By March 14, 2010
Wilby, Emma. Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic. Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2005.
The amount of scholarship on early modern witchcraft is huge, but Wilby?s book represents an interesting trend.
By March 7, 2010
Stuart Clark. Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
So I though I’d post a summary of a few really great books I’ve read recently that I see as being useful to those studying Mormonism.
Thinking with Demons focusses on what intellectuals said about witchcraft and demons during the witch-hunt era (1400-1700). In some ways the topic is much bigger than witchcraft since demons were central to how early modern people saw the world operating generally.
By January 10, 2010
I know this has been discussed around the blogernacle, but I just wanted to share a few historical anecdotes.
The first time I read the Nicene Creed (on my mission) I thought, ?do we really disagree with this?? This thought has only been compounded as I?ve studied Christian history.
By December 13, 2009
I’ve frequently seen complaints that Joseph Smith’s practice of marrying already-married women is “particularly troubling.” That is, that marrying married women is somehow worse than marrying single women. Why is that? Why is men sharing a wife somehow worse than women sharing a husband?
By December 13, 2009
My daughter was diagnosed with Perthes yesterday. It’s a condition where blood doesn’t get to the hip bone and so it doesn’t grow, which causes all kinds of problems. She’s been having a lot of difficulty walking recently but the doctor says its very treatable and for this we are grateful.
Her condition reminded me of a few stories from the past that I’ve read recently.
By November 7, 2009
The comments on my last post got me thinking about a few things, particularly the fact that the subject of the post studied under the venerable historian of the English Reformation, Eamon Duffy. In the second edition to Duffy’s monumental The Stripping of the Altars, which present the English Reformation as an unwanted destruction of the English people’s traditoinal religion, Duffy makes the following disclosure:
By November 4, 2009
In thumbing through Gwenfair Walters Adams’s Visions in Late Medieval England (Brill, 2007), I was surprised to see the following as the last line of her acknowledgements: “And ultimately, I am most grateful to God.”
Having never seen this before my question are 1) has anybody else ever seen such a thing, and 2) would you ever consider doing such a thing? Why or why not?
By September 4, 2009
The need of specialization has the drawback of limiting the scope of one’s work. As I’ve stumbled through the study of history, this has often been a frustration; the academic study of history is quite focussed. This is needed to gain the expertise one needs in historical writing, but as Richard Fletcher says in preface to his The Barbarian Conversion “Professional historians today are expected to know more and more about less and less.”
By July 28, 2009
As a follow up to Mary Ann Jeffries’s letter that I posted, here is a comment in a letter form Caroline Grant Smith to her brother Jedediah Grant. Grant had been the presiding elder in Philadelphia but was back in Nauvoo.
?You must know the Church one and all are vary ancious to see you. The first inquery when any of the sisters come in is when do you think Brother Grant will come? Have your had any news? What no letter yet and sutch like expressions.? [1]
By July 27, 2009
This is sort of a statement of contrition as well as an advertisement for the upcoming EMSA which probably none of us can make it to.
My first trip to MHA was at the end of my master’s program. My paper was on the early Mormon branches throughout North America and why we should study them.
© 2025 – Juvenile Instructor
Recent Comments
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “Large civilizations leave behind evidence of their existence. For instance, I just read that scholars estimate the kingdom of Judah to have been around 110,000…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “I have always understood the key to issues with Nephite archeology to be language. Besides the fact that there is vastly more to Mesoamerican…”
Steven Borup on In Memoriam: James B.: “Bro Allen was the lead coordinator in 1980 for the BYU Washington, DC Seminar and added valuable insights into American history as we also toured…”
David G. on In Memoriam: James B.: “Jim was a legend who impacted so many through his scholarship and kind mentoring. He'll be missed.”