Witches, Magic and the Witch Hunts in the Atlantic World, 1400-1700

Catalog description

The study of “witchcraft” and the witchhunts of early modern Europe has brought enormous insight to our historical understanding of popular culture, gender, social conflict, religion, and law. This course examines European ideas about witchcraft in the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries and how the European model of witchcraft became exported to other parts of the Atlantic world (Africa, North America, South America) during the early- modern period of European economic and colonial expansion. In addition, we will explore how non-European concepts of the supernatural, magical, and divine differed from or intersected with European beliefs and assumptions at the moment of cross-cultural encounter. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities Advanced course (18-19: survey).