, you know, and i thought are missionaries helping construct the model? are they part of the process we've become to understand the journey itself and are they kind of a kind of progressive force, a sense and would that strike students something counterintuitive that today do. that's a fabulous question. i don't know how i would answer it. it's yeah, i think. you know, the one of the many things i have always loved about gail and working with her on this stuff is that she helps to

translate the religious study stuff that don't even realize. i'm saying in my into making it so much smarter than it is so thank you for for that i think you know one of the one of the things that we see in sort of religion as sort of voluntary and chosen is that these missionaries the 19th century are sort of asserting claims about sort of the common sensical ness of a lot of these ideas, religion that they are putting forward that are, in fact, specific sort of culturally specific, nationally specific. it's not just, you know, protestantism, protestantism, some. isn't that right? it's american protestantism as a particular form. and one of the ways we see this really dramatically in sort of the foreign relations space is as sort of missionaries and supporters are responding. changes in sort of foreign

countries laws around religious freedom and missionaries are continually assuming that this means they're going to be able to go and evangelize because obviously that's what religious freedom means. and in japan, they sort of talk about this really explicitly where, you know, the laws changed to allow people to christianity but not to proselytize and the missionaries will say in letters, well and letters for the state department that, you know, this is what they say. but of course, christianity proselytizing and they know that's what we believe. christianity is and therefore what we're to do is actually legal under laws, which of course not. how understands japan's laws. and so this is. sort of one of these moments where we see this kind of missionary, understand of international law that is sort of drawing the state department into places it might not want to

go. where sort of comes into sort of missionaries the the modern i don't i like that idea i'm going to think about it a lot more because i think there's something there and andrew wants to well i just would just to just on that exact mean you said it exactly right but a lot of times in those situations and you look at these situations and, missionaries are advancing this agenda in the name of universal rights which aren't at all universal. and a lot of times state department or other american officials are reluctant to get or they don't think that missionaries are advanced, are doing something that's in the u.s. interest, but they're dragged along anyway. and so missionaries are advancing this kind of notion of a universal that could be the modern in a way that they're at the cutting edge. and i think your book shows that really well you. hi my name is ethan. thank you for writing the book and thanks for that wonderful conversation. i think the first book to second books oftentimes very clear link

of expanding upon a related theme. wondered if you could look backwards on, your first book and sort of if there anything if there's anything that for the research for this book made, you sort of actually rethink some of your ideas from, your first book to sort of say maybe that wasn't exactly, you know, true. or maybe you you. could question. i so, so many thoughts about the first book. the second book, i think one thing that. hmm. what i. this is obviously a kind of existential question just asked me, which is why i'm taking so long with it. i think one thing that there is

and i think part of that is because there's sort a number of ways that i sort thought about the first book as i was writing this book. one of them is about writing expression imperialism was written very much. it was the dissertation to book book. it's very much an academic book. i, you know, gratified, you know, my parents tried to read it. i'm not sure they ever got through it, but i'll say so i was writing missionary diplomacy sort of with in a different narrative style and so i do. and it was tremendous fun to try and write this book in a way that more folks would want to read. and i'll say, i'm gratified by, you know, my daughter sunday school teacher has read it and that's like, my gosh. and she understood what i was to say would, oh, my gosh, that's you know, i feel like i don't check. plus did i meant to do i would have set myself out to do so i would have have you know, i wish the christian imperialism was written in a way that more people want to read. but argument stuff, i think.

i wish that i been able to i think. talk a little bit beyond. 1840. that book ends ends where it does because you know sort of was telling an earlier public story i was sort of wanting to sort of end before the mexican war. i think it would have been really interesting, explore those themes, going a little bit farther into the future. past me is very glad i didn't that. but looking back, i think that these sort of questions about, you know, christian pillars and explorers is the idea of american empire and how missionaries shaping. shaping an understanding of, you know what what american empire could be and how does that sort of run up against the of what empire is in the world? i think those continue well

past, the period that i talk about in that some of which gets picked up in diplomacy, but not as much as many, because this book is doing something different. but that is, i think, a place where if i could have gone further in the future, that would have been, i think, part of the thinking that's i'm going to be haunted by that. as i go to something, i hear before i handed after our next course, i want to say extending our grad seminar metaphor like you guys get top marks today for class participation in contribution because these questions are phenomenal. but i'll try to bring everything down. just a tack on to an earlier question what what does this say about like the mormon story or the catholic story what? how does this relate to mormons especially mormons who move to canada and mexico to escape the united states and catholics who are trying to open convents across the country? excellent.

excellent question. and i'll say my editor, when i was first starting this book, was, so are you going to put the mormons in the book? and i said, it's like twice the length. if i have to do that. it's a it's a really important and i'll say, for those of you who are interested, so i think that mormon and protestant alongside of each other, we have a new volume missionary interests also by cornell press with editor is is here in the room with us christopher jones and that was a really wonderful sort of conference than volume to take part in because this is a conversation that we i think within the field are talking about more now right. how does sort of protestant experience emotion and mormon experience or overlap in this period. i hope that this this work will sort of set the stage for really exciting research in those fields.

the relationship between the latter-day saints and the u.s. government is very to the 19th century than that that between these various protestant denominations and the u.s. state in 19th century. and so which why i ultimately was like that's a separate project that i hope someone writes and that i get to read and learn a lot from. the catholic story. is also one that is, i think, qualitatively different because of, again, the relationship to the state and the relationship to the ability to make that claim of kind of being the common sense understanding of american sort of national identity and sort of being able to sort of make moral claims about how a u.s. should be in the world which if we look at sort of 19th century u.s. catholic history, right, a, you know, goes through a whole lot of changes over the course of this of the century in this time period. so the catholics don't show up in the book really until i get

to the philippines, where we see american catholics really objecting to this 19th century, you know, long tradition of missionary diplomacy because we had this protestant missionary showing up in the philippines and saying we're going to christianize the philippines and american catholics, like, what are you talking about? they're catholic. and having a lot of concern about. right. who's going to be working in these schools and you know, the catholics american catholics are accusing the protestant missionaries of trying to staff the public schools with with protestants and the protestants are talking about the catholics doing this. and it's all ends up being one of these conversations around. religious freedom. and who's religious freedom and how is that going to get practiced? so it's super super interesting at point and i again, i'm looking forward to seeing someone else take up this project of explaining how the longer 19th and end of the 20th century story is. because for both mormons and catholics, of course, over course of the 20th century, right those groups relationship to the state is very different.

and so they're going to have much more ability to take on sort of that's that role that the protestants done in the 19th century of sort of being an important sort, informants on what the world is like to american audiences on advancing the interest of the u.s. state in various ways. yes, i it is a it's a i hope that this will be an inspiration for future research that i will look forward to reading in citing over the so delighted to see you here today and also to celebrate not just the book but also you of it. i don't think we do this enough and. these kinds of moments. i don't know many people in the who are more generous, more kind, more thoroughly decent than you are. and it's also fantastic. the work is fantastic to so i wanted to say that and also maybe to ask you a very general question, zoom out to space about i haven't read the book, but i am guessing that you will have answer to this. oh, you'll be able to tell me it's a dumb question. so if you think that the 19th century is a space of total derangement when it comes to the foreign service, when it comes

the formal diplomatic service of the u.s. for the kind of high diplomacy, but then down to the consul level, where all kinds of stuff is going on. if you think the end of your story being a moment where the us beginning to formalize much, some of that kind of work all missionaries helping the us to postpone moment of formalizing that work or actually are they the reason it has to get. what a good question and also thank you that's very of you who yeah i think both which is a way of hedging but also i think is right. so we have i mean, the and on the one hand, it's because missionaries are absolutely demanding more consular presence the 19th century. right. so part of the story of how they, you know, dragging the state behind them is that they are saying we need more consoles here because you need to protect us when when when we get into trouble, when bad things happen. and so they're absolutely. you know, in favor of and sort

of forcing the hand of expanding more, you know, the american diplomatic footprint over the course of the century. they are also so one of the things that stood out to me doing the research is. for those diplomats who aren't fans and they are many, the missionaries are kind of embarrassing to the state. so there's george seward, who's in china. is really bothered by missionaries. missionaries are causing all kinds of problems. he when he becomes the american secretary there like missionaries are taking up so much time of all of the consoles. what's going with this? and also notes, it has actually been complained about this for years by this point that it's really embarrassing that they need to listen the missionaries,

because none of the consoles know how to speak the languages exactly. and this is really part of the thing. and so, you know, one of the ways missionaries are able to have this influence is they are the translators. they are there. the treaties are being written. they are right in the room. they're serving as judges on, the extraterritorial courts, and they are and sort hates this. and he's and he will write back to washington over and over again saying we need to, you know, be putting more energy into training our consular staff to be able do this work so that we're not dependent on missionary labor. i mean, no one really listens to him because missionaries are there and there cheap labor. and so i think it's you know, it's it's it's both. and that they are both sort of expanding the need for this extension of american power. and also you yeah they're they're they're serving in role in ways that they can you know

they, are even serving as consuls for sometimes long periods of time as they are working missionaries. some will take a sort pause in their missionary duties officially while they're doing consular work, but a lot of them don't and continue to do both things at once and for lots of wild stories about that. please see book. they do the pandemic. i had a to going to joining that and it works john patrick curtis and melissa and it is really inspiring and the after reading one of your books chapter during the cuban academic year what i because my topic is missionaries in korea and china i of go back went back to the churches i researched what happened after they trinity to the united states and i was surprised and shocked how many of them ended at universities as professors not only in area studies but also international loans and

internship relations shaping, not just about shipping information about their specific kind of location work country, but also the methodology to how to engage with other kind of will they at their countries and nations. i was wondering if you can tell a little bit more about academic dimension of because you have a chapter about expert where you talked about research like samuel williams after coming back from china, yale became a yale professor of china. so yeah, if you can tell a little bit more about that kind of role as a kind of shaping how people who are future generation with the work. it's a fantastic question and i think know to get a full answer we're going to have to wait for your dissertation, which is exciting. it's good to see you again. yes. so missionaries and missionary kids also are a big part of this story. who will come back to the states and teach? and so we see this way that

worldview is shaping all kinds of things. i'm fascinated to hear about the international law teachings did not know that. and that's going to be really interesting. i one of the missionaries i study actually becomes an international law professor in japan and, botany. he teaches botany and international law at tokyo university. he's a medical doctor. he has no training in either of these things. and that's always kind blown my mind. but it's interesting that it comes back to the states too. so they are absolutely. these are folks who are interested in all kinds of things and. so not only are they coming back and teaching, but they're also publishing in american scientific journals, in american anthropological journals, as well as writing history and ethnography and, the sorts of stuff you might expect to see their stuff in. so they are shaping sort of scientific discourse in the u.s. as well as other kinds of things. so we are missionaries sort of back and shaping. so the formation area studies in

the us is a story that i think we're a little bit more familiar with, but are also you know, folks like samuel williams is going to be sort of creating these academic institutions, professorships where are going to be sort of identifying that, you know, american students be learning about this place. they be learning about these issues and yeah, i look forward to your dissertation to learn more about how that plays out in korea case. that's fantastic. well, everyone, this has just been a phenomenal, phenomenal panel. i just want to remind everybody that diplomacy is available down stairs at the cornell. but exhibit, 40% off and it's 40% off during the conference. exactly. and when you go down there and it has a little sold out sticker, because you are going to go buy it out, please make sure to go on to the cornell site and buy because it is very important that we support each it's very important that we buy books and we educate as many