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Marginal or Mainstream?
Anabaptists, Mennonites and Modernity in European Society
Call for Papers
Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas
June 25 and 26, 2010
Proposal deadline: Oct. 1, 2009
www.bethelks.edu/MennosandModernity
In contrast to earlier general surveys of sixteenth-century European history that ignored Anabaptists, or at most mentioned the horrors of Münster without much context, today the history of Anabaptism in the second and third decades of the 1500s has made its way out of the narrow confines of denominational history and on to the main stage of European history. Once chronological surveys arrive at the 1540s, however, the lights go dim and Anabaptist/Mennonite historiography retreats back to its corner where both its practitioners and European historians in general often seem to assume it belongs. Does nothing lasting remain from that early radical impulse that might have continued to irritate, shape or fertilize European society from the sixteenth century to today? Mennonites, in fact, because they represented an alternative and cohesive community that was Christian, pacifist, and non-state, forced the societies and states where they lived to grapple with recurrent exceptions to the laws and to assumptions about the proper behaviors of subjects and citizens. To what extent did this community, although often marginalized, nonetheless provide models or stimuli for important developments in European economics, politics, religious practice and gender relations, or other areas? This conference invites proposals that demonstrate how European history can be better understood by incorporating key aspects from five centuries of Anabaptist and Mennonite history. How did Mennonites experience and help to shape industrialization, urbanization, capitalism, imperialism, feminism, republicanism, nationalism, institutionalization, and Enlightenment rationality? Or were most Mennonites happy to stay on the margins of European modernity?
Paper topics are welcomed from a variety of perspectives, such as social, economic, political, cultural, religious and gender history. Some sample questions for consideration that could be applied in specific geographic settings include:
- How did Mennonite activities in trade and commerce contribute to developments in capitalism?
- How did Mennonite manufacturers and financiers contribute to industrialization or new modes of economic organization?
- How did Mennonite mission work intersect with imperialism?
- How did Mennonite farmers impact agricultural developments?
- How did Anabaptism contribute to growing state acceptance of religious tolerance?
- Did Anabaptism inform theoretical arguments for separation of church and state?
- How did Mennonites respond to Republicanism?
- How did growing nationalism among Mennonites intersect with a separatist theology?
- How did Mennonite resistance to military service sharpen demands for universal conscription?
- Did Mennonite requests for military exemption inform general policies of conscientious objection to war?
- How did a tight-knit community of believers like the Mennonites understand and deal with a growing emphasis on individualism?
- How did Mennonite migration patterns contribute to urbanization?
- Did the office of deaconess reinforce or challenge accepted gender roles?
- Were Mennonite women involved in efforts to gain the franchise or did churches resist woman’s rights movements?
- How did Mennonite businesses contribute to colonial policy and independence movements?
- Did Mennonite educational models influence regional educational developments?
- How are Mennonites relating to the new multicultural society emerging in Europe today?
Submit a short proposal, a presentation title, and a short CV by October 1, 2009, to Mary Sprunger at Eastern Mennonite University: sprungms@emu.edu or Mary Sprunger, Department of History, 1200 Park Road, Harrisonburg, VA 22802, U.S.A
Travel subsidies may be available. Publication of conference proceedings is planned.
Co-Organizers:
Mary Sprunger, Eastern Mennonite University, and Mark Jantzen, Bethel College