Originally published on November 8, 2024 (Episode 382)
Introduction
From the early 16th century and for more than two centuries after, Western Christianity convulsed, splintered, and spread with astonishing speed across the globe. These “reformations” transformed belief, practice, and culture, reshaping not only Europe but also the Americas, Asia, and Africa.
Too often this story has been told as if men were the only actors. In fact, women were at the center of these transformations—whether from royal thrones, in reformers’ households, within cloisters in Peru, or on the shores of Japan. Their stories complicate and enrich how we understand the global upheavals of the Reformation era.
About the Guest
Merry Wiesner-Hanks is Distinguished Professor of History and Women’s and Gender Studies Emerita at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She Senior Editor of the Sixteenth Century Journal, and editor of the Journal of Global History, as well as the author or editor of thirty books. Her most recent book, Women and the Reformations: A Global History (Yale, 2024), is the subject of today’s conversation.
For Further Investigation
Merry Wiesner-Hanks, Women and the Reformations: A Global History (Yale, 2024)
—, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, 2008)
—, A Concise History of the World, (Cambridge, 2015)
Related Episodes
Tara Nummedal on Anna Zieglerin and alchemical religion
Michael Winship on the “warmer sort” of Protestants
Other Resources
Jon Sensbach, Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World (Harvard, 2006)
Monty Python’s immortal reminder: “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
Listen & Discuss
If women had always been included in the stories of the Reformations, how differently would we understand them today? Share your thoughts below—and don’t keep this episode to yourself.
