Frans Houttuyn, Amsterdam Bookseller: Preaching, Publishing and the Mennonite Enlightenment KEITH L. SPRUNGER* Abstract: Frans Houttuyn, disciple of Newton and other Enlightenment thinkers, was an eighteenth-century Mennonite bookseller, publisher and preacher of Amsterdam. His bookshop, the “Isaac Newton,” was a hub for like-minded Mennonites in discussing new ideas and buying…
BOOK REVIEWS A Mennonite Family in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union 1789-1923. By David G. Rempel with Cornelia Rempel Carlson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2003. Pp. 356. $70, Can. The noted Mennonite historian David G. Rempel worked on this book for over twenty years before his death…
"Mista Mid-nights": Mennonites and Race in Mississippi DAVID R. SWARTZ* Abstract: The racially charged atmosphere of Mississippi in the 1960s saw Mennonites respond by defending segregation, by warning against the dangers of civil rights demonstrations and by increasing evangelism among both ?colored? and white nonbelievers. But a growing…
The Way to the City of Peace: The Anabaptist Utopia of Pieter Pietersz TOM HARDER* Abstract: The Way to the City of Peace, written in 1625 by the Waterlander Mennonite minister Pieter Pietersz, was one of the earliest books in the pilgrimage genre of spiritual literature. In describing the “City…
BLUE SONG For Ervin Beck, upon his retirement Walking down the west side of this hill through maple and beech, you see the river beyond the river grass, wind blowing along its top like a child’s hand as he waves goodbye for…
CONTENTS OF VOLUME LXXVII 2003 JANUARY Author Addresses 3 In This Issue 5 Mennonite World Conference, 1925-2000: From Euro-American Conference to Worldwide Communion John A. Lapp and Ed van Straten 7 A Mennonite-Christian View of Suffering: The Case of Russian Mennonites in the 1930s…
Harry Loewen: A Tribute Paul Tiessen When I arrived as an undergraduate at the Mennonite Brethren College of Arts in Winnipeg in 1964-65, only a year or two after Rudy Wiebe had been delicately shown the road out of town, I did have a vague inkling that ?the sixties? had…
The Construction of Mennonite/Amish Character in Novels by John Updike and Denis Johnson DANIEL W. LEHMAN* Abstract: Mennonite and Amish characters play small but crucial roles in the best-known novels of John Updike and Denis Johnson, two celebrated contemporary writers in the United States. At their best, both Updike and…
Resolving Dualisms in David Bergen’s Sitting Opposite My Brother ERVIN BECK* Abstract: The short stories in David Bergen’s first book of fiction Sitting Opposite My Brother tend to offer similar sets of characters, narratives and resolutions. The stories often juxtapose male characters of opposite spiritual conditions: one being a…
?Sloughing off Ribs’: Revealing The Second Sex in Julia Kasdorf’s Poetry BETH MARTIN BIRKY* Abstract: This essay examines the way Julia Kasdorf’s latest collection of poetry Eve’s Striptease maps a female artist’s integration of body and desire and suggests the personal and creative power to be found in formulating…
