Marginal or Mainstream? : Anabaptists, Mennonites and Modernity in European Society

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.  Sample questions for consideration that could be applied in specific geographic settings can be found at http://www.bethelks.edu/mennosandmodernity/index.php

Submit papers 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. The deadline for proposals is October 1, 2009.

The Conference well be held June 25-26, 2010 at Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas. Travel subsidies may be available. Publication of conference proceedings is planned.

Co-Organizers: Mary Sprunger, Eastern Mennonite University, and Mark Jantzen, Bethel College,