The Counter-Reformation Self

Although the Renaissance as the supposed birthplace of the "modern individual" has largely been debunked as a myth, historians usually locate signs of early modern individuality among those who deviated from the norm, i.e. mostly among "heroes" and "heretics". With this micro-historical project "The Counter-Reformation Self", Nicole Reinhardt takes a deliberately different approach and follows the career of a conformist in the age of the Counter-Reformation (ca. 1540-1610). In this way, the project aims to show how people deal with social and religious pressures to conform and, in their adaptation and transformation as well as in their handling of cognitive dissonance over their lifetime, come to construct themselves both as independent and coherent individuals and as productive and loyal members of their social group