Witchcraft, Magic and Belief in Early Modern Europe

(5 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course examines the history of early modern Europe through the history of witchcraft, witch-beliefs, and especially witchcraft prosecutions after 1500. Through learned demonology and folk traditions, you will explore the development of the idea of the witch, and see how during the turbulent era of the Reformation this thinking translated into legal trials and, occasionally some savage witch-panics. You will look in detail at subjects such as gender, fear and anxiety, state building, and skepticism, ranging across early modern Britain, continental Europe and colonial America.