Sue Trollinger, University of Dayton – Weaponizing Amish Culture

On University of Dayton Week: Amish country may look different than you think if you pay a visit.

Sue Trollinger, professor of English, explains why.

Dr. Susan Trollinger is professor of English at the University of Dayton. She teaches in the interdisciplinary Core program at UD as well as courses in the visual and material rhetorics of Protestant fundamentalism/evangelicalism and the Amish. Her book, Selling the Amish: The Tourism of Nostalgia (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012) offers an analysis of the visual rhetoric of tourism in Amish Country in Ohio. She also co-wrote Righting America at the Creation Museum (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), with William Vance Trollinger, Jr. The book provides a close reading of the visual rhetoric, scientific and biblical argumentation, politics, and historical significance of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky. She has also written for The Conversation.

Weaponizing Amish Culture

Every year, millions of Americans visit Amish Country in eastern Ohio, home to one of the three largest Amish settlements in the world. 

Visitors are attracted to the picturesque landscape as well as to small yet well-appointed towns (with their Amish-style restaurants, gift shops, and bakeries).

Historically, Amish have been known as “the quiet in the land.” They won’t go to war. They won’t even fire a gun at an intruder threatening their life or the life of a loved one. They worship the Prince of Peace.

So a visitor might be taken aback by merchandise now available in Amish Country gift shops. 

In an especially popular store, for example, one can find a display of gold-colored bullet-shaped beverage containers, most of which feature an image of an American flag. 

Nearby is a collection of coffee mugs listing gun calibers (.45, 9mm, and so forth) and the statement, “All faster than calling 911.” In a shop down the road, one can find wall hangings also featuring the American flag with the statement, “The Second Amendment is my gun permit.”

Shops in all three of the largest Amish settlements carry merchandise like this that runs counter to Amish faith, culture, and life.

Amish tourism is complicated. It provides financial opportunities for many Amish who can’t afford to farm like their ancestors. But contact with non-Amish visitors has made it harder for them to remain not of this world.

Amish Country tourism has long had little to do with the Amish. But since 2008, my students and I have visited a New Order Amish school, an Old Order Amish candle shop, and a Swartzentruber Amish farm, where one of the strictest groups sells handmade goods. We also share meals in Amish homes, gaining a rare glimpse into their way of life.

Encountering Amish ways remains possible in Amish Country.

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One response to “Sue Trollinger, University of Dayton – Weaponizing Amish Culture”

  1. Georgiana Nye Avatar
    Georgiana Nye

    I find this fascinating. I would love to know more. I am an older UD alum. Georgiana nye

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