From May 24 to May 27, 2009, 350 participants from 35 countries gathered in the elegant and efficient setting of Geneva's International Conference Center (CICG) for perhaps the largest scholarly event of the "Calvin year" 2009, the conference "Calvin and His Influence, 1509-2009.” For the five hundredth anniversary of the reformer's birth, the organizers of the conference sought to create a memorable scholarly event that would take the full measure of Calvin's historical influence across the generations and around the world, from his lifetime to the present. Eight plenary sessions explored central themes in the character, reception and reinterpretation of his thought and legacy from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Forty-six parallel sessions examined in greater detail aspects of his influence or supposed influence in contexts ranging from sixteenth-century Geneva to twentieth-century South Africa. In all, papers were presented by 120 speakers from 20 countries in a multiplicity of academic fields--theology, history, literature, art history, and law. (The full program of the conference may be seen by going to the page "program and featured speakers" on the menu at the left, then clicking on the link on the first line of the relevant page.) By combining sessions on the personality and thought of one of history's most controversial figures with presentations devoted to the various spiritual, political and ideological uses to which his ideas and example were put in different places and times, the conference yielded not only a fuller understanding of Calvin himself, but also a significantly revised picture of subsequent movements called "Calvinist" and their actual debt to their nominal spiritual founder. The plenary papers will be published in a volume edited by the IHR. Many papers from the parallel sessions will also be published in scholarly journals or books prepared by the collaborating learned societies or individuals that organized conference sessions.
The Opening Round Table, held on Sunday evening May 24 in the auditorium of the Uni-Dufour building of the University of Geneva, was open to the general public and attracted 250 people. The subject "Politics and Power, Past and Present: What has been the role of the Calvinist tradition? What remains of it today?" was debated by two prominent French political leaders who come from Protestant backgrounds but have very different relationships with the faith today, Michel Rocard, the former Prime Minister, and Georgina Dufoix, formerly Minister of Social Affairs and National Solidarity. They were joined on the panel by two Swiss politicians from different religious backgrounds, Martine Brunschwig-Graf and Armand Lombard. The discussion was moderated by Roger de Weck, former correspondent for the Neue Zurcher Zeitung and current head of the board of trustees of the Genevan Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. You may listen to this round table by clicking here.
Financial support for this conference has been generously provided by the Fondation Hans Wilsdorf, the Schweizerische Reformationsstiftung, the Loterie Romande, the Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique and the University of Geneva.
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Association Calvin 2009 |
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Société du Musée historique de la Réformation et Bibliothèque Calvinienne |
