By William McKane (NHC Fellow, 1987–88) The Christian Hebraists selected for examination are: Andrew of St. Victor, William Fulke, Gregory Martin, Richard Simon and Alexander Geddes, all of whom contributed in different ways to the reception of the Hebrew Bible in the Christian Church. All were strongly influenced by Jerome and Origen, who supplied the … Continued
By Peter Lake (NHC Fellow, 1998–99) Short, cheap pamphlets with catchy titles and crude woodcuts lured readers in early modern England. The pamphlets described notorious murders and the sometimes providential means by which the culprit was captured and condemned to the scaffold. In this extraordinary book, Peter Lake examines how various groups—protestant, puritan, and catholic, … Continued
By Nancy Bradley Warren (NHC Fellow, 2007–08) In The Embodied Word: Female Spiritualities, Contested Orthodoxies, and English Religious Cultures, 1350-1700, Nancy Bradley Warren expands on the topic of female spirituality, first explored in her book Women of God and Arms, to encompass broad issues of religion, gender, and historical periodization. Through her analyses of the variety of … Continued
By Dale K. Van Kley (NHC Fellow, 1989–90) Although the French Revolution is associated with efforts to dechristianize the French state and citizens, it actually had long-term religious—even Christian—origins, claims Dale Van Kley in this controversial new book. Looking back at the two and a half centuries that preceded the revolution, Van Kley explores the … Continued
By Ana Mariella Bacigalupo (NHC Fellow, 2009–10) The first study of how Mapuche shamans make history, this book challenges perceptions of shamans as being outside of history and examines how shamans themselves understand notions of civilization, savagery, and historical processes.
By Bart D. Ehrman (NHC Fellow, 2009–10; 2018–19) From classics such as the Odyssey and the Aeneid to fifth-century Christian apocrypha, narratives that described guided tours of the afterlife played a major role in shaping ancient notions of morality and ethics. In this new account, acclaimed author Bart Ehrman contextualizes early Christian narratives of heaven and hell within the … Continued
During this webinar we will discuss how Islam and Muslims have been, and continue to be, portrayed in comics and other forms of sequential art since the 1800s through today. Focusing largely on US comics the discussion will also take into account global examples including, but not limited to, works from Canada, Spain, and various … Continued
Few subjects are more fascinating than the supernatural. Popular culture is suffused with images of demons, witches, werewolves, ghosts, and other things that go bump in the night. These figures have long, complicated histories that are deeply intertwined with issues of religion, gender, politics, art, and more. But how do we approach something as elusive … Continued
This seminar explores the historical contexts leading to the eruption of the uprisings known as the Arab Spring in early 2011. After a brief introduction to politics in Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria, we turn to the flowering of music, art, graffiti, poetry, film, and digital media that gave expression to the revolutionary unrest. This seminar … Continued
In this webinar, we will examine the construction of race through the religious beliefs and practices of English Virginians. The seventeenth century was a critical time in the development and articulation of racial ideologies—ultimately in the idea of “hereditary heathenism,” the notion that Africans and Indians were incapable of genuine Christian conversion. In Virginia in … Continued