The last week that I was in Germany, I continued my forays into Mennonite history (previously: breaking into a church in the Netherlands, sketchy Anabaptists in Münster), by visiting the Russian-German museum in Detmold. This museum is not open very often and I had thought about going for several weekends in a row, and not gone. In order to motivate myself to visit, I made an appointment.

After I found out that I won the Humboldt Fellowship, I met with my host on zoom to go over some details and she warned me that Bochum was not a very big city and that there might not be that much to do (more or less). I tried to explain to her that I live in Columbia South Carolina, not a place like New York City (thankfully, Chicago and Philadelphia are my favourite cities in the USA), so I was sure it would at least be different.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about some archives I visited in Germany. I visited a third archive that I did not write about in that post because I visited it in conjunction with a church - to learn specifically about windows that portray miners. I first learned about the St-Vinzentius Protestant church in Harpen, a suburb of Bochum, when I was reading the museum's magazine about mining history and culture, …

Last year I saw a really cool documentary about masculinity and miners at the Atelier Automatique, a cultural space in Bochum, and one morning went to look at an exhibit about St. Barbara, and queering visions of miners, in its windows. And then, when I returned in January, I received some excellent advice for places to go in Bochum and was pleased to see the location where I had watched this documentary listed.

Long time readers of this blog (my dad) will recall some of my earliest posts on archives I visited in Mexico City as part of my PhD research, and for my book on Mennonites and Mormons. You may also recall some of my best moments in archives in Bolivia and Brazil, conducting research for this mining project in the 2023-2024 academic…

A few months ago when I was researching my trip to the Netherlands, I looked up Mennonite heritage tours to see what places they visited, and if I could go to some of the places on my own. Much to my surprise, in addition to the sites in the Netherlands, I saw several places relatively close to where I live.

In early March, I went back to the Netherlands to continue my research on Mennonites in the Allard Pierson library and to speak at the University of Utrecht (thanks to my friend Christina Soto van der Plas). Town of Sneek I went to the library as part of my side quest project on Mennonites and witches, based on the idea that the Inquisition prosecuted people it thought were Anabaptists and people it thought were witches, and perhaps they had some kind of connection.

As most of you probably know, I wrote a book about Mennonites and Mormons in Mexico eight years ago. I did a lot of research in rural parts of Mexico to meet with English speaking members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Low German speaking Mennonites in many different denominations. I continued this research in archives…

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Bochum City Sign I finished two months of German intensive classes at the end of April. I had some great teachers, some less than great teachers, and I learned a lot of German. I am very happy that…

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