For more details about the banner image of “The Devil Shooting Heresies at the Church” (ca. 1560s), see Michael Driedger and Gary Waite (together with Francesco Quatrini and Nina Schroeder), “From ‘the Radical Reformation’ to ‘the Radical Enlightenment’? The Specter and Complexities of Spiritualism in Early Modern England, Germany, and the Low Countries” in Church History and Religious Culture 101:2-3 (July 2021), 135-166.
We are pleased to announce the publication of a Special Issue of Church History and Religious Culture (101: 2-3) that will be released in late July 2021. The theme is “Spiritualism in Early Modern Europe.”
The collection features essays by Theo Brok, Michael Driedger, William Cook Miller, Francesco Quatrini, Nina Schroeder, Anselm Schubert, Christine Schulte am Hülse, Nigel Smith, James Stayer, Stefano Villani, Hans de Waardt, and Gary Waite. The guest editorial team consists of Driedger, Quatrini, Schroeder, and Waite. In addition to spiritualist cultures among Protestants in post-reformation England, Germany, and the Low Countries (approx. 1521-1721), the collection will be of interest to scholars of religious dissent and nonconformity, the variety of ways that researchers discuss “radicalism” in early modern religious cultures, and the debates about “the Radical Reformation” and “the Radical Enlightenment.”
The collection began at a symposium in Amsterdam in the summer of 2019. Other symposium contributors who have published related work in other venues and are therefore worthy of special attention from readers of this collection are:
The guest editorial team would like to thank the journal’s editors and production staff (Ward Holder and Dieuwertje Kooij in particular) for their work in guiding this collection from a proposal to publication!
In March 2019 the Amsterdamnified team leaders (Waite and Driedger) hosted a symposium for project members and a small number of guests. The meeting was scheduled for March 15 and 16, that is, the days immediately before the Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting in Toronto (March 17-19). The local organization in Toronto was arranged by Sébastien Drouin. A special thanks to Sébastien for his work!
In previous years we have had a blog post on this site on the theme of “Hair(esy) and Heresy.” A reason for the post was to publicize Gary Waite’s essay on
“Early Modern Hair: Religion and Ritualized Belief,” in A Cultural History of Hair, vol. 3: A Cultural History of Hair in the Renaissance (1450-1650), ed. Edith Snook (London: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2018), 17-37, 159-62.
Reflecting on the research behind the essay, Waite writes:
My recent work on the religious and magical beliefs about hair has revealed to me that something that seems so prosaic can have much deeper meaning. From the late medieval witch with her wild hair to the naked walkers of Amsterdam to the Dutch spiritualist David Joris and to English Puritans, for a few examples, hair signified much more than fashion.
Perhaps my interest in the subject is compensation for having very little of the stuff myself?
From the 27th to the 30th of September several members of the Amsterdamnified Research Team (Ace Gammon-Burnett, Nina Schroeder, Gary Waite, and Mike Driedger) participated in an international conference organized by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies in Toronto. Three team members (Waite, Schroeder, and Driedger) even held an Amsterdamnified panel, which was chaired by friend and advisor to the Project, Prof. Piet Visser of Amsterdam. For details about the conference, go to https://crrs.ca/event/global-reformations-2017/.
Ace Gammon-Burnett will be starting his MA studies at Brock U with Prof. Mike Driedger in September 2017. His research interests are broadly focused on early modern British religious and cultural history. His particular interest is the emergence of Puritanism within the Church of England, as well as the construction of theories of heresy, witchcraft, and demonology. He’ll be working toward a larger thesis project and his tentative area of research is an examination of the literary and institutional process of “heresy-making” in English Protestant print culture.
Andrew Taber completed an MA degree with Prof. Gary Waite at UNB-Fredericton. His interests before attending UNB were rooted firmly in military history and the role of the Dutch in the historiography of the early modern military revolution, but his work under Gary Waite and the Amsterdamnified Project has kindled an interest in the interchange occurring between the Dutch Republic and England during the 17th century. His MA thesis is entitled “‘You May Be What Devil You Will’: Depictions of Dutch Religious Plurality in English Print, 1609-1699”. An abstract of the thesis is available at the University of New Brunswick website. Click here for details.
Brookelnn Cooper studied with Prof. Mike Driedger at Brock U. As part of her first MA Co-op work term (spring and summer 2017) she did research in Amsterdam for the Amsterdamnified Project, as well as for her own MRP (major research paper). She completed her MA in 2019. For details about her project (“Identifying the Anonymous Printer of Menno Simons’ The Blasphemy of Jan van Leiden [1627]: A Typographical Analysis”), which is slated for publication soon in the Dutch-language journal Doopsgezinde Bijdragen, see http://dutchdissenters.net/wp/2017/05/the-blasphemy-research-plan/.
In September 2019 Cooper started PhD studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. There she is continuing to focus her research on trans-national communication networks in Europe. As a case study she plans to examine foreign workers in the book trades in Amsterdam in the 17th century. At Queen’s, Cooper is studying with Prof. Jeffrey Collins.
