(Special Section Introduction) Hymns Beyond the Congregation: Constructions of Identity and Legacies of Meaning

We offer here the first of two special sections on theme "Hymns Beyond Congregation." Divided into sub-themes “Hymns Congregation: Constructions Identity,” and Legacies Meaning,” our authors (based in institutions both USA UK) comprise early career senior scholars come from a range disciplinary backgrounds American history, South African colonial political history mission education, historical musicology. Together, these issues will pave way for facilitating new dialogues between historians, musicologists congregational studies scholars, inviting fresh perspectives how hymns have long constituted powerful genre community-building that often resists reframes hierarchies within which most hitherto been studied. also hope this work encourages traditional binaries secular sacred contexts hymn singing to be broken down, so migration church services spaces can understood as largely inevitable societal cultural process.