Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor Felicity Ann Jensz, University of Munster, Germany

Portrait photograph of Dr. Felicity Ann JenszTranslating Colonialism

1 February - 1 March 2025

Biography

Felicity Jensz is a colonial historian who received her PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Since 2008, she has worked at the Cluster of Excellence for Religion and Politics at the University of Münster, Germany. Her research interests include British and German colonial history, coloniality, cross-cultural contact, missionary education and media history. She is a Principal Investigator on the three-year German Research Foundation funded project “Global Bible: British and German Bible societies translating colonialism, 1800-1910”.  Her publications include over 60 articles and book chapters including articles in Gender & History, Aboriginal History and Postcolonial Studies. She has edited or co-edited seven books or special journal issues, including Global Perspectives on Boarding Schools in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, with Daniel Gerster (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). She is author of two monographs, the most recent being Missionaries and Modernity (Manchester University Press, 2022). Currently she is working on a monograph on the afterlives of German colonies.

Research Summary

As a Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Researcher, Dr Jensz will work with Professor Hilary Carey to develop the ground breaking work of the Global Bible (GloBil) project, funded by the AHRC and DFG from 2022-2025, taking it in new and more ambitious directions and seeking ambitious funding for a significantly expanded programme. To date the GloBil project has examined how bible societies contributed to the production of bibles in various languages in the nineteenth century, uncovering the work of local translators and demonstrating the networks involved in the monumental task of producing a bible in all known languages, including those with no formal written system. Preliminary work has focussed on the significance of collaboration between German and British Bible societies in areas of colonial expansion thorough three case studies of the Arctic, West Africa and Oceania. Important findings have already published and further results communicated at international conference, including a collaborative conference in Kumasi, Ghana. The project has been enthusiastically received by many colleagues with there being much potential for further research. Such interest has inspired us to develop a full project description as the basis for an application for an advanced ERC grant. The proposed new project will extend this to three new regions engaging the Dutch Bible Society, the Danish Bible Society, the American Bible Society as well as the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the major German Bible Societies. The new project will develop research questions focusing on the materiality of the Bibles printed for colonised peoples in the American west, Indonesia, the Arctic and West Africa. The longer visit by PD Jensz will allow for closer collaboration with the Global Bible research team. This will advance the impact activities currently under development, including the innovative collaboration with global majority artists with the aim of providing opportunities for marginalised and hidden voices to be heard, especially those with knowledge of mother tongue translations. 

Dr. Jensz will present seminars during her visit: these will be listed on our Events page in due course. 

You can contact Dr Jensz's host Professor Carey for more information.