Cultures of Communication

"A truly inspiring collection, wide-ranging in scope and written by leaders in the field to re-shape our understanding of the role of media in the Reformations. I highly recommend it for cutting edge classroom discussions." -- Ulinka Rublack, author of Reformation Europe "Cultures of Communication is an innovative and engaging collection of essays that adopts a very creative approach in its examination of the relationship between media and religious reform. It is admirably broad in both its chronological and its geographical span and the juxtaposition of European and extra-European material is particularly welcome." -- Bridget Heal, School of History, University of St Andrews

Looking beyond the emergence of print, this collection of ground-breaking essays highlights the pivotal role of theology in the formation of the early modern cultures of communication.

Contrary to the historiographical commonplace “no Reformation without print” Cultures of Communication examines media in the early modern world through the lens of the period’s religious history. Looking beyond the emergence of print, this collection of ground-breaking essays highlights the pivotal role of theology in the formation of the early modern cultures of communication. The authors assembled here urge us to understand the Reformation as a response to the perceived crisis of religious communication in late medieval Europe. In addition, they explore the novel demands placed on European media ecology by the acceleration and intensification of global interconnectedness in the early modern period. As the Christian evangelizing impulse began to propel growing numbers of Europeans outward to the Americas and Asia, theories and practices of religious communication had to be reformed to accommodate an array of new communicative constellations – across distances, languages, cultures.