DESERT HARVEST—Spring 1993
Vol. 3, No. 1

From the desk of the Director
Prof. Dr. Heiko A. Oberman

   Since the Desert Harvest reaches out to donors and supporters of the Division, it is tempting to fall in love with high sounding vocabulary developed for the self-fashioning of academic institutions operating today in an increasingly critical environment. The search is on for language which articulates pride without boasting. However, the nation-wide rise in tuition, coinciding with a sharp reduction in federal and state support for higher education, is forcing universities not only to articulate but also to rethink their 'mission.' As recent dramatic changes in our most prestigious universities have shown, there is no alternative but to abandon the strategy of across-the-board funding and to redirect resources to areas of national excellence.
    This high standard of selection could well have come prematurely for such a young institution as the Division, established only in 1989. Not unexpectedly, a year ago voices were raised calling for its dissolution. It is therefore with particular satisfaction that I can report that this danger could be averted by pointing to the well-documented national and international standing of the Division, achieved in an amazingly brief period of time. In comparison with programs in other history departments in this country, the graduates of the Division have the unique record of a hundred percent success rate in winning coveted Fulbright fellowships for study abroad, and in securing a total of 15 externally funded years. The reputation of the Division suggested by these awards is confirmed by the fact that all eight of our first harvest of graduates were called to university positions in a fiercely competitive market.
    Success has many mothers and fathers—but there can be no doubt that without the support you have given so generously, this report would have to resort to the soft rhetoric of fund-raising rather than the hard facts of achievement.

Jaroslav Pelikan launches Town and Gown's second decade

   The Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies and the Program for Religious Studies were honored to welcome world-renowned scholar Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan to Tucson in February to deliver the 10th annual Town and Gown lecture. Over the course of his long and distinguished career, Dr. Pelikan, currently the Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, has made many important scholarly contributions in nearly every area and era of the Christian tradition, including the daunting tasks of writing a five-volume series on the history of Christian thought and editing the American edition of Martin Luther's works.
    On February 22, Dr. Pelikan kicked off the second decade of the Town and Gown lecture series, with "From Russia with Love: Russian Roots of the American Spirit:  Jewish and Christian," a lecture that reflected Dr. Pelikan's broad range of scholarly interests, as well as his own Slavic roots. Dr. Pelikan drew attention to several important Russian influences on American culture which surprisingly have gone unexamined in this age when the terms 'diversity' and 'multi-culturalism' echo through the halls of college campuses all over the United States. From Tolstoy and Dostoevsky to Horowitz and Stravinsky, from Russian Orthodox monks establishing churches in Alaska to Russian immigrants founding communities in America's heartland, the Russian influence on the American spirit has been profound.
    The following evening, Dr. Pelikan met with members of the Division to answer questions about his work. Forthcoming in his answers, he related a great deal about his life and writings—what makes him tick as an historian—in a session which allowed for more critical dialogue than in the packed auditorium the previous evening.
    As the Town and Gown lecture series enters its second decade, it will continue to expand the horizons of the University and community well beyond the Catalina Mountains.

Spanning the globe: Mainz, Germany
Peter Dykema

   In reflecting on my current research year in Germany, one recent memory weighs significantly on my mind. Just days ago, the residents of Mainz, Germany—my home and workplace for the year—commemorated the 50th anniversary of the bombing of the city on February 27, 1945: a devastating twenty-minute attack which left 1,200 persons dead, tens of thousands homeless, and which utterly levelled a third of the old city, one of the most ancient in Germany. Along with nearly 3,000 residents of Mainz, I experienced this day at a special memorial concert held in the cavernous 1,000-year-old Romanesque cathedral. Never before had I seen the cathedral so full.  Side chapels, stairwells, aisles, even the floor—every available space was taken. Althought February 27 was a day of special local significance, it fell among a series of other 50-year anniversaries: D-day last summer, the liberation of Auschwitz in January, and the fire-bombing of Dresden in February. There will be more to come. These days Germany is actively engaged in historical memory, seeking to understand its past even as it strives to build a self-conscious future.
    Watching a society wrestle with its past brings many a lesson to this observer, an historian by trade. My own research interests focus on a more distant past: the parish clergy and their training and troubles during the century of reform and Reformation 1450-1550. Local priests and vicars were at the bottom of the enormous ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Middle Ages, yet they wielded an array of powers—sacral and legal—over their parishioners. As I work through their training manuals and their notes for liturgical services, as well as letters of complaint filed against them by villagers, city councils, and princes, I am awed by the fragile nature of the historical craft, amazed that—after so many years—I am even able to reconstruct what I can from the surviving documents. To take the information gleaned from this lucky set of coincidences and shape it into a compelling narrative, one which ignites reflection and reaction, is a scary task.
    I carry out this research as a Fellow of the Institute for European History in Mainz, working alongside young historians from Germany, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Bulgaria. To this international community I bring an expertise and a curiosity groomed and supported by our special program at the University of Arizona. Upon my return, I will carry with me not only bundles of notes and microfilmed texts, but also a deeper appreciation for the human ramifications of history.

Spanning the globe: Toronto
Mike Milway

   Toronto may seem a peculiar destination for a Tucson Ph.D. candidate on his way to writing a dissertation about Reformation Salzburg. In fact, the opposite is true. Toronto is one of North America's richest cities regarding hard-to-find collections for late medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation studies. In addition, with icy-cold winters and the Blue Jays on strike, Toronto provides a perfect environment for long hours of productive research.
    Two institutions in particular attracted me to Toronto. The Pontifical Institute for Mediæval Studies houses one of the world's largest collections of medieval sources outside Europe. Adjacent to the Institute is the Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, to which I belong as a Graduate Visiting Fellow. The 'Center' is—if you will—a double entendre: both a 'central meeting place' for international Renaissance and Reformation researchers, and the world's 'epicenter' for Erasmus studies. In fact, one of my colleagues who hails from the Netherlands came to the Center to study Erasmus of Rotterdam (!) in Toronto of Ontario (!).
    The differences between the Institute and the Center epitomize the very idiosyncracies in historical research which the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies in Tucson is working to change. Geographically speaking, only one city street separates the two buildings, but ideologically speaking, a vast and stubborn distance of traditions separates the Middle Ages from the Renaissance and Reformation. By crossing the street, I can physically bridge the two in a mere few steps. It took me several years at the University of Arizona in the Division, however, to appreciate the difficult but important task of needing one foot in each world.  Therefore, as the 'Center' is a double entendre, the Division is an oxymoron (a contradiction in terms: like 'jumbo shrimp'); nowhere else are graduate students and professors working together so single-mindedly to unite the study of late medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation history, as are we in Arizona who comprise the Division.
    I am leaving Toronto for Salzburg this fall as a Fulbright scholar, in order to investigate documents available only in Austria  If the Blue Jays go back to work by then, I should escape the city just in time to miss the embarrassment of seeing the World Series champions outside the U.S.—like having to leave the Netherlands to study Erasmus in Canada!

Spanning the globe: Geneva, Switzerland
Scott Manetsch

   Geneva in winter is cool, gray and gloomy. The Salève across the border in France and the towering white cap of Mt. Blanc are frequently hidden in the thick fog that settles over the city this time of year. The jet d'eau is turned off until spring, with the tourists (and, it seems, most Genevans as well) migrating to the sun and snow of the great Alpine ski stations. Even the dark, sullen Rhone River, which divides the 'old' city' from the Palais des Nations, swirls out of Lake Léman and flees south to the warmth of the Mediterranean.
    And yet, this winter my wife Cathy and I are quite content to remain in Geneva. After five years in the Arizona desert, I have come to Switzerland not to play in the snow, but to complete research for my dissertation, which examines how political events in France during the thirty years leading up to the Edict of Nantes (1598) shaped, and in turn were shaped by, the attitudes and behavior of French refugees living in Geneva. It is Geneva's fascinating history, and in particular the treasures of her archives, which have lured us to 'Calvin's city' for our Fulbright year.
    Each day I make a 25 minute journey by foot from the university dormitory where we live to the Institute d'Histoire de la Réformation at the University of Geneva, within eyesight of the steeples of St. Pierre's and the 'Reformation Wall' (where the large stone figure of Calvin recently received a fresh coat of black paint from a prankster). The Institute itself is squeezed into two small, poorly lit rooms, where rare sixteenth-century books, fragile manuscripts, and hard-to-find bibliographical resources are arranged on shelves reaching to the 20 foot ceilings. Here, in the sober quiet of musty old books and modern laptop computers, I am transported into a fascinating world, so similar and yet so different from my own. This afternoon, I am reading a collection of unpublished letters dating from 1589, written by Théodore de Bèze: teacher, preacher, and power-broker in Geneva between 1559 and 1605. The hand of Bèze trembles with age and excitement on the yellowed parchment: the Protestant prince Henry of Navarre is marching on Paris with his Huguenot army, seeking to grasp the throne left vacant by the assassination of Henry III two weeks before. Meanwhile, Geneva, besieged by the armies of her arch-enemy Savoy, is in dire straits: she is flooded with refugees, abandoned by her allies, and deprived of grain and wine as the harvest burns in the surrounding fields.
    Even as the Genevan archives introduce me to this distant world of princes, castles, and harquebusiers, dozens of conversations, newspaper articles, and graffiti messages expose Cathy and me to another world. much more immediate and pressing. Switzerland in 1995 continues, reluctantly, to be a home for refugees and foreigners. We have been the rich beneficiaries of this cultural diversity, deeply moved by the 'histories' of new friends from Rwanda, South Africa, Romania, Poland, and Russia.  Long after we flee the fog of Geneva and return to the warmth of the desert sun, we will be challenged and, hopefully, changed by our year spent in Europe.

Where are they now?
Dr. Sigrun Haude, University of Cincinnati

    It has been almost two years since I left the desert with a Ph.D. in hand in the spring of 1993. The following fall I took a visiting professorship at Stockton State College in New Jersey. My experiences in South Jersey made me look back in gratitude at the intense training I received under Professor Oberman, which seems to have prepared me for all the eventualities of life—be it a twelve-hour teaching load (including the challenging subject of the history of science), continuing research, presentations at conferences, the frustrations of dealing with the administration, or the New Jersey accent and the characters behind it. Even when the ocean flooded my apartment building, my desert training proved pertinent: I kept my eyes focused on my books rather than on the waves splashing against my windows—and thus maintained my calm!
    In the fall of 1994, I accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Cincinnati in Reformation history. During the past few months I have been struck time and again by the realization of how much my 'high-powered' training, which took both scholarship and teaching seriously, has enabled me to survive in my new career. And it has prepared me for more than just survival: I have found my own place, which is a wonderful experience.
    Being 'let loose' on students and scholars after many years of graduate training has had an immensely invigorating, rather than intimidating, effect. Thanks to the constant, unfailing support of the Division, I have been able to acquire a foundation that allows me to create and discover exciting avenues in research and teaching.

Where are they now?
Dr. Eric Saak, University of Groningen

   On November 1, 1994, I began a four-year appointment in one of three post-doctoral positions at the Netherlands Research School for Medieval Studies. Based in the Department of Medieval Studies and in the Center for Oriental, Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Groningen, I am leading a team of scholars in editing the Chronicle on the early thirteenth-century Cistercian monk, Hélinand de Froidmont, which will be published by Brepols in the series Corpus Christianorum. I am also responsible for organizing workshops, colloquia, and symposia related to my own line of research. Together with two other colleagues, based in Leiden and Utrecht respectively, I am organizing a national congress on Medieval Studies to be held on June 17, 1995. I will also be teaching courses on editing medeival texts and on medieval intellectual history. Moreover, I am continuing my work on Jordan of Quedlinburg and hope to have my dissertation and the first volume of my planned edition of Jordan's Opera Omnia ready for publication in the near future. During the next several months I will be presenting papers on Jordan and Hélinand at various international conferences.
    I love my position and Groningen, but I look back on my years in Tucson with great fondness. Every Thursday evening a strange feeling comes over me, and then I realize, "Ah yes, it is Thursday, and I'm not at seminar!" While I am a bit overwhelmed by my new responsibilities, I am facing these challenges with gusto. It is only due to the training I received in Tucson that I have the confidence and courage to do what I am now doing. My time in Tucson was special indeed. The preparation I received in the areas of medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation history was truly unique, and I can say for certain that it is a training no longer to be had in the Netherlands. Tot ziens!

Where are they now?
Dr. Robert J. Bast, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

   Greetings from Knoxville. We arrived in July of last year and were pleased to discover that it didn't take long to become a part of this new community. Our children found numerous opportunities to meet friends and stay active: swim teams, soccer clubs, and church organizations have kept them busy and happy. My wife Sarah will begin work on her Master's degree in Guidance and Counselling here at the University of Tennessee in the fall. Right now she has her hands full with our youngest daughter Emily (age 2); they both have enjoyed a rare break from the Working Parents' Syndrome.
    The University has kept me very busy. I've settled into a routine of teaching, writing, and advising students, and I will even manage to give three conference papers this academic year. My courses on the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Politics of Religion in Early Modern Europe have been rewarding and very well received—save for one student who complained that my teaching of history would be improved if I would "stop giving so much interpretation. Just give us the facts(!)." My research interests continue to be drawn to the convergence of religious reform and political power; I am working on a paper tracing the monastic roots of social discipline. The project may expand into a book.
    Other responsibilities have given me ample occasion to reflect on my years of training in 'our' Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies. The department here is in the process of hiring three new historians, and I've spent much of the last six weeks meeting with a steady procession of nine candidates from some of the most highly regarded universities in the country. As we made our choices this week, our faculty passed over people trained at Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, and Brandeis. That tells me several things. First, while the University of Arizona may not have the cachet of other institutions, pedigree will only get one so far. Second, Professor Oberman is providing the kind of training that has few if any equals. The breadth and depth of the knowledge acquired through the Division's foundations in medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation history make us more than a match for students who come from universities with higher profiles. In short, being 'out in the field' has heightened my appreciation both for the training that got me here, and for those of you who so generously support our program.

Where are they now?
Dr. Andrew Gow, University of Alberta

   In June of 1993, I left Tucson and Heiko's programme to return to my native Canada and a position as Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alberta.  The resemblances between my new academic home and the University of Arizona go well beyond the shared abbreviation 'U of A': a sprawling campus with around 25,000 students in the middle of a big western city, a large research library, and the funding problems that seem to be plaguing all public institutions. A few major differences, however, are worth noting: as I write, it is—in our lingo—a crisp minus 17º C (0º F) outside, and Alberta houses no such stellar programme, at least not in the Faculty of Arts, as the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies. Settling into my new job was easy in the first months, but some difficulties cropped up as the budget axe started to fall. The main point, though, is that I have an academic job, and I get paid to do things I love to do best: teach, read, and write!
    I cannot emphasize enough how unique the training was that I received in the Division. Few scholars of Heiko's stature give as freely of their time to their students. His Thursday night doctoral seminar beats all records, not merely for length, but for its high intellectual and scholarly level. Many 'Obermaniacs' (as we are called by less-fortunate colleagues) have asked, "Is there life after Thursday night?" The answer is yes, but I am not sure it will even again seem so rich and intense, or as challenging and exhausting. As I have discovered since graduating, our training in the three fields of late medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation history sets us apart from other recent graduates, including European and British scholars. This is not just another graduate programme! The proof is in the pudding: five full-time tenure-track positions, one four-year post-doctoral fellowship and two visiting assistant professorships, all at research universities in the last two years alone! And these successes were achieved in an extremely tight job market. No other scholar teaching today in this or related fields can boast a record as good as Heiko's at placing students. Congratulations and best wishes for coming 'harvests!'

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