2010 Annual IGHS/SGAS Meeting to be held in New Harmony

IGHS will join the Society for German-American Studies (SGAS) to hold their Annual Meeting and Symposium on April 22-25, 2010 at the New Harmony Inn and Conference Center in historic New Harmony, Indiana.

Historic New Harmony is located in the southwestern corner of Indiana not far from the junction of the Wabash and Ohio Rivers. It is known for its quiet charm, many cultural offerings, and historic sites.

New Harmony was founded in 1814 by German Pietists from Württemberg, led by Father George Rapp, who had left their Pennsylvania colony of Harmony in order to move to the wilderness. The community flourished, but after ten years the Harmonists elected to return to Pennsylvania, where they founded the town of Old Economy.

They left behind a spiritual legacy that is still cultivated in New Harmony today. Many of the original Harmonist buildings remain, and docent-led tours of the town provide insight into what life was like for those German pioneers on the Indiana frontier.

Sessions are planned on a variety of topics, including German-American religious communities, Homiletics of German-American spiritual leaders, German migration to the Ohio River valley, German-American linguistic communities, teaching German-Americana at secondary and post-secondary levels, and German-American prose and poetry, although papers on any other topic of German-American Studies are also welcome!