Join the Religious Studies Program on Friday, January 26 at 12:30pm for our January Brown Bag. Professor Mark L. Louden (RS Affiliate, GNS+) will present on Amish Health Culture. This brownbag will explore the health culture of one of America’s most visible religious groups, the Amish. Although they do not practice faith healing in the traditional sense, the Amish blend allopathic and complementary/alternative medical practices in ways that reflect their spiritual identity as “in the world but not of the world.” Open to any interested faculty, graduate students or staff in other departments.
Mark L. Louden is the Alfred L. Shoemaker, J. William Frey, and Don Yoder Professor of Germanic linguistics and Director of the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies. He is an affiliate of the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies and the Religious Studies, Language Sciences and Folklore programs at UW–Madison. A fluent speaker of Pennsylvania Dutch, most of his published research and public outreach center on the language and its speakers, past and present. In 2016 he was awarded the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Prize from the German Academic Exchange Service, and for his book, Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language, he received the 2017 Dale W. Brown Book Award from the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabetown College. Aside from his teaching and research, he serves as an interpreter, cultural mediator, and patient navigator for Amish and Old Order Mennonite groups in the health care and legal systems.
The event will take place in the Religious Studies seminar room on the 3rd floor of the Bradley Memorial Building (1225 Linden Drive, Madison WI). Download the event poster as a PDF here.