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  2. Amazing Grace and its legacies: reflections at 250
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Conference Programme

10.00-10.45         Registration/Tea and coffee

10.45-11.00         Welcome and Introductions

11.00-12.45         Concurrent Paper Session 1

Session 1A: Textual origins

Markus Rathey, ‘What is so amazing about grace? “Amazing Grace” in the contexts of eighteenth-century theology and hymnody’

Marylynn Rouse, ‘Amazing Grace: tracing the overlooked origin of the words of John Newton’s hymn’

Grant Gordon, ‘The Problem of the Missing Parenthesis’

Session 1B: Paper Session 1B: Spirituality

Gillian Warson, ‘“Was blind but now I see”: spiritual blindness in hymnody’

Susan Quindag, ‘In Like Manner of Amazing Grace: A Christian's Journey for Relationship and the Sound of Spirituality’

Fiona Evison, ‘Through Many Dangers: “Amazing Grace” as an act of congregational care during the COVID-19 pandemic’

12.45-14.00         Lunch

14.00-15.45         Concurrent Paper Session 2

Session 2A: John Newton

Janet Wootton, ‘Grace Abounding to Amazing Grace’

Scott Connell, ‘The Amazing Grace of Friendship: John Newton and William Cowper’

Gordon Giles, ‘Graciousness in the amazing life and soul of John Newton’

Session 2B: Dissemination and influence

Martin Clarke, ‘Re-tuning “Amazing Grace”: lyrics, music and meaning

Marcell Silva Steuernagel, ‘From “Amazing Grace” to “Preciosa Graça”: Transnational Echoes of a Protestant Hymn’

Walter Kurt Kreyszig, ‘Amazing Grace with Its Tune “New Britain” Beyond the Realm of the English-Speaking World: The Tune “New Britain” as the Basis for German Paraphrases of the Original Text and New Texts, 1976-2019’

15.45-16.15         Tea and coffee

16.15-17.30         Concurrent Paper Session 3

Session 3A: Slavery and its legacies

John Coffey, ‘Anthony Benezet, John Newton, and the Liverpool slave trade’

Simon Lee, ‘The Amazing Grace of Redemption’

Session 3B: New contexts

Gabriel Ademola Oyeniyi, ‘“Amazing grace”: composer’s global vision and the challenge of grassroots hymn singing in Nigeria’

Mikael Bäckman, ‘Amazing affordances: Revealing the idiomaticity of the harmonica through a classic hymn’

10.00-10.45         Registration/Tea and coffee

10.45-12.00         Keynote Lecture 1

Professor D. Bruce Hindmarsh, ‘Dangers, Toils, and Snares: Grace in the Life of John Newton, Then and Now’

12.00-14.00         Lunch (delegates will make their own arrangements; see Visit Olney for suggestions)

14.00-15.15         Keynote Lecture 2

Professor Anthony G. Reddie, ‘Amazing Grace and Cheap Grace: Learning from The Cross and the Lynching Tree

15.15-15.45         Tea and cofee

15.45-17.00         Roundtable panel

Chair: Dr Martin Clarke

Participants: The Rt Rev’d Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the Rev’d Dr Janet Wootton, Prof Simon Lee

17.00-17.30         Lecture-recital

Alexander Douglas (piano), ‘A Sacred Journey: From the Olney Hymns to the Antebellum South’