I’m preparing to travel to Minneapolis later this week to present a paper at the annual conference of the Sixteenth Century Society, which is a major academic society focusing on the study of the early modern period.

I’ll attempt to blog from the conference as I have opportunity and there is information of relevant interest to the PowerBlog audience. Posted after the jump is my tentative schedule, including which sessions I’ll be attending (full conference program is in PDF form here). These reflect my own scholarly interests as well as those that mesh with the focus of the Acton Institute and the Journal of Markets & Morality. My paper will be presented in the last group of sessions late Sunday morning, and is titled, “Wolfgang Musculus and the General Covenant.”

Musculus was a second generation Protestant reformer and a contemporary of John Calvin. His doctrine of the covenant is related to later developments of covenantal theology (which has important implications for political and moral thought in the post-Reformation period).

Thursday, 25 October 2007

1:30–3:00 p.m.

10.Historians Who Read Theologians Who Read Luther

Organizer: Hans Wiersma, Augsburg College

Chair: Steven Paulson, Luther Seminary

Gerhard Forde and the Baptismal Theology of Martin Luther

Mark Tranvik, Augsburg College

“I Am Neither Lutheran Nor Calvinist”: Johannes Kepler on Luther and the Lutherans

Russell Kleckley, Augsburg College

Everybody Loves Martin? Invoking Luther Then and Now

Hans Wiersma

3:30–5:00 p.m.

19.The Eucharist in Early Reformation Preaching and Polemic

Sponsor: Society for Reformation Research

Organizer: Amy Nelson Burnett, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Chair and Commentator: Anne Thayer, Lancaster Theological Seminary

From Pastoral Care to Protest: The Evolution of Early Evangelical Views of the Mass

Amy Nelson Burnett

Eucharistic Preaching and Social Upheaval: Preaching against the Real Presence and Civic Hierarchies in Augsburg, 1524

Joel van Amberg, Tusculum College

Guillaume Farel’s Attacks on the Catholic Eucharist in the Villages of the Pays de Vaud and Common Lordships

James Blakeley, University of Arizona, Tucson

6:00–7:30

TEACHING TRAVEL NARRATIVES

Sponsor: Society for Reformation Research

Organizer: Susan R. Boettcher, University of Texas at Austin

Chair: Amy Nelson Burnett, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Participants:

Janis Gibbs, Hope College

Jeffrey Persels, University of South Carolina

Julia Schleck, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Dwight E. R. TenHuisen, Calvin College

7:00 pm Plenary Lecture

Sponsored by Theorizing Early Modern Studies Research Collaborative, University of Minnesota

EARLY MODERN RELIGIOUS CARTOGRAPHIES IN THE NEW WORLD

Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, University of Texas at Austin

James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota

(maps will be available at registration desk)

Friday, 26 October 2007

8:30–10:00 a.m.

30.Memorializing Martyrs in Early Modern England

Sponsor: British Academy John Foxe Project

Organizer, Chair, and Comment: Thomas S. Freeman, Cambridge University

The Making of a Martyr: The Death and Afterlife of William Thomas

Brett Foster, Wheaton College

Virgin Brides, Malapert Maids, Modest Matrons, and Whores of Babylon: Memorializing Women Martyrs in Tudor and Stuart England

Megan Hickerson, Henderson State University

Images of Martyrdom in Early Modern England

Elizabeth Evenden, Cambridge University

10:30 a.m. – noon

43.Grace and Liberty: The Views of Melanchthon, Calvin and Arminius

Sponsors: Institute for Reformation Research, Theological University Apeldoorn; Institut für Schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte, University of Zürich; St. Andrew’s Reformation Studies Institute; Peter Martyr Society; Centre for Research on Religion, McGill University

Organizer and Chair: Herman Selderhuis, Institute for Reformation Research, Apeldoorn

Liberty in Things Above and Below: Were Calvin and Melanchthon on the Same Page?

Jason Van Vliet, Apeldoorn

Calvin’s Treatment of Divine Grace and the Offer of the Gospel

Mark Beach, Mid-America Seminary

God’s Twofold Love: The Foundations of Jacob Arminius’s Theology

William den Boer, Apeldoorn

1:30–3:00 p.m.

62.e-Teaching the Renaissance

Chair: Leah Chang, George Washington University

e-intertexuality, or How to Teach Renaissance Literature Online

Jan Miernowski, University of Wisconsin and Warsaw University

Rare Books Online and in the Classroom: ‘The Renaissance in Print”

Karen James and Mary B. McKinley, University of Virginia

3:30–5:00 p.m.

63.How Much Religion, How Much God, in the Reformation Classroom? A Roundtable

Sponsors: Society for Reformation Research and H. Henry Meeter

Center, Calvin College

Organizer: Susan R. Boettcher, University of Texas at Austin

Participants:

Brad Gregory, University of Notre Dame

Susan C. Karant-Nunn, University of Arizona, Tucson

Karin Maag, H. Henry Meeter Center, Calvin College

Ron Rittgers, Valparaiso University

Karen E. Spierling, University of Louisville

Saturday, 27 October 2007

8:30–10:00 a.m.

82. Lutheranism in England: Are Rumors of its Death Greatly Exaggerated?

Sponsor: Society for Reformation Research

Organizer: Polly Ha, Cambridge University

Chair and Comment: Alec Ryrie, Durham University

Making Martyrs: The Last Confession of Robert Barnes and the Shaping of Theological Identity

Korey D. Maas, Concordia University

Matthias Flacius, John Foxe and the Shaping of English Church History

Thomas S. Freeman, Cambridge University

International Protestantism and the Politics of Diplomacy: A Re-evaluation of the Protestant (Calvinist?) Cause

David Scott Gehring, University of Wisconsin

10:30 a.m. – noon

94.Prayer in the Reformation

Sponsor: Princeton Theological Seminary, Reformation Department

Organizer: Elsie McKee, Princeton Theological Seminary

Chair: Kenneth Appold, Princeton Theological Seminary

Luther’s Doctrine of Faith and Love as the Key to the Lord’s Prayer

Sun-Young Kim, Princeton Theological Seminary

Prayer as Catechesis and Pastoral Counsel: Katharina Schütz Zell on the Lord’s Prayer and Laments-Penitential Psalms

Elsie A. McKee

The Role of Imagination in Prayer According to John Calvin and Ignatius Loyola: Teaching Reformed and Jesuit Spiritual Life

Gary N. Hansen, University of Dubuque Theological Seminary

:00–3:30 p.m.

107.Philip Melanchthon between Friend and Foe

Sponsor: Society for Reformation Research

Organizer: Timothy Wengert, Lutheran Theological Seminary at

Philadelphia

Chair and Comment: James Estes, University of Toronto

Philip Melanchthon’s Definitive Theological Response to Andreas Osiander: The 1556 Enarrationes … ad Romanos

Timothy Wengert

Johannes Bugenhagen’s Relation to Philip Melanchthon: The Pastor and the Preceptor

Martin Lohrmann, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia

Philip Melanchthon as a Publisher for Matthias Flacius

Luka Ilic, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia

4:00–5:30 p.m.

116.Conceptualizing Slavery and Race in Early Modern Europe

Organizers: Kathryn A. Edwards, University of South Carolina, and R. Ward Holder, St. Anselm College

Chair: R. Ward Holder

Slavery in Europe in the Sixteenth Century: An Over

William D. Phillips, University of Minnesota

Infidels, Heretics, or Misunderstood Cultures? Popular Dutch Attitudes toward Muslims and Jews in the Seventeenth Century

Gary K. Waite, University of New Brunswick

Gods, Kings, and Slaves: The Journeys of Ham and his Sons into Europe

David Whitford, United Theological Seminary

6:00–7:30 pm Roundtable

FRICTION IN THE ARCHIVES: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON LAW AND SOCIETY IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLD

Organizer: Megan Armstrong, McMaster University

Chair: Kathryn A. Edwards, University of South Carolina

Civil Actions: Litigation and Reframing Early Modern Meta-Narratives

Julie Hardwick, University of Texas at Austin

Philosopher-Jurists, Soldiers of Justice, and Gnawing Vultures: Lawyers in Early Modern Society

Michael P. Breen, Reed College

Italo Calvino’s Advice to Us: “Leggerezza, Velocità”

Thomas V. Cohen, York University

Using the Law: Ambiguity, Flexibility, and Agency

Scott K. Taylor, Siena College

Drama in the Archives: Staging Narratives of Honor in the Court?

Leslie Peirce, New York University

Sunday, 28 October 2007

8:30–10:00 a.m.

130.Creating Identities in the Reformation

Organizer: R. Ward Holder, St. Anselm College

Chair: Ron Rittgers, Valparaiso University

Vows, Oaths, and the Formulation of a Subversive Ideology

Jonathan Gray, Stanford University

Vowing Religion: Before and After the Reformation Turn

John Van Engen, University of Notre Dame

The Confessionalization of Faith: The Emergence of the Protestant Doctrine of Justification in its Creedal and Conciliar Development

David C. Fink, Duke University

10:30–12 noon

137. Reformed Theology in Augsburg, Strasbourg and Geneva

Organizer: R. Ward Holder, St. Anselm College

Chair: Gary Hansen, University of Dubuque Theological Seminary

Wolfgang Musculus and the General Covenant

Jordan Ballor, Calvin Theological Seminary

Of Stars and Simple Folk: Guillaume Farel’s Early Reformed Ecclesiology

Jason Zuidema, McGill University

Bucer, Cellarius, and the Perseverance of the Saints

Edwin Tait, Huntington University