The Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library hosted a major conference on The Politics of Conversion: Martin Luther to Muhammad Ali last week.

I enjoyed participating in the conference and presenting a paper on “Conversion, Confessional Politics, and Violence in the Final Stages of the French Wars of Religion, 1598-1629,” in a session along with Lee Palmer Wandel, Alejandro Cañeque, Randall Martin, and Walter Melion. The papers fit together nicely, allowing a productive discussion of related rationales, methods, and practices of conversion across early modern Europe and European empires.

Peter Marshall gave a keynote lecture on “Martin Luther and the Invention of the Reformation” to open the conference with a commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses.

Regina Schwartz presented a keynote on “Ethical Conversion: ‘I have ta’en too little care of this.'”

The conference coincided with the opening of a new exhibition on Religious Change and Print, 1450-1700 at the Newberry.

Lia Markey, Director of the Center for Renaissance Studies, and the whole team at the Newberry Library did an excellent job of organizing the conference.

Further information about the conference is available online at the Center for Renaissance Studies website at the Newberry Library.  The full program is provided on the Newberry Library website.