The Cultural History of the Reformation: Current Research and Future Perspectives

The Cultural History of the Reformation: Current Research and Future Perspectives

Organisatoren
Susan C. Karant-Nunn, Arizona; Ute Lotz-Heumann, Arizona; Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel
Ort
Wolfenbüttel
Land
Deutschland
Vom - Bis
15.06.2016 - 18.06.2016
Url der Konferenzwebsite
Von
Amy Newhouse, Lone Star College Houston, TX

On 15 to 18 June 2016, Susan C. Karant-Nunn (Arizona) and Ute Lotz-Heumann (Arizona) gathered together senior scholars to discuss the cultural history of the Reformation and the future of Reformation history in general. Supported by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für Wissenschaftsförderung and the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, historians sought to discuss the present state of the field, define its accomplishments, determine where it fits into grand narratives, and, ultimately, uncover its future contributions to the understanding of the human experience.

The program began with “Historiographical Perspectives”. CHARLES ZIKA (Melbourne) commenced by summarizing the field’s accomplishments in evaluating cultural practices of the Reformation instead of the disembodied theological beliefs of its religious leaders. The cultural history of the Reformation has sought to recover and explain the human experience at the physical and mental levels through a wide spectrum of texts, images, movements, and sounds. In that effort, the field has analyzed how gender, social class, mediums of communication, emotion, and religious practices were experienced by everyday people. CRAIG KOSLOFSKY (Illinois) focused on the future of scholarship. He argued that the field needs to place the Reformation into its more comprehensive context (i.e., early modern Eurasian state-building processes, global socio-economic developments, and broader cultural frameworks). In order to move forward, the cultural history of the Reformation should try to move beyond interpretations that remove religious rituals from other forms of ritual custom in early modern life, away from explanations that prioritize western cultural formation over its global counterparts, and past assumptions that fail to see the impact of global cultures on early modern European lives and religious discourse.

The next panel explored the “Global Impact” of the Reformation. RENATE DÜRR (Tübingen) used a comparative approach to bring the Reformation into the world. She contrasted Luther’s process of Biblical translation with that of Jesuit missionary José Acosta. While Luther had used preexistent theological concepts to secure orthodox translations, Acosta needed to build theological precision inductively from the indigenous languages that he encountered in South and Central America. Acosta identified the role that cultural context played in language. ULRIKE STRASSER (California, San Diego) explored the Catholic confessionalizing process in the North Pacific Mariana Islands. Her work highlighted how local shamans adapted and appropriated the teachings of the Jesuits when it served their political ends. When the Jesuits accumulated too much control over native groups, the shamans drew on the indigenous beliefs concerning the power of ancestral bones in order to unite groups against the encroaching Jesuits. Ultimately, the indigenous efforts failed; the Jesuits crushed the bones to destroy the belief in their power. Strasser’s case study showed that by extending the cultural history of the Reformation beyond Europe, we can not only find bidirectional cultural influences, but we can also reveal the contested, piecemeal nature of confessionalizing processes.

Judith Pollmann (Leiden) and Helmut Puff (Michigan) gave papers exploring the cultural history of “Time” in the Reformation. JUDITH POLLMANN argued that although the Reformation has been viewed as a great rupture from its medieval past, Protestant communities retold the stories of their ancestors in a way that displayed the faith of their predecessors – even within medieval Catholicism. These memories gave the community temporal continuity and helped them cope with the divide caused by the Reformation. HELMUT PUFF proposed starting points for conceptualizing time during the early modern period. He advocated that we should explore the people’s experience of time in ranges of temporality. We can investigate time through sequencing, deferential practices in social order, communal or individual time-keeping, the material of watches and clocks, and even the meaning of pregnant pauses.

In a panel on “Gender and Generation”, scholars explored the role of sexuality, reproduction, and generation in the Reformation. ALEXANDRA WALSHAM (Cambridge) explored the proliferation of genealogies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Families produced genealogies that showed an unbroken lineage of faith, stretching back to their Old Testament progenitors. Like Pollman above, Walsham displayed the Protestant (and Catholic) need for continuity with previous generations; she also suggested that there needs to be future exploration into the early modern belief that salvation could be inherited through bloodlines. KATHLEEN CROWTHER (Oklahoma) looked at generation in the form of reproduction. The individuation of a soul in the material of a new body (in the form of a baby) inspired theologians and medical practitioners to make the fetus a focal point in God’s creation and his interaction with the natural world. SUSAN KARANT-NUNN explored Calvin’s view of sexuality. Although Calvin remained completely un-autobiographic on the topic, he used a range of terms to speak around sexual intercourse, couching the subject in bigger themes of modesty and misbehavior. Sexuality shows that Calvin displayed an almost Catholic, dualistic view of the fallen flesh juxtaposed with the hope of spiritual salvation. MERRY WIESNER-HANKS (Wisconsin-Milwaukee) covered both generational and global inheritances of the Reformation. She argued that in subsequent generations after the Reformation, Protestant women were visible and active in patronizing, preaching, and missionizing Reformation messages in an increasingly connected, global world.

In a panel on “Identity”, scholars investigated the role of the Reformation in identity formation. In LYNDAL ROPER’s (Oxford) paper, read by Karant-Nunn, dreamscapes became a significant lens through which to study the early modern mind. While Melanchthon analyzed the details of dreams in order to decipher the will of God, Luther feared that they were influenced by the devil. He saw dreams as possible attacks of the devil provoking his deep anxieties. PHILIP SOERGEL (Maryland) explored identity through the Lutheran soundscape. More than merely a means to convey doctrinal messages, music provided avenues for social organizations, hymn composition, and the expression of musical preferences. He argued that the field has not yet plumbed the depth of music as a confessional identity marker in the post-Reformation period. The praxis of singing offered a truly Lutheran experience and was a central way congregants experienced God.

The next panel on “Negotiation and Hybridity” explored the complexity of religious identities that can be found when exploring cultural history. DAVID LUEBKE (Oregon) investigated religious plurality in Westphalian towns. He contended that each town founded rules through which competing confessions could coexist. Luebke argued that it was more than tolerance; it was a status quo that had a preference for peace and stability. Transgressions of accepted rules, such as disputes over burial, prompted intermittent renegotiations and reestablishment of a new status quo. NICHOLAS TERPSTRA (Toronto) placed the Reformation into the larger context of early modern religious refugees. He argued that late medieval and early modern communities had a tendency to seek purity through the purgation of the religiously heterodox. A more comprehensive view of the Reformation can be found if we analyze the experiences of all religious refugees (i.e., Jews, Muslims, Turks, Anabaptists, Protestants and Catholics). KASPAR VON GREYERZ (Basel) explored the impact of Protestant thinkers on physicotheology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In this long history of the Reformation, Greyerz sought to dispel the idea that the Reformation ushered in the “rational” world of scientific thought. The discipline of physicotheology showed the continued use of the physical world and allegory to prove the existence, mystery, and grandiosity of God. A cultural-historical analysis of these intellectual efforts may reveal a true hybridity of ideas in both theology and science.

In a panel on the “Senses”, BRIDGET HEAL (St Andrews) evaluated Protestant pictorial Bibles from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. She argued that these Bibles were used for more than doctrinal erudition; the imagery of the biblical pictures invoked long-lasting memory, recollection, and feeling within Protestant communities. FRANCISCA LOETZ (Zürich) investigated the changing Psalter in the Grossmünster in late sixteenth-century Zurich. In an echo of Philip Soergel’s emphasis on music, the introduction of a series of psalter songbooks tells a story of political intrigue, personal taste, and gendered custom in the soundscape of the Reformed city. How familiar or novel a melody was affected the congregation’s reception and experience of the psalms and religious worship. PHILIP HAHN (Tübingen) provided an overview of the literature regarding the history of the senses. Hahn questioned the long-valued assumption that the Reformation transitioned the primary sense from seeing (i.e., Catholic images and the raising of the Host during Communion) to hearing (i.e. sermons, hymns, and Bible readings). He called for a Reformation of the senses not to be tied to written words but to a faith that was seen, heard, touched, and tasted.

In a panel on “Material Culture”, ANDREW SPICER (Oxford Brookes) reinterpreted iconoclasm through the religious fluctuations of early modern Cambrai. For Spicer, historical examinations of iconoclasm should include an evaluation of the re-encoding of confessional messages in refurbished images, the consideration of iconic materials that survived frenzied attacks, and finally the inclusion of the traces of iconoclasm left on surfaces (i.e., holes, slashes, etc.). ULINKA RUBLACK (Cambridge) covered a range of sensual experiences through a variety of materials from candles to intricate fabrics. The shades and textures of each piece were thoughtfully selected, woven, and dyed. She suggested that these materials were crucial to the Reformation because they provided an essential stabilizing effect for spiritual practices. UTE LOTZ-HEUMANN evaluated the materials used to produce Protestant and Catholic healing springs. In both confessions, the water functioned in a similar miraculous way – healing the body and driving out demons; however, the building materials manifested confessional differences. Lutheran springs were impermanent, reflecting the theology that God could give or remove the power of healing according to his favor.

The final panel of the conference was a “Roundtable on Digital Humanities” led by Nicholas Terpstra and Kathleen Crowther. Nicolas Terpstra presented his DECIMA project. Terpstra and his team have overlaid census records onto a digital map of Florence, providing countless applications for exploring early modern urban life. For example, an auricular analysis of Florence has shown that convents for nuns were required to have a particular sound barrier against chaotic sites and houses of prostitution – thus, sound dictated the landscape and movement of city inhabitants. Kathleen Crowther raised vital issues for the future of the field, including how to prepare students for technical jobs in the humanities, how to cope with trends toward open-access publishing, and how to utilize social media resources.

From the perspective of a freshly-minted Ph.D. in the field of the cultural history of the Reformation, the lessons of this conference can be distilled into four points. One, the environment had a profound impact on the experiences and decision-making of early modern individuals. Material forms and bodily acts had sensual manifestations in culture that are ripe for future exploration. Two, identity formation is multilayered; it cannot be limited to adherence to theological statements, but we must read against the grain to find the role of individual contexts, material practices, sensual experiences, and generational changes. Three, the cultural history of deep structures allows crucial comparison between not only Protestants and Catholics, which has been popular for the last few decades, but would also include Jews, Muslims, New World cultures, and those who fell between clean confessional categories. Four, the cultural history of the Reformation can stretch beyond the traditional scope and periodization. This broadening will enable the field to stay relevant to our students, funding sources, and the global conversation about the human experience.

Conference Overview

Greetings and Introduction to the Theme
Susan Karant-Nunn (University of Arizona) and Ute Lotz-Heumann (University of Arizona)

Historiographical Perspectives

Charles Zika (University of Melbourne): "The Reformation of the Future? Interdisciplinarity, the Community, and the Human"

Craig Koslofsky (University of Illinois): "Eurasian Reformations in the Sixteenth Century"

Global Impact

Renate Dürr (Universität Tübingen): "Luther and Acosta: The Challenges of Translation"

Ulrike Strasser (University of California, San Diego): "Creating Catholics out of Chamorros: Jesuits and Gender in the Marianas Mission"

Time

Judith Pollmann (Universiteit Leiden): "Negotiating Change: The Cultural Impact of Discontinuity in Reformation Europe (and Beyond)”

Helmut Puff (University of Michigan): "Timing the Reformation"

Gender and Generations

Alexandra Walsham (University of Cambridge): "The Reformation of the Generations: Age, Ancestry and Memory"

Kathleen Crowther (University of Oklahoma): "Gender and Generation in Reformation-Era Anatomical Studies"

Susan Karant-Nunn (University of Arizona): "John Calvin and Sexuality"

Merry Wiesner-Hanks (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee): "Women's Experience of Protestant Ideas and Practices in the Early Modern World"

Identity

Lyndal Roper (University of Oxford): "Luther and Dreams," read by Susan Karant-Nunn

Philip Soergel (University of Maryland): "The Genesis of Identity Markers in the Post-Reformation Period"

Negotiation and Hybridity

David Luebke (University of Oregon): "Cultures of Coexistence: Pluralization, Confessionalization, and Regimes of Cohabitation in the Early Modern Empire"

Nicholas Terpstra (University of Toronto): "Broadening the 'Reformation of the Refugees': Purgation, Mobility, and Identity in Early Modern Religious Communities"

Kaspar von Greyerz (Universität Basel): "Religion, Knowledge, and Science from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century"

The Senses

Bridget Heal (University of St Andrews): "For Simple Folk and Connoisseurs: Lutheran Bible Illustration in the Renaissance and Baroque"

Francisca Loetz (Universität Zurich): "No Pipes Piping: Hymns in the Zwinglian Reformation"

Philip Hahn (Universität Tübingen): "How Important Were the Reformations for the History of the Senses?"

Material Culture

Andrew Spicer (Oxford Brookes University): "Iconoclasm and Beyond"

Ulinka Rublack (University of Cambridge): "Material Cultures in Protestant Milieus"

Ute Lotz-Heumann (University of Arizona): "Healing Waters and Material Cultures in Early Modern Germany"

Roundtable on Digital Humanities

Nicholas Terpstra (University of Toronto): “Digital Mapping in Early Modern Florence: The DECIMA Project”

Kathleen Crowther (University of Oklahoma): “Digital Humanities and Reformation Studies”

Closing Discussion

Susan Karant-Nunn (University of Arizona) and Ute Lotz-Heumann (University of Arizona)