Plain Diversity

Amish Cultures and Identities
Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8018-8605-8
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 256 Seiten, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 508 g

Reihe: Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies

Plain and simple. American popular culture has embraced a singular image of Amish culture that is immune to the complexities of the modern world: one-room school houses, horses and buggies, sound and simple morals, and unfaltering faith. But these stereotypes dangerously oversimplify a rich and diverse culture.

In fact, contemporary Amish settlements represent a mosaic of practice and conviction. In the first book to describe the complexity of Amish cultural identity, Steven M. Nolt and Thomas J. Meyers explore the interaction of migration history, church discipline, and ethnicity in the community life of nineteen Amish settlements in Indiana. Their extensive field research reveals the factors that influence the distinct and differing Amish identities found in each settlement and how those factors relate to the broad spectrum of Amish settlements throughout North America.

Nolt and Meyers find Amish children who attend public schools, Amish household heads who work at luxury mobile home factories, and Amish women who prefer a Wal-Mart shopping cart to a quilting frame. Challenging the plain and simple view of Amish identity, this study raises the intriguing question of how such a diverse people successfully share a common identity in the absence of uniformity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Nolt, Steven M

Meyers, Thomas J

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christliche Kirchen, Konfessionen, Denominationen Andere und Moderne Christliche Glaubensgemeinschaften
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface
1. Introduction: Amish Images and Identities
Part I: Patterns of Peoplehood
2. Migration
3. Ordnung
4. Ethnicity
Part II: Comparative Communities
5. Elkhart-LaGrange and Nappanee Settlements
6. Swiss Settlements of Eastern Indiana
7. Transplants from Lancaster, Pennsylvania
8. The Paoli-Salem Communities
Part III: Diversity
9. Diverse Amish Worlds
10. Amish Community as Conversation
Appendix: Extinct Indiana Amish Settlements
Notes
References
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Nolt, Steven M
Steven M. Nolt is a professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College and director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies.

Steven M. Nolt is an associate professor of history at Goshen College. Thomas J. Meyers is a professor of sociology at Goshen College.