Luther/the Reformation in international historical cultures

This volume, based on an international, interdisciplinary conference held in February 2016 at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in Braunschweig, Germany, and attended by history education researchers, cultural studies specialists and church historians, discusses narratives, interpretations and assessments relating to the place of Luther, the Reformation and related topics in the historical cultures of societies. Its principal focus is history textbooks, which, as manifestation of societies historical consciousness, have been dubbed autobiographies of nations. Further objects of interest to the volume are curricula, museums and historical novels relating to the Reformation. In drawing together perspectives on Luther and topics surrounding the Reformation from eleven countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Asia (Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Russia, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, South Korea and Japan), the volume offers a panoramic view, unique in research to date, of patterns of interpretation of this historical subject across diverse and on occasion highly divergent historical cultures and traditions. History education studies and textbook research have thus far been slow to engage with the increased interest in Luther and the Reformation that has emerged with the 500th anniversary commemorations of the latter. This volume seeks to harness for history textbooks and teaching the intensification in historical study of the Reformation seen in recent years and thus to promote knowledge transfer between these disciplines and activities. In this context, the editors aim to support the paradigm shift taking place in the history classroom from content orientation to the nurturing of a reflective historical consciousness by providing new perspectives and approaches, along with promoting multiperspectivity and alignment with up-to-date research findings in textbook authorship and design. The volumes opening article explores current international academic debates on Luther and the Reformation and sets the framework for its succeeding chapters, which examine historic and contemporary depictions of the events in textbooks and other manifestations of historical culture in the light of these discourses. In this way, the collected contributions will illuminate and reflect upon instances of heroisation, lionisation and legend formation, attempts to endow the events with meaning from Protestant, Catholic and atheist perspectives, legitimising and delegitimising discourses, blind spots and factual errors. We thus observe that the Reformation does not provide us with one unambiguous narrative; we are called to meet such culturally charged historical issues with close regard to key historiographical principles such as multiperspectivity, controversy and plurality. Accordingly, the volumes concluding chapter considers explicitly how we should approach religious conflicts such as the Reformation in history textbooks and the history classroom if we are to empower pupils to engage competently with divergent interpretations of the past.

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