Bodo Nischan

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Bodo Nischan (born May 3, 1939 in Berlin ; died October 21, 2001 in Greenville (North Carolina) , United States ) was a German-American historian. His focus was the history of confessionalization in the Holy Roman Empire in the early modern period .

Life

Bodo Nischan's ancestors included a number of theologians and engineers; His father Karl was also an engineer, his mother came from a family of landowners. He experienced his early childhood as a war child of World War II with bombing raids and under the impression that his father was wanted by Nazi agents. With his parents and his brother Hans-Ulrich, born in 1945, he fled from the approaching Red Army troops . In his school education his talent for science, history and languages ​​was shown, especially in French. In 1956 the family emigrated to the United States in New Haven, Connecticut , where he attended high school for a year and graduated.

He then moved to Yale University , initially taking courses primarily in engineering and undergoing training with a lens maker during the first two summer semester break. After two years he switched to the humanities and received his Bachelor of Arts in 1961 . He then attended the Lutheran theological seminary in Philadelphia for three years , where he learned Latin and ancient Greek as well as the central theological-political issues of the 16th century and graduated in 1965 with a Bachelor of Divinity . At the University of Pennsylvania he wrote his dissertation in Renaissance and Reformation history, which he completed in 1971.

Nischan began teaching in 1969 at East Carolina University in Greenville . There he was honored in 1977 as an outstanding lecturer of the undergraduates and supervised eleven doctoral theses in the field of Renaissance and Reformation studies. He worked out the teaching program there for medieval and renaissance studies and established links with the University of Ferrara . In 1998 he took over the management of the history faculty for one year.

Nischan married Gerda in 1968, whom he had met the year before as a short-term exchange worker at the German consulate in Philadelphia. They had a son. He died of a brain tumor diagnosed in April 2001 and was buried in Pinewood Cemetery in his hometown. The Society for Reformation Research dedicated a plenary session to his memory in October of that year and a prize, the Bodo Nischan Award for Scholarship, Civility, and Service , which Charles Nauert received in the first year . His faculty posthumously named Nischan the “Distinguished Professor of History” of 2002. In addition, the Joyner Library at his university named a writing scholarship after him. In 2002 a commemorative volume for Nischan with essays on denominationalization in European comparison was published, edited by three of his university colleagues.

plant

A list of Nischan's publications can be found in the commemorative publication Confessionalization in Europe , published in 2004 in his honor. He was mainly concerned with the long neglected second half of the 16th century. In addition to many articles in journals such as the Sixteenth Century Journal , some of which were collected in his volume Lutherans and Calvinists in the Age of Confessionalism in 1999, his most important research contribution is the monograph Prince, People and Confession: The Second Reformation in Brandenburg , published in 1994 has been published. The consequences of Elector Johann Sigismund's conversion dealt with therein are considered to be an important contribution to understanding the Calvinist so-called Second Reformation in confessionalization . The archival preparatory work, especially in Merseburg , was made more difficult by the division of Germany . Nischan's research on denominational disputes in the 16th and 17th centuries focused on their previously neglected cultural and ritual-liturgical dimensions. He was unable to complete his book project on a history of forms of piety.

literature

  • Anthony J. Papalas: Tribute to Bodo Nischan. In: John M. Headley, Hans J. Hillerbrand, Anthony J. Papalas (eds.): Confessionalization in Europe, 1555-1700. Essays in Honor and Memory of Bodo Nischan. Ashgate, Aldershot 2004, ISBN 978-0-7546-3744-8 , pp. Ix-xii.
  • Hans J. Hillerbrand: In Memoriam: Bodo Nischan (1939-2001). In: Sixteenth Century Journal. Vol. 32, 2001, No. 4, pp. 1097 f.

Web links

  • Bodo Nischan. In: BillionGraves.com (English).
  • Robin B. Barnes: Bodo Nischan (1939-2001). Commemorative Address, Sixteenth Century Society Conference, San Antonio, Texas, October 26, 2002. In: Reformationresearch.org .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, all information is from Anthony J. Papalas: Tribute to Bodo Nischan. In: John M. Headley, Hans J. Hillerbrand, Anthony J. Papalas (eds.): Confessionalization in Europe, 1555-1700. Essays in Honor and Memory of Bodo Nischan. Ashgate, Aldershot 2004, pp. Ix-xii.
  2. ↑ Bodo Nischan. In: BillionGraves.com (English).
  3. ↑ a b Robin B. Barnes: Bodo Nischan (1939-2001). Commemorative Address, Sixteenth Century Society Conference, San Antonio, Texas, October 26, 2002. In: Reformationresearch.org .
  4. ↑ Anthony J. Papalas: The Bibliography of Bodo Nischan. In: John M. Headley, Hans J. Hillerbrand, Anthony J. Papalas (eds.): Confessionalization in Europe, 1555-1700. Essays in Honor and Memory of Bodo Nischan. Ashgate, Aldershot 2004, pp. Xiii-xvii.
  5. ^ Hans J. Hillerbrand: In Memoriam: Bodo Nischan (1939-2001). In: Sixteenth Century Journal. Vol. 32, 2001, No. 4, p. 1097 f., Here p. 1097.
  6. ^ Hans J. Hillerbrand: In Memoriam: Bodo Nischan (1939-2001). In: Sixteenth Century Journal. Vol. 32, 2001, No. 4, pp. 1097 f.
  7. ↑ Anthony J. Papalas: Tribute to Bodo Nischan. In: John M. Headley, Hans J. Hillerbrand, Anthony J. Papalas (eds.): Confessionalization in Europe, 1555-1700. Essays in Honor and Memory of Bodo Nischan. Ashgate, Aldershot 2004, pp. Ix-xii.
  8. ↑ Markus Friedrich : Review of: John M. Headley / Hans J. Hillerbrand / Anthony J. Papalas (eds.): Confessionalization in Europe, 1555-1700. Essays in Honor and Memory of Bodo Nischan, Aldershot: Ashgate 2004. In: Sehepunkte . Vol. 7, 2007, No. 3, March 15, 2007.
personal data
SURNAME Nischan, Bodo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American historian
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH October 21, 2001
Place of death Greenville, North Carolina