The struggle for integration and self-assertion: the correspondence of the East Frisian Mennonite Antje Brons née Cremer ten Doornkaat (1810-1902)

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Andreas Kuczera; Dr. Klaas-Dieter Voß
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 527629598

The project aims to realise a graph-based, digital Open Access edition of the correspondence of the Mennonite church-historical writer and philanthropist Antje Brons née Cremer ten Doornkaat (1810-1902), who lived in the East Frisian town of Emden. In addition to textual material, the edition will also provide visual material in the form of portrait photographs and photographs of material sources. Due to her substantial publications, Antje Brons is one of the central figures of Mennonite Anabaptism in the 19th century and, through her work in church history and politics, played a not inconsiderable role in the further development of her denomination, which was struggling for official status as a religious minority at the time. In addition, the committed mother of several children dealt with pedagogy and women's issues, which manifested itself, among other things, in the co-founding and promotion of various local educational institutions. Her patriotic-monarchist attitude, on the other hand, has led to a critical view of her work in recent research. The historical-critical edition of the correspondence now makes largely unpublished source material, some of which is still in private hands, accessible for the first time. Antje Brons corresponded across national and denominational boundaries with relatives, friends, important representatives of Anabaptist research, actors in the organisation of Mennonite congregations, theology students and personalities of the first women's movement during a period from 1827 to 1902. The range of topics includes specific Mennonite problems and family matters as well as discussions of contemporary events (among other things, Antje Brons' husband, a merchant and politician, was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly in 1848/49) and aspects of cultural and regional history. The graph-based digital edition of these correspondences makes it possible to depict the range of discourses dealt with - political, familial, religious - and their intersections in their intertextuality more directly and immediately. At the same time, the use of norm data makes it possible to embed this material in larger contexts and thus make Antje Brons' relevance visible beyond her own communication network. The digital recording, labelling and publication of sources and accompanying texts in Open Access is graph-based using TEI semantics and thus opens up the material for a variety of analytical perspectives. Different levels of access such as simple and advanced search, indexes of all entities identified in the full texts, the collection of photographs linked to indexes and letter texts enable researchers to grasp and actively investigate the complex biographical and thematic connections of the correspondences and beyond.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants