Dr. David Manning |
October 2011 - June 2012 | |
|
Dr. David Manning has been awarded a nine month Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities to work on his research project: "Rethinking the History of the Christian Enlightenment: A Case Study of Edinburgh, c. 1689 – c. 1751" - "My research pertains to the history of theologico-moral ideas and culture in early modern Britain. Following my doctoral dissertation, ‘Blasphemy in England, c. 1660-1730’ (University of Cambridge, 2009), I have become interested in the construction of, and appeal to, dichotomies in early modern polemical theology. My most recent essay, ‘Theological Enlightenments and Ridiculous Theologies: Contradistinction in English Polemical Theology’, published in Religion in the Age of Enlightenment: Volume 2 (New York: AMS Press, 2010), forms the basis for my current work here at IASH. During my fellowship I shall explore the conceptual and rhetorical significance of the light-dark dichotomy to spiritual discernment during the long Reformation. This abstract investigation will then led to a re-evaluation of the relationship between Edinburgh’s Presbyterians and other confessional groups in the city during the early eighteenth century. The over-arching aim will be to challenge the standard historiography of the Christian Enlightenment by showing how theological enlightenments did not necessarily encourage either irenicism or the cleavage of human and divine reason; this will check both established arguments about the ‘decline of Calvinism’ in Scotland and recent historiography of the ‘coherent’ Enlightenment."
Contact Details:
|
||