David Y. Neufeld

Assistant Professor of History
David Neufeld

Contact:
(519) 885-0220 ext. 24201
david.neufeld@uwaterloo.ca
Office:  CGUC 2125

Education:
BA, University of Waterloo, 2009
MA, University of Arizona, 2013
PhD, University of Arizona, 2018
 

Research Areas:

Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe; Anabaptists and Anabaptism; the History of Archives

Courses Taught:

Undergraduate
HIST 110 – History of the Western World I
HIST 111 – History of the Western World II
HIST 201 - Columbus and After: New Worlds in the Americas
HIST 235/RS 240 –History of Christianity
HIST 348/RS 344 – The Radical Reformation
HIST 379/RS 343 - Reformation History
HIST 391 - Special Topics: History of Latin America


About:

David Neufeld is a historian of religion, culture, and everyday life in early modern Europe. His research and writing examine post-Reformation dynamics of conflict and coexistence, processes of minority formation, and archival cultures and practices through investigation of the experience of Anabaptists. He teaches in the areas of the history of premodern Europe and the world, the history of Christianity, colonial Latin American history, and historiographical methods. He is associate director of the Institute of Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies at Conrad Grebel University College. 

David Neufeld speaks at a class in the library


Selected Publications:

Books

  • (in preparation) Separating Tares from Wheat: Making an Anabaptist Minority in Early Modern Switzerland

     

  • Common Witness: A Story of Ministry Partnership between French and North American Mennonites, 1953-2003. Elkhart, IN, Institute of Mennonite Studies, 2016. (French translation by Marie-Noël von der Recke published as Témoignage Commun: Histoire d’un Partenariat Missionnaire entre Mennonites Français et Nord-Americains. Les Ponts-de-Martel, Switzerland: Editions de la Talwogne, 2016.)

Articles/Chapters

  • “Early Swiss Anabaptism,” in T&T Clark Companion to Anabaptism, ed. Brian Brewer (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2021), 33-50.
  • “Narrating Anabaptist Conversion in Early Modern Switzerland,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 94, no. 4 (2021): 459-94.
  • “‘So weit […] wie der Aktenbefund es gebietet”: Achivierungs-Logiken in täuferischen Quellensammlungen,” Mennonitica Helvetica 43 (2020): 59-83.
  • (With Cory D. Davis) “Thinking with the Early Modern Past: The Relevance of our Scholarship,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 50, no. 1 (2019): 212-18.
  • “’Ihr hand dergleichen Leuht auch under Euch’: Gemeindedisziplin unter Zürcher Täufern im siebzehnten Jahrhundert,” Mennonitica Helvetica 39 (2016): 34-46.

Other Publications

  • (With Randolph C. Head) “Switzerland,” in Oxford Bibliographies Online: Renaissance and Reformation, ed. Margaret King (New York: Oxford University Press).

Review Essay

  • “Arnold Snyder’s ‘In Search of the Swiss Brethren’: A Response,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 90, no. 4 (2016): 385-390.

Book Reviews

  • Review of The Swiss Brethren: A Story in Fragments, Source Evidence for the Trans-Territorial Expansion of a Clandestine Anabaptist Church in Early Modern Europe, 1538-1619, by Martin Rothkegel,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 96, no. 1 (2022): 135-37.

     

  • Review of Later Writings of the Swiss Anabaptists, 1529-1592, edited by C. Arnold Snyder, translated by H. S. Bender, C.J. Dyck, Abraham Friesen, Leonard Gross, Sydney Penner, Walter Klaassen, C. Arnold Snyder, and J.C. Wenger,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 92, no. 4 (2018): 595-597.
  • Review of European Mennonites and the Challenge of Modernity over Five Centuries: Contributors, Detractors, and Adapters, edited by Mark Jantzen, Mary S. Sprunger, and John D. Thiesen,” Conrad Grebel Review 35, no. 2 (2017): 211-13.


Selected Activities:

Papers Presented

  • “The Marginal Swiss in Martin Rothkegel’s Swiss Brethren,” Sixteenth Century Society & Conference, San Diego, California, October 28-31, 2021.
  • “‘Under the Guise of Christian Charity’: Anabaptist Responses to Poverty in Reformed Zurich, 1570-1650,” Sixteenth Century Society & Conference, St. Louis, Missouri, October 17-20, 2019.

  • Contribution to Plenary Roundtable, “New Approaches to the Radical Reformation,” Sixteenth Century Society & Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico, November 1-4, 2018.
  • “Knowledge Production and Repressive Action: Anabaptist-Reformed Relations in Zurich’s Archives,” Sixteenth Century Society & Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico, November 1-4, 2018.
  • “Seeking to be Saved: Anabaptist ‘Conversion’ in Reformed Zurich, 1585-1650,” Sixteenth Century Society & Conference, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 26-29, 2017.
  • “Wandering the Lord’s Earth: Anabaptist Movement in Reformed Zurich, 1585- 1650,” Global Reformations: Transforming Early Modern Religions, Societies, & Cultures, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, September 27-30, 2017.
  • “Archives and the Construction of Anabaptism in Early Modern Zurich,” Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel Forschungsverbund International Summer School: The New History of the Archives: Early Modern Europe and Beyond, Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany, July 4, 2017.
  • “‘If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth’: Anabaptist religious practice and the Reformed response in seventeenth-century Zurich,” Sixth Annual RefoRC Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, May 26-28, 2016.
  • “Fractious Coexistence: Anabaptists between Persecution and Toleration in Reformed Zurich, 1585-1650,” Research Colloquium of the Leibniz-Institut für Europäische Geschichte, Mainz, Germany, May 23, 2016.
  • “Reconsidering Colombian Canoas: Indigenous Technology and Colonial Transportation along the Magdalena River, 1525-1600,” American Society for Ethnohistory, Indianapolis, Indiana, October 8-12, 2014.
     

Fellowships and Awards:

  • J. Winfield Fretz Visiting Research Scholarship in Mennonite Studies, Institute of Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies, Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, Canada, 2019-2020.
  • Doctoral Fellowship, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2014-2017.
  • Doctoral Research Grant, Leibniz-Insitut für Europäische Geschichte, Mainz, Germany, 2016.
  • Miriam Usher Chrisman Travel Fellowship, Society for Reformation Research, 2015.
     

Web Page:  https://davidyneufeld.com/