HC Erik Midelfort

HC Erik Midelfort, 2015.

Hans Christian Erik Midelfort (born April 17, 1942 in Eau Claire (Wisconsin) ) is an American early modern historian from the University of Virginia , who deals primarily with the history of the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries and there with cultural history Issues such as witch hunts , magic and the history of madness dealt with.

Life

Midelfort began his studies at Yale and graduated there in 1964 with a Baccalaureus degree. He stayed at Yale for a few years and worked there with Jaroslav Pelikan , Claus Peter Clasen, JH Hexter and Edmund S. Morgan , among others . He received his doctorate in 1970. His first book Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany, 1562–1684: The Social and Intellectual Foundations received the Gustav O. Arlt Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities .

In addition to the work on witchcraft, he became known with studies such as Mad Princes in Renaissance Germany (1994, German Verrückte Highness ) or 1997 A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany . He received the Roland Bainton Prize for the historical book of the year twice and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award from Phi Beta Kappa once .

In Germany he was honored, among other things, with a festschrift, which was published by Sönke Lorenz and Jürgen Michael Schmidt under the title Against all witchcraft and the work of the devil: The European witch hunt and its effects on southwest Germany . In 2008 a second festschrift, Ideas and Cultural Margins in Early Modern Germany , was published by Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer and Robin Barnes .

After a final lecture on the magical and modern , he retired from university in 2008. In spring 2011 he was an Ellen Maria Gorrison Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin .

He became known for research work in the area of ​​the early modern period , the Reformation and Christian religious history in Central Europe. With a variety of translations of secondary literature and sources , among other things , he has significantly stimulated German-American historical research cooperation. With subjects such as magic , witch hunts and insanity , he became known with several award-winning books, teaching assignments and publications. He has worked at the universities of Stanford, Yale, Bern, Stuttgart, Harvard and Oxford, among others.

Publications (selection)

Monographs

• Exorcism and Enlightenment: Johann Joseph Gassner and the Demons of 18th-Century Germany. Yale University Press, 2005.
• A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany. Stanford University Press, 1999.
• Mad Princes of Renaissance Germany. University Press of Virginia, 1994.
• Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany, 1562–1684: The Social and Intellectual Foundations. Stanford University Press, 1972.

Editing and translations

• Edited with Jonathan Dewald and others: Europe: 1450–1789. Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. 6 vols. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003.
• Translation by Wolfgang Behringer : Shaman of Oberstdorf: Conrad Stoechkhlin and the Phantoms of the Night. University of Virginia Press, 1998.
• Translation with Benjamin Kohl, by Johann Weyer : On Witchraft. Pegasus Press, 1998.
• Translation with Thomas A. Brady, Jr. of Peter Blickle : The Revolution of 1525. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.
• Translation with Mark U. Edwards by Bernd Moeller: Imperial Cities and the Reformation. Three essays. Fortress Press, 1972.
• Co-editor of the series Hexenforschung together with Dieter R. Bauer , Wolfgang Behringer, Heide Dienst , Sönke Lorenz , Wolfgang Schild and the Institute for Historical Regional Studies and Historical Auxiliary Sciences at the University of Tübingen.
• Editor of Studies in Early Modern German History , University of Virginia Press.

items

• Melancholy Ice Age? In: Wolfgang Behringer, Hartmut Lehmann , Christian Pfister (eds.): Cultural consequences of the 'Little Ice Age'. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, pp. 239-254.
• Nature and Obsession: Natural Explanations for Obsession from Melancholy to Magnetism. In: Hans de Waardt et al. (Ed.): Demonic possession. To interpret a cultural-historical phenomenon. Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld 2005, pp. 73–88.
• Charcot, Freud and the Demons. In: Kathryn A. Edwards (Ed.): Werewolves, Witches, and Wandering Spirits. Traditional Belief & Folklore in Early Modern Europe. Kirksville 2002, pp. 199-215.
• Madness and the Millennium of Munster, 1534-1535. In: C. Kleinhenz, FJ Lemoine (eds.): Fearful Hope. Madison 1999, pp. 115-134.
• Religious Melancholy and Suicide: On the Reformation Origins of a Sociological Stereotype. In: Madness, Melancholy and the Limits of the Self (= Graven Images. Vol. 3). 1996, pp. 41-56.
• Suicide in the judgment of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. In: Wolfgang Reinhard , Heinz Schilling (Hrsg.): The Catholic confessionalization. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1995, pp. 296-310.
• Mentally Ill Princes in the 16th Century: From Deposition to Treatment. In: Yearbook of the Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation. Vol. 7, 1990, pp. 25-40.
• Aristocratic country life and the legitimation crisis of the German nobility in the 16th century. In: Georg Schmidt (Hrsg.): Estates and society in the old empire. Stuttgart 1989, pp. 245-264.