Professor
Education
Ph.D., History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2002
M.A., History, University of Richmond, 1996
B.A., History, University of Richmond, 1994
Biography
Broadly, I’m interested in the role that religion played in the course of history in and around Europe. Coupled with that is a curiosity for how leading historical narratives and interpretations – concerning the Reformations, the Holy Roman Empire, Christendom, Europe, modernization, toleration – look when viewed from the vantage point of the local community. The two frame my research, which examines the aims and ambitions cultivated by peasant communities for their religious life and also elucidates the complex interplay between their initiatives and those of Imperial, territorial, and regional governance. I took up these subjects in a first book project (Communal Christianity, 2004), which covered the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. I’m expanding the scope in a current project by extending the primary source research forward into the twentieth century and the framework of analysis back to the sixth century. For the support that has generously funded these scholarly pursuits over the years I’m grateful to the Center for Reformation Research, Fulbright Commission, Institut für Europäische Geschichte, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. Since 2004 I’ve had the pleasure to work at SHSU, where I enjoy offering the World History surveys as well as courses that range from Early Medieval Europe to Religion and the Enlightenment.
Courses
Undergraduate:
World History to 1500
World History since 1500
Medieval History
Renaissance Europe
The Bible & Reform in Europe
Europe in the Age of Absolutism and Revolution 1648-1815
Graduate:
Early Medieval Europe 300-1000
High & Late Medieval Europe 1000-1500
The Legacies of the Reformations
Persecution & Toleration in Early Modern Europe, 1300-1800
Religion & The Enlightenment
Peasant Europe, 13th-19th century
Selected Publications
Christian History in Rural Germany: Transcending the Catholic and Protestant Narratives Brill, 2022.
Communal Christianity: The Life & Loss of a Peasant Vision in Early Modern Germany. Studies in Central European Histories, vol. 35. Editors Thomas A. Brady Jr. & Roger Chickering. Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2004.
(under review): “Simultaneum as a Weapon of Revenge: The Case of Frankenberg during the Evangelical Union, 1817-1862.” Leiden: Brill.
“Triplets: The Holy Roman Empire’s Birthing of Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed in 1648.” In: Names and Naming in Early Modern Germany. Oxford: Berghahn, 2019. pp. 62-84.
“Discord Via Toleration: Clerical Conflict in the Post-Westphalian Imperial Territories.” In: Topographies of Tolerance and Intolerance: Responses to Religious Pluralism in Reformation Europe. Central European History Series, 64. Leiden: Brill, 2018. pp. 201-22.
“Religiöse Konflikte und kirchliche Organisation im Zeitalter Landgraf Carls.” In: Landgraf Carl (1654-1730): Fürstliches Planen und Handeln zwischen Innovation und Tradition, editors Holger Th. Gräf, Christoph Kampmann und Bernd Küster. Marburg: Historische Kommission für Hessen, 2017. pp. 123-31.
“Divided By Toleration: Paradoxical Effects of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia and Multiconfessionalism.” In Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte/Archive for Reformation History vol. 106 (2015): 290-313.
“Beyond Discipline: The Consistory in the Central Reformed Territories of the Holy Roman Empire.” In Politics, Gender, and Belief. The Long-Term Impact of the Reformation. Essays in memory of Robert Kingdon. editors Amy Nelson Burnett, Kathleen M. Comerford and Karin Maag. Droz, 2014. pp.155-177.
“Zwei Arten der Konfessionalisierung: der 1605er Marburger Kirchentumult und der 1705er Frankenberger Kirchhoftumult im Vergleich.” In Jahrbuch der Hessischen Kirchengeschichtlichen Vereinigung, Bd. 64 (2013): 143-160.
“Kommunale Konfessionalisierung im bäuerlichen Oberhessen im Zeitalter des Landgrafen Karls, 1677-1730.” Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hessische Geschichte und Landeskunde 110 (2005): 129-158.
“Confessionalization and Central European Peasantry.” Article on rural history for the Confessionalization Forum, H-German. 6 April 2005.
“Heretics or Nonconformists? State Policies Toward the Anabaptists in Sixteenth-Century Hesse.” Sixteenth Century Journal 32/4 (2001): 1003-1026.
