Vincent M. Evener

Biography

Vincent Evener is a scholar of late-medieval and early modern Christianity, whose specialized research focuses on spiritual and mystical traditions. He is interested in how spirituality is used to form self and community vis-à-vis others, in how new visions of self and society emerge and then attain—or fail to attain—sustained form, and in how inherited theological, spiritual, and mystical traditions are constantly reinterpreted and put to new purposes. He is the author of Enemies of the Cross: Suffering, Truth, and Mysticism in the Early Reformation (Oxford University Press, 2021) [https://academic.oup.com/book/41579], and the co-editor, with Ronald K. Rittgers, of Protestants and Mysticism in Reformation Europe (Brill, 2019) [https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/54358?language=en]. He is bringing to completion a new book, The Passion and the Making of Christian Persons in Sixteenth Century Germany (under contract with Brill), which examines how Lutheran and Catholic religious leaders of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries used and transformed inherited practices of passion meditation to fashion Christian selves equipped to navigate a new era. Dr. Evener has published numerous other articles and book chapters, and he presents frequently at academic conferences as well as at churches and other community venues. He taught previously at United Lutheran Seminary (Gettysburg and Philadelphia, PA).

Details

Education

• Ph.D. in History of Christianity, June 2014, University of Chicago Divinity School
• M.A. in History of Christianity, June 2007, University of Chicago Divinity School
• B.A. in History, 2001, Kenyon College

Teaching

• Religion 100: Introduction to Religion
• Religion 340: Christianity
• Religion 750: Reform and Revolution in Religions of Europe and the Middle East

Research and professional interests

• The Protestant, Catholic, and Radical reformations of the sixteenth century
• Spirituality and mysticism, and their relationship to social conformity and dissent
• Later-medieval mysticism and sixteenth-century transformations of mysticism
• The history of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism
• Passion meditation and devotion
• Asceticism and anti-ascetism; monasticism and rejections of monasticism

Awards and honors

Additional resources

• Curriculum Vitae