Early Modern Political Petitioning and Public Engagement in Scotland, Britain and Scandinavia, c.1550–1795

After Luther: Visual Culture, Materiality and the Legacy of 1517

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History ◽

10.1017/s0022046920002614 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-6

Author(s):

JENNIFER SPINKS

Keyword(s):

Visual Culture ◽

Early Modern ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Religious Identity ◽

Visual Images ◽

Important Work ◽

Religious Identities ◽

Public Activity ◽

Material Turn ◽

The Impact

Do historians look at Luther and the Lutheran Reformation differently in the aftermath of the Lutherjahr of 2017, and its frenzy of academic and public activity? As recent publications on Luther demonstrate – notably Lyndal Roper's 2016 biography Martin Luther: renegade and prophet – there is a still a great deal to say about Luther, and how his friendships, passions, prejudices and physical experiences shaped him. But while Luther was the monumental public figure of 2017, some of the most important work coinciding with the anniversary addressed instead Lutheranism as a movement, and the nature of religious identities in Luther's aftermath. It also demonstrated and furthered the impact of the visual and material turn in history and in Reformation studies. Building upon decades of scholarship on Lutheran visual images, recent Reformation scholarship has demonstrated in increasing depth how religious identity can and should be read through both material and visual culture. The three publications examined here – a monograph by Bridget Heal, a website by Brian Cummings, Ceri Law, Bronwyn Wallace and Alexandra Walsham, and the exhibition catalogue Luther! 95 treasures – 95 people – contribute to the material, sensory turn in Reformation and early modern scholarship, and in the latter two cases also reveal the impact of this upon public engagement with Reformation histories.

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“[P]lain and passive fortitude”: Stoicism and Spaces of Dissent in Sejanus

Ben Jonson Journal ◽

10.3366/bjj.2018.0209 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

pp. 32-51 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

M. Burdick Smith

Keyword(s):

Moral Responsibility ◽

Early Modern ◽

Public Engagement ◽

First Year ◽

Editorial Decision ◽

Critical Interpretation ◽

Politically Active ◽

Public Critique

In Ben Jonson's Sejanus, performed at court in the first year of King James’ reign in 1603, Arruntius seemingly figures as “Jonson's spokesperson.” While lauding the moral responsibility of Arruntius, some critics have portrayed the Senator as a passive Stoic whose “only outlet is speech.” For a poet who emphasizes the moral and didactic responsibility of authorship, why, then, does his spokesman inhabit a peripheral space in criticism? Critical interpretation of Arruntius depends on the editorial decision to render many of Arruntius’ lines as asides or as public critique, and this editorial crux is examined vis-à-vis early modern attitudes toward public engagement. I argue that the play negotiates the tensions between the patient Neostoicism of Justus Lipsius and politically active Senecan Stoicism. Arruntius navigates those tensions through Ciceronian ideals of friendship, which provide an alternative to the rampant flattery and tyranny at Tiberius’ court. I show that the play responds to larger political anxieties concerning James I's recent ascension to the throne, and that interpreting early modern Stoicism as entirely passive disregards the complex discourse of friendship that permeates the period.

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