Students of Reformation history are well-acquainted with the work of Susan Karant-Nunn. Her teaching career began at Portland State University and ended as Regents' Professor of History at the University of Arizona where she succeeded the formidable Heiko Oberman. At the beginning of her academic work she entered a field dominated by male scholars and one excessively focused on the life and theology of Martin Luther. While not diminishing Luther's importance, Karant-Nunn also recognized that sixteenth-century Germany needed to be studied “on the ground” or from the perspective of the common people—the ones overlooked by those who put a spotlight on the male leaders of the Reformation. She also made a mark in gender studies, particularly in her work (with Merry Wiesner-Hanks), Luther on Women: A Sourcebook (Cambridge Univeresity Press, 2012), which does a marvelous job of neither sentimentalizing nor whitewashing the reformer's wide-ranging remarks. Alongside her teaching and scholarship, Karant-Nunn also served in leadership roles on prominent journals in the field.
This festschrift is divided into four categories, each reflective of Karant-Nunn's scholarship. While an analysis of each contribution is beyond the ken of this review, a few deserve to be highlighted. An excellent essay by David M. Whitford on Luther's use of “bride” and “whore” to describe the believer's relationship with Christ demonstrates both the theological intent and limits of these metaphors. Also to be noted is the chapter by Amy Nelson Burnett where she analyzes an early controversy on the Lord's Supper in Flensburg by describing the different styles of rhetoric used by the opposing sides. Finally, moving beyond the boundaries of Lutheranism, Karen E. Spierling looks at the work of the consistory in Geneva and shows that it is too simple to say that women were the passive objects of a male ajudicatory body.
Overall, this is a fine collection of articles, ranging widely over the theological and cultural implications of the Reformation. It is a worthy tribute to an outstanding scholar of the period.
