Early Modern History

Clive Holmes, emeritus fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, will provide a context for the 1692 determination by the Puritan clergymen of the Cambridge Association concerning spectral evidence in witchcraft trials. This talk is part of the Crotty Lecture series at The Huntington.

Felicity Heal, emeritus fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, discusses the importance of gifts and patronage in the lethally competitive court of Henry VIII. This talk is part of the Crotty Lecture series at The Huntington.

Thomas Cogswell, professor of history at UC Riverside reconstructs the polemical campaign waged in the early 1650s by John Milton and other republicans to destroy the personal and political reputation of Charles II. This is part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture Series at The Huntington.

Fashion historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell discusses one of the most exciting, controversial, and extravagant periods in the history of fashion: the reign of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in 18th-century France. She explores the exceptionally imaginative and uninhibited styles of the period leading up to the French Revolution, as well as fashion’s surprising influence on the course of the Revolution itself. This is part of the Wark Lecture Series at The Huntington.

Alain Touwaide explores some iconic sites in the Mediterranean world—Pompeii, Constantinople, Baghdad, Cordoba, Granada, and Padua, among others—and examines archaeological fields and early manuscripts that illustrate the relationship between humans and nature through time and space. Since ancient times, humans have recognized the therapeutic benefits of nature and have built gardens that helped restore health, both physical and spiritual.Touwaide is scientific director of the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions and research associate at the Smithsonian Institution.

Matthew Fisher, associate professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses the earliest collections of medieval English manuscripts, the fires that almost destroyed them, and the radical changes in archival procedures that followed. This is part of the Zambrano Lecture Series at The Huntington.

Kathleen Wilson, professor of history at Stony Brook University and the R. Stanton Avery Distinguished Fellow, discusses the revolutionary changes in body politics and polity that occurred in England during the late 18th century, as symbolized by the activities and representations of Admiral Horatio Nelson and his mistress, Lady Emma Hamilton. This is part of the Distinguished Lecture Series at The Huntington.

Susan Juster, professor of history at the University of Michigan and the Robert C. Ritchie Distinguished Fellow, discusses the changing nature of blasphemy and blasphemy prosecutions in early modern England and the North American colonies. This is part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture series.

Tim Harris, professor of history at Brown University and the Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow, examines the causes of the English Civil War and the significance of the revolutionary upheavals in 17th-century England, Scotland, and Ireland. A book signing follows. This is part of The Huntington's Distinguished Fellow Lecture series.

Keith Wrightson, professor or history at Yale University, investigates the idioms used in 16th- and 17th-century England to date events and express the passage of time. This is part of The Huntington's Crotty Lecture series.

Susan Brigden, Langford Fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford, discusses the diplomatic consequences of when Henry VIII declared himself Supreme Head of the Church in England, and how it broke the unity of Christendom. Brigden is the author of Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest.

Niklas Frykman discusses the rise and fall of the mutinous Atlantic, and why today we might once again wish to remember those long lost struggles for maritime democracy. Frykman is assistant professor of history at Claremont Mckenna College and is a Barbara Thom Fellow at The Huntington in 2013¬–14.

John Morrill of Cambridge University draws on eyewitness testimony to examine the exceptional violence and disruption brought about by the Irish Massacres of 1641–42. Morrill chaired the editorial board for the project that put 8,000 survivor statements online at the 1641 Depositions website. This was the 2013–14 Crotty Lecture at The Huntington.

Valerie Traub explores the “Age of Discovery,” when European cartographers and anatomists developed novel strategies for representing the human body in their atlases of the world and its inhabitants. In the process she speculates on the effects of their illustrations on the emergence of the concept of “the normal.” Traub is professor of English and women’s studies at the University of Michigan and the Dibner Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington for 2013–14.

James Simpson discusses how Early Modern English literature and visual culture responded to evangelical absolutism. Simpson is professor of English, Harvard University, and the Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington in 2013–14.

Theresa M. Kelley explains that in the years leading up to the French Revolution, writers of political prophecy such as Mary Shelley celebrated—or mourned—what they believed lay ahead. Yet after the Reign of Terror, writers became more wary of imagining a desired future. In this talk she considers how this new wariness of prophecy transformed Romantic understanding of time, possibility, and change. Kelley is professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Avery Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington in 2013–14.

Alison Games explores an ordeal that took place in 1623, when Dutch traders in the Spice Islands tried, tortured, and executed 20 English merchants and Japanese soldiers. The English later dubbed it the “Amboyna Massacre.” Games is professor of history at Georgetown University and the Robert C. Ritchie Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington in 2013–14.

Lawyers and clergymen constituted the most dynamic professions in post-Reformation England. Brooks considers their interactions and ideas in an age of “revolutionary” political and confessional conflict. Brooks is professor of history at Durham University and the Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington for 2012–13.

Steve Hindle uses a 1572 murder case from the small town of Nantwich, in northwest England, to explore the nature of violence in the past and how historians attempt to measure it by sifting through archival records. Hindle is The Huntington's W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research. He was introduced to the audience by Steven Koblik, president of The Huntington.

Frances Dolan discusses how people in 17th-century England distinguished between credible and incredible stories in witchcraft trials. She also explains how today’s scholars evaluate surviving stories as historical evidence. Dolan is professor of English at the University of California, Davis, and the Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington for 2011–12.