PROFESSOR NICHOLAS TERPSTRA
Professor of History, University of Toronto
Acting Director, Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies
 

Faith’s Boundaries:     
Exile, Expulsion, and Religious Refugees in the Reformation

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2011
4:00 PM
SOCIAL SCIENCES BUILDING, RM. 312

Heiko Oberman emphasized that we should look more closely at the phenomenon of the refugee in the Reformation period, arguing that the refugee experience was critical to understanding the thought of a reformer like John Calvin.  What if we extend that insight and look at the entire Reformation through the experience of refugees?  Exile was a defining experience for most individual reformers and groups, and expulsions driven by religious identity carried on well into the eighteenth century.  They also began well before 1517.  Might an emphasis on exile, expulsion, and religious refugees allow us better to integrate Jews and Muslims into a broader Reformation narrative?

This lecture is free and open to the public.