Acknowledgments
Commemorating the 400th anniversary of the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), the Eighth International Conference sponsored by Frühe Neuzeit Interdisziplinär (FNI) took as its theme Rethinking Europe: War and Peace in the Early Modern German Lands. The Thirty Years’ War was the prism through which we looked back at the Reformation and forward toward developments in the decades that followed. We considered the positions and significance of the Thirty Years’ War asking whether the events in the sixteenth century do look differently in light of the war’s eruption and resolution? How does this event fit into the larger century of armed conflict—not only in the West, but also in the East with “The Long Turkish War”? At the same time, peaceful periods and the desire for peace also figured prominently in this conflict-ridden age. Between the Fall of Constantinople (1453) and the Siege of Vienna (1683), Europe made its way into the modern world. We pondered the role and shape of religion, politics, economics, law, art, gender, theological and philosophical thinking, literature, and music in this age of war and peace which has often been characterized as forming the foundation of modern Europe.
We would like to thank Provost Holden Thorp, Chancellor Mark Wrighton, Dean Barbara Schaal, and the American Friends of the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany (AFHAB) for their generous financial support. Professor Jennifer Welsh (Lindenwood University-Belleville) as well as the graduate students of the German Department, Hannah Dinkel, Tyler Gahrs, Rebecca Jordan, Peter Ogunniran, Leon Wiese, and Christin Zenker, lent significant support attending to the many organizational matters that come with such an international meeting. Claire Meyer and Cecily Hawksworth (German Department) significantly contributed to the success of the gathering with their creativity, efficiently, reliability, and unfailingly good humor and kindness.
We thank our colleagues from near and far for joining us, presenting their essays and contributing their insights during our enjoyable and productive discussions. We are grateful to Professor Dr. Ulrich Seelbach for accepting these essays into CHLOE and for seeing them through to publication. Our special appreciation and gratitude also go to Dr. John Morris (Pennsylvania State University) and Dr. Carol Jenkins (University of Missouri, St. Louis) for their expert editorial support.
We dedicate this collection of essays with our sincere expressions of gratitude to Mark Wrighton, Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, upon the conclusion of his twenty four years of service to Washington University and the City of St. Louis.