Salem Repossessed
Paul Harvey
My graduate student Brad Hart, who blogs at American Creation, has pointed me to "Salem Repossessed" from the July 2008 issue of the William & Mary Quarterly. The issue includes a substantive forum featuring an all-star lineup of scholars of the Salem Witch Trials. I have yet to see it, doubt I'll get to it for a while, so in the meantime I'm depending on Brad's posts on the articles, the first of which is here. Thanks to Brad for keeping us up to scholarly date on this historical perennial.
(I should add that at American Creation, Brad and others have taken on the Sisyphean task of arguing against the various "America was founded as a Christian nation" cranks and wannabe theocrats, whose ahistorical nonsense seems to be proliferating in certain sectors of the evangelical subculture).
My students will be discussing the trials in Theory and Methods of History soon, using the nice
chapter on it in After the Fact and the primary documents at the wonderful Salem Witch Trial documents site (and also using the documents compiled in David Hall's Witch Hunting in 17th-Century New England). For me, it's always been a reliable exericse in demonstrating the vagaries of historical interpretation. Last year, a student used a map from the documents website to visually trash the Boyer/Nissenbaum thesis; I'm not sure if he was right, but it sure made for a fun class period.
The contents for the special issue:
Third Series, Volume 65, Number 3 July 2008
Forum: Salem Repossessed
My graduate student Brad Hart, who blogs at American Creation, has pointed me to "Salem Repossessed" from the July 2008 issue of the William & Mary Quarterly. The issue includes a substantive forum featuring an all-star lineup of scholars of the Salem Witch Trials. I have yet to see it, doubt I'll get to it for a while, so in the meantime I'm depending on Brad's posts on the articles, the first of which is here. Thanks to Brad for keeping us up to scholarly date on this historical perennial.
(I should add that at American Creation, Brad and others have taken on the Sisyphean task of arguing against the various "America was founded as a Christian nation" cranks and wannabe theocrats, whose ahistorical nonsense seems to be proliferating in certain sectors of the evangelical subculture).
My students will be discussing the trials in Theory and Methods of History soon, using the nice
chapter on it in After the Fact and the primary documents at the wonderful Salem Witch Trial documents site (and also using the documents compiled in David Hall's Witch Hunting in 17th-Century New England). For me, it's always been a reliable exericse in demonstrating the vagaries of historical interpretation. Last year, a student used a map from the documents website to visually trash the Boyer/Nissenbaum thesis; I'm not sure if he was right, but it sure made for a fun class period.The contents for the special issue:
Third Series, Volume 65, Number 3 July 2008
Forum: Salem Repossessed
Jane Kamensky, Salem Obsessed; Or, Plus Ça Change: An Introduction
Margo Burns and Bernard Rosenthal, Examination of the Records of the Salem Witch Trials
Richard Latner, Salem Witchcraft, Factionalism, and Social Change Reconsidered: Were Salem’s Witch-Hunters Modernization’s Failures?
Benjamin C. Ray, The Geography of Witchcraft Accusations in 1692 Salem Village
Web Supplement
John Demos, What Goes Around Comes Around
Mary Beth Norton, Essex County Witchcraft
Carol F. Karlsen, Salem Revisited
Sarah Rivett, Our Salem, Ourselves
Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed in Retrospect
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