A researcher who examines the impacts of the Protestant Reformation on women will deliver the Mary Martin McLaughlin Memorial Lecture at 5 p.m. Sept. 21 in the Center for Great Plains Studies.

The talk, “Did Women Have a Reformation? Continuities Amid Change in Women’s Religious Life,” will be led by Merry Wiesner-Hanks, a professor of history at the University of Milwaukee. The subject focuses on topics related to one of Wiesner-Hanks’ core areas of scholarship, which is the examination of the influence and impact of the Protestant Reformation on women’s lives in early modern Europe.

Wiesner-Hanks has published extensively on women, Christianity, and sexuality in the early modern era, as well as on world history and gender, her other scholarly passions. Her research has been supported by Fulbright and the Guggenheim grants.

“Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe” by Merry Wiesner-Hanks

the talk is organized by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Medieval and Renaissance Studies program. The talk will help the program mark the 500th anniversary of Luther’s landmark “95 Theses” (“Disputation on the Power of Indulgences”) and the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation in Europe.

Mary Martin McLaughlin, a native of Grand Island and a graduate of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s history department, was a scholar of women, children, family and women’s religious communities in medieval Europe.

Two books published during her lifetime, “The Portable Medieval Reader” and “The Portable Renaissance Reader,” made McLaughlin’s work a staple of college courses for decades. Her posthumous masterwork, “Heloise and the Paraclete: A Twelfth-Century Quest,” with Bonnie Wheeler, is forthcoming in 2019.

The talk is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the lecture.