May 24-26 2018, Warsaw, Hosted by the University of Warsaw

Further information on plenary speakers and programme will be added here: https://www.reforc.com/eighth-annual-reforc-conference-2018warsaw/

RRR is pleased to announce the award of the Douglas Murray Prize for articles published in Reformation & Renaissance Review, volume 17 (2015). The adjudicating panel decided to split the prize of £1000 between two authors, so that each one will receive £500.

The first award has gone to  Professor Stanislaw Koziara of (Pedagogical University of Cracow) for his article: ‘The Current State of Research by Polish Linguists on the Brest Bible’ in RRR 17, No. 1 (2015): 63-72. Among comments from the panel were: ‘this well-crafted vignette, rendered in excellent English, will help bring the Brest Bible in its Reformation family context to global attention in an accessible manner’ … ‘it highlights very succinctly not only the impact of this Bible on vernacular religious language in Poland, but also potential avenues for further productive research.’

The second award has gone to Frau Dr Iris Fleßenkämper  (University of Münster) for her article: ‘Taming Husbands: Women’s Use of Protestant Moral Codes in Post-Reformation Separation Cases in the German County of Lippe’ in RRR 17, No. 2 (2015): 142-54. Comments from the panel included: ‘high quality, primary source- and archive-based original research’ … ‘sinewy, elegant study demonstrating how in divorce cases some violently abused women, who were theologically literate, could skilfully employ religious concepts and invoke Reformed ethics to help justify their desperate pleas.’

Luther Abroad – Luther Received, University of Hull, 4-6 April 2017

2017 marks the five-hundredth anniversary of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, and the beginning of Reformation in Europe.  Hull, UK City of Culture in 2017, was the site of the first trials for Lutheran heresy to take place in England.   In recognition of these two events, the Society for Reformation Studies will be meeting in Hull to explore the theme of ‘Luther Abroad, Luther Received’.

Luther’s ideas, and his critique of the Roman Catholic Church, spread rapidly both within and beyond the Holy Roman Empire.  We invite papers (25 minutes’ maximum) exploring the circulation and reception of Luther and his thought beyond Saxony and beyond the German lands.  Papers might consider Luther’s influence on the development of Lutheranism across the Empire and through Europe, in the shaping of Protestant churches and movements and on the direction of the Roman Catholic Church.  They might consider the circulation and dissemination of Luther’s writings, or of the image of Luther himself.  Equally, they might explore influence in the other direction – the effect on Luther of his own earlier travels to Rome, or of the foreign reception and response to his work on the development of Lutheranism in Germany.

Leading us in consideration of this theme will be:

• Kat Hill (UEA)
• Peter Marshall (Warwick)
• Bernward Schmidt (RWTH Aachen)
• Herman Selderhuis (Theologische Universiteit Apeldoorn

As ever, papers which reflect the current work of participants, regardless of their relevance to the theme, are welcome.  The conference is always particularly keen to hear communications from post-graduate and early career scholars.

Registration is either via Eventbrite (https://srs2017.eventbrite.com; card fees apply) or by booking form and cheque/bank transfer (see srs-2017-booking-form).

For further information, or to propose a paper, please contact:

• Dr Charlotte Methuen (charlotte.methuen@glasgow.ac.uk)
• or Dr Allan Smith (chaplain@herts.ac.uk).

For more information on travel to Hull see: srs-2017-cfp-final

Call for Proposals

Papers on Calvin and Calvin Studies for the RefoRC Conference | May 10-12, 2017

Reformation & Renaissance Review is pleased to announce the winner of the third Douglas Murray Prize. The winning recipient will receive £1000 for their distinguished contribution to Volume 16.

The panel adjudicating essays by those eligible for the annual prize have confirmed the winner of the award for the best contribution to the 2014 volume as:

Bradford Littlejohn (formerly University of Edinburgh, UK)

Article title: The search for a Reformed Hooker: Some modest proposals, Reformation & Renaissance Review 16.1, pp. 68-82

The 2014 panel consisted of Barbara Pitkin, Emidio Campi, and Nicholas Thompson. Some extracts from panellists’ remarks:

Eminently readable… 

Masterful…

The author seeks to provide a discursive basis for renewed reflection on Hooker and the shifting patterns of Reformed tradition…

Both the clear assessment of the state of the question and the argument that the way forward lies in a deeper appreciation of, and integration into, larger Reformation history are sound and compelling…

Adventurous discussion…

Admirable maturity of judgement.

The winning article is also free to access online until the end of the year.

Bradford Littlejohn is also an Associate Editor of Political Theology and Managing Editor of Political Theology Today. His forthcoming book Richard Hooker: A Companion to His Life and Work, will soon be available at Cascade Books and is an expansion of the argument in this winning article.

For more information about the journal and the annual Douglas Murray prize, please visit the journal webpage.

The Bible in the Reformation

23rd Annual Conference of the Society for Reformation Studies, Westminster College, Cambridge, UK, 5-7 April 2016

The publication of Erasmus’ Novum Instrumentum in 1516 marked a significant moment in the Christian humanist scholarship of the early sixteenth century. This revised Latin translation of the New Testament intended to correct the Vulgate, Erasmus’ accompanying edition of the Greek text and his commentaries, suggested new ways of reading the Biblical text and determining its meaning. The availability of a Greek text was to prove inspirational for the early reformers, and made it possible for Martin Luther and others to claim that authority could be derived sola Scriptura, thereby placing the Bible as the foundation and centre of Protestant Christianity.

Marking the 500th anniversary of the Novum Instrumentum, this conference explores the place of the Bible in the Reformation. What theological status did it have? How should the text be read and used? Which text was authoritative? What questions attended the various editions and translations of the Bible published down the decades of the Reformation?

We invite papers (25 minutes maximum) considering these questions from theological, textual and linguistic perspectives; exploring hermeneutical and exegetical issues; or examining the use of the Bible in worship, preaching and devotion.

Leading us in consideration of this theme will be

• Hilmar Pabel (Vancouver)
• Richard Rex (Cambridge)
• Silvana Seidel Menchi (Pisa)

As ever, papers which reflect the current work of participants, regardless of their relevance to the theme, are welcome.

For further information, please contact:

Dr Charlotte Methuen (charlotte.methuen@glasgow.ac.uk) or Dr Allan Smith (chaplain@herts.ac.uk)

To register please download the booking form: SRS 2016 Booking Form

or visit http://srs2016.eventbrite.com.

The 22nd Annual Conference on the theme of Continuity and Discontinuity in the Reformation will be held at Westminster College, Cambridge, UK, 8-to April, 2015.

During the course of the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries, Christianity in western and central Europe underwent dramatic, and often violent, transformation. Where there had been one church, there were now several, offering competing accounts of Christian theology, worshipping differently, and acknowledging diverse, contested authorities.  The discontinuities are obvious, even where Reformers claimed continuity with a sometimes distant past.

Scholarly debate in recent decades, however, has drawn attention also to the ways in which doctrine and piety endured across the years of the Reformation.  Many aspects of reform were out-workings of impulses already present in late medieval Christianity, rather than departures from it.  This conference explores these continuities as well as the discontinuities:  how great were religious changes in reality, and how wide a gulf did the Reformation actually represent? We therefore invite papers (25 minutes maximum) considering these themes of continuity and discontinuity in the Reformation(s): European and British, Protestant and Catholic.

We therefore invite papers (25 minutes maximum) considering these themes of continuity and discontinuity in the Reformation(s): European and British, Protestant and Catholic.

Leading us in the consideration of this theme will be: 

• Dr Kenneth Austin (University of Bristol),
• Dr Nathalie Krentz (University of Erlangen)
• Dr Laura Sangha (University of Exeter), 

and

• Professor David Steinmetz (Duke University). (For health reasons, Professor Steinmetz’s paper will be presented by Dr Mickey Mattox.)

A booking form can be downloaded here: SRS 2015 Booking Form or contact accounts@reformationstudies.net.  Credit card bookings can be made at https://srs2015.eventbrite.com (additional charges apply). The deadline for bookings is 15 February, 2015.

Paper proposals, including title and an abstract of 150-200 words, should be sent to charlotte.methuen@glasgow.ac.uk by 31 January 2015.

Reformation & Renaissance Review

The widow of Douglas Murray (prematurely deceased in 2001) has established a commemorative annual prize in the form of awards for distinguished contributions to the Reformation & Renaissance Review over the next ten years, starting with volume 14.

• Douglas Murray was a graduate of the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge. Following some years as a Church of Scotland minister he was a lecturer in Church history at the University of Glasgow, where he was also Principal of Trinity College. His special interests were partly Scottish Church history and partly the history of worship with a focus on the Catholic roots of Reformed liturgies.
• Considered automatically for an award will be all contributions in the annual volume of RRR (but with the exception of contributions from members of the editorial team and editorial board). A single prize of £1000 will be given to a piece of extraordinarily high quality, striking significance, and foreseeably wide impact. In the absence of such a recommendation, then two prizes of £500 each will be awarded to the two best contributions.
• Contributions are understood as a conventional article, or an edited ‘Text & Document’, or a speculative or critical essay [in this case with a minimum of notes] of a discursive and general kind. Up to a maximum of 10,000 words long (all inclusive) is the strict word limit.
• Subject matter must be closely compatible with the spheres of interest and focus of the journal as stated on its Homepage, and thus relate directly or indirectly to religious thought, practice, and development within the context of the Renaissance and Reformation 1400-1700. Within that there is no restriction, and contributions in the area of Scottish Reformation studies and of the history of worship are especially encouraged.
• The adjudicating panel will be a three-person group from the Editorial Board excluding the editors. Typical criteria applied will be research and / or interpretative originality, depth of insight, breadth of vision, literary quality, promise, aptness and restraint of annotation.
• The award will be announced within three months after the conclusion of a volume.
• Please note that there can be no correspondence on the matter of the prize with actual or prospective contributors.