By Annabel Patterson (NHC Fellow, 1991–92) Reading Holinshed’s Chronicles is the first major study of the greatest of the Elizabethan chronicles. Holinshed’s Chronicles—a massive history of England, Scotland, and Ireland—has been traditionally read as the source material for many of Shakespeare’s plays or as an archaic form of history-writing. Annabel Patterson insists that the Chronicles be read in their … Continued
By Christopher R. Browning (NHC Fellow, 2006–07) A remarkable story of survival for almost three hundred Jews who live to recount the brutalities of a Nazi work camp. In 1972 the Hamburg State Court acquitted Walter Becker, the German chief of police in the Polish city of Starachowice, of war crimes committed against Jews. Thirty … Continued
By Sarah Farmer (NHC Fellow, 2008–09) At the close of the twentieth century, even as globalization spurred the growth of megacities worldwide, inhabiting the French countryside had become an internationally-shared fantasy and practice. Accounts of moving into old farmhouses were bestsellers, and houses and barns built by peasants had been renovated as second homes throughout … Continued
Edited by Laura Engelstein (NHC Fellow, 1997–98) and Stephanie Sandler Russians have often been characterized as people with souls rather than selves. Self and Story in Russian History challenges the portrayal of the Russian character as selfless, self-effacing, or self-torturing by exploring the texts through which Russians have defined themselves as private persons and shaped … Continued
By F. S. Naiden (NHC Fellow, 2010–11) Animal sacrifice has been critical to the study of ancient Mediterranean religions since the nineteenth century. Recently, two theories have dominated the subject of sacrifice: the psychological and ethological approach of Walter Burkert and the sociological and cultural approach of Jean-Pierre Vernant and Marcel Detienne. These writers have … Continued
By Andrew P. Debicki (NHC Fellow, 1979–80; 1992–93) Twentieth-century Spanish poetry has received comparatively little attention from critics writing in English. Andrew Debicki now presents the first English-language history published in the United States to examine the sweep of modern Spanish verse. More important, he is the first to situate Spanish poetry in the context … Continued
By Richard E. Spear (NHC Fellow, 1992–93) In this highly original study of Italian baroque master Guido Reni (1575-1642), Richard Spear paints a compelling portrait of the artist — his complexities, his formative experiences, his cultural surroundings, and his unique sensibilities. Spear views Reni's career from a wide variety of perspectives and sets his life … Continued
By Martha Woodmansee (NHC Fellow, 1982–83) Analyzing the rise of art in the 18th century, this treatise demonstrates how painting, sculpture and literature were not regarded as valuable art forms before the emergence of a new bourgeois culture. The author reveals how Romantic poets and philosophers invented art as we know it today.
By Malcolm Barber (NHC Fellow, 1998–99)
By Dyan Elliott (NHC Fellow, 1997–98; 2012–13) In the fourth century, clerics began to distinguish themselves from members of the laity by virtue of their augmented claims to holiness. Because clerical celibacy was key to this distinction, religious authorities of all stripes—patristic authors, popes, theologians, canonists, monastic founders, and commentators—became progressively sensitive to sexual scandals … Continued