New article by Matthias Pohlig: Singular und Plural: Überlegungen zum Reformationsbegriff in der jüngeren Forschung (Singular and plural: Reflections on the concept of reformation in recent research)
This article attempts to catalogue the concept of "reformation" and associated concepts in the context of the Reformation anniversary and in recent research. It shows which conceptual variants of "Reformation" are currently used and how concepts of "long reformation" and "reformations" in the plural relate to them. It then discusses the advantages, but also the disadvantages, of these conceptual choices. The article also offers some overarching reflections on historiographical concepts and their epistemological and strategical use in current debates. It takes a skeptical position on the emphasis on pluralization found in much current historiography. In a third part, which draws (amongst others) on the well-established concept of the confessional age, which has long been central in German research, an attempt is made to tentatively outline possible concepts of "reformation" that might escape the dangers of conceptual pluralization outlined earlier.
Published in Reformation und Reformationen: Kontinuitäten, Identitäten, Narrative, ed. by Kaspar von Greyerz and Anselm Schubert (Gütersloh, 2022), pp. 15-37.