The Making of an American Saint: Autohagiographies of Levi Parsons and Pliny Fisk, the First American Missionaries to the Middle East
Abstract
One of the first enterprises of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), the Palestine Mission led Levi Parsons and Pliny Fisk to the Ottoman Empire in 1820. Even though the mission ended within a couple of years as Parsons passed away and Fisk followed the same fate a couple of years later, their autobiographical writings, consisting of letters and other works, were compiled posthumously by Daniel O. Morton and Alvan Bond. Benefiting from a multidisciplinary approach, this study aims at revealing the cultural and historical background of discourse in Parsons and Fisk’s writings as among the earliest examples of American autohagiographies. Also discussing the foundations of the American perception of the Orient and its reconstruction in these texts, this study highlights the role of their editors as well as the current social and political setting of the Antebellum Era in which their works were written. Furthermore, it points to the influence of the ideological and religious heritage of the American Awakenings, with an emphasis on the role of the Orient in American religiosity.
Keywords
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Palestine Mission, Levi Parsons, Pliny Fisk, Orientalism, Autohagiography
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