Archeologies of Confession ─ Writing the German Reformation, 1517-2017

Modern religious identities are rooted in collective memories that are constantly made and remade across generations. How do these mutations of memory distort our picture of historical change and the ways that historical actors perceive it? Can one give voice to those whom history has forgotten? The essays collected here examine the formation of religious identities during the Reformation in Germany through case studies of remembering and forgetting-instances in which patterns and practices of religious plurality were excised from historical memory. By tracing their ramifications through the centuries, Archeologies of Confession carefully reconstructs the often surprising histories of plurality that have otherwise been lost or obscured.

David M. Luebke is Professor of History at the University of Oregon and has specialized in the history of social protest movements in early modern Germany as well as the formation of religious denominations during and after the Protestant Reformation. His publications include Hometown Religion: Regimes of Coexistence in Early Modern Westphalia (2016) and, as co-editor, the Spektrum volumes Conversion and the Politics of Religion in Early Modern Germany (2012) and Mixed Matches: Transgressive Unions in Germany from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (2014).