CfP: The Swiss Reformation and Its Heritage

German Studies Association's Forty-First Annual Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, October 5th - 8th, 2017 The year 2017, the Lutherjahr, marks 500 years since the commonly accepted beginning of the Reformation, an event of considerable interest among members of the German Studies Association. Switzerland, too, was a country deeply marked by the Reformation movements and their consequences, including the careers of Zwingli and Calvin, as well as the early beginnings of the Anabaptist and so-called radical interpretations of Christianity. We seek participants for an interdisciplinary seminar over the three mornings of the conference, examining the Reformation in Switzerland and its heritage, with the goal of helping participants gain a fuller understanding of the Reformation's lasting effects on this confessionally divided country. The seminar conveners will distribute in advance a set of brief background readings to provide some common framework for our discussions. Participants will be expected to prepare brief papers of 3000-4000 words for dissemination in advance of the seminar; these papers, to be read in advance, will supply the framework for our discussions. Possible topics to be addressed might include (but are not limited to) the following: --the causes and progress of the Swiss Reformation, in any of the country's linguistic regions; --the role of radical interpretations of both spirituality and secular life in shaping the early Swiss Reformation and the divergence of Anabaptist and Reformed movements; --comparisons of the Swiss Reformation and the Reformation in other countries; --Switzerland's history as a confessionally divided country; --characteristics features of Reformation theology in its Swiss variants; --the role of women in the Swiss Reformation; --persistent Reformation influences in Swiss culture; --effects of the Reformation or of confessional divisions on Swiss politics, past and present; --literary and artistic presentations of the Swiss Reformation or Reformation themes; --prominent Swiss figures associated with the Reformation (Zwingli, Bullinger, Calvin, ...) or its heritage (Gotthelf, Barth, Marti, ...); and --the place of religion in contemporary Swiss society. The seminar conveners, upon receipt of the papers, will distribute them to all participants, and will then determine how to organize the three days of discussion based upon the specific topics raised by the contributions. The conveners will also moderate the group's discussions. We welcome participants from any relevant academic discipline: history, theology, literature, political science, sociology, the arts, or others. The seminar is sponsored by the Swiss Studies Interdisciplinary Network.