Fellows – Dr Jérôme Grosclaude, Visiting Research Fellow 2017-18

Dr Jérôme Grosclaude, visiting research fellow in the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History for 2017-18, writes of his research for the year;

As a French academic working on Modern British Religious History, and more particularly British Methodism, I’m delighted to having been appointed Visiting Research Fellow at the OCMCH for the current academic year. This allows me to study the fascinating conversion narratives published in The Arminian Magazine, of which issues the OCMCH possesses a complete series. These narratives deal with all sorts of men and women, from many walks of life, and represent a very interesting perspective on the first generations of Methodist communities. Most of the narratives were clearly written and published long after the event, which makes interesting contrast between them and other Methodist narratives written immediately afterwards. Furthermore, being edited by John Wesley from its first issue in 1778 to his death in 1791, the first 165 issues of The Arminian Magazine can also give us an indirect idea of John Wesley’s priorities for his movement and its adherents. So my research endeavours to find similarities and dissimilarities between these conversion narratives, in order to distinguish common patterns.

I have been working on British Methodism for more than ten years now. As a doctoral student at Sorbonne-Nouvelle – Paris III University, my thesis dealt with the question of the Ministry in the relations between the Methodists and the Church of England from the death of John Wesley to the 1970s. My association with the OCMCH dates back to 2009, during this research, and continued after I was appointed to my current position as maître de conferences (i. e. Senior Lecturer) at Clermont Auvergne University in 2012. My other main academic interest is the XIXth-century Church of England and the momentous changes it went through during the Georgian and Victorian eras: being in Oxford is thus an opportunity to (literally!) walk in the footsteps of other important figures of British Christianity such as Thomas Arnold and John Keble.