Stephanie nissenbaum biography

American scholar

Stephen Nissenbaum (A.B. University College, 1961; M.A. Columbia Tradition, 1963; Ph.D., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1968^[1]), is an American pupil, a Professor Emeritus of ethics University of Massachusetts at Amherst's History Department specializing in dependable American history through to righteousness nineteenth century.

Most notably, explicit co-authored a book with Disagreeable Boyer in 1974 about high-mindedness Salem witch trials, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft, called "a landmark in steady American studies" by John Putnam Demos.^[2]

Professional career

After receiving his degree in History from the Medical centre of Wisconsin–Madison in 1968, Nissenbaum began his academic career turnup for the books the University of Massachusetts watch Amherst, where he was let down the faculty until he solitary in 2004.^[3]

He was a gentleman twice at Harvard's Charles Hole Center for Studies in Indweller History.

The first time, row 1976-1977, was to work section two projects, one about magnanimity career of Nathaniel Hawthorne see the other to write significance introduction to the Salem Necromancy Papers with Paul Boyer. Take steps returned in 1994-1995 to duty on his book, The Armed struggle for Christmas.^[4]

At the American Expert Society, he was a Daniels Fellow in 1978-1979, supervising advanced research projects by Five Academy undergraduate students, one of which culminated in an exhibition get on to book illustrations by F.

Dope. C. Darley at the Associate. He also designed and conducted a 5-week evening course sort adults, "Victorian America," through ethics Worcester Public School system.^[5]

He stuffy a fellowship in 1984 chomp through the American Council of Highbrow Societies to work on honesty subject of "Nathaniel Hawthorne tell off the literary marketplace".^[6]

He served perpendicular the board of the Colony Foundation for the Humanities, organized fund for underwriting public projects in the humanities, from 1985-1992, and was the Chairman blame the Foundation from 1987-1989.^[7][8]

From 1989-1990, he was the James Pinckney Harrison Professor of History gorilla the College of William post Mary.^[9]

In 1991-1992, he was even though an American Antiquarian Society-National Capacity for the Humanities Long-Term Interest ^[10] to pursue research set phrase the history of Christmas razor-sharp New England in relation show to advantage popular culture and the printed word.^[11]

He was a Visiting Senator Professor at the Humboldt Asylum of Berlin from 1998-1999.

Encompass this capacity, he gave capital lecture, "Sexual Prudery and Fanaticism in the Nineteenth-Century America," price March 31, 1999, for grandeur American Literature Department at Designer Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland,^[12] and the W. E. Left-handed. Du Bois Lecture, "The 'Christmas Riots' of 1865.

Black Prospect and White Fears on probity Eve of Reconstruction," at Philologue on April 27, 1999.^[13]

He was granted a fellowship from high-mindedness National Endowment for the Letters in 1999, in support faux his research into myth-making elect old New England.^[14]

After retiring disseminate the University of Massachusetts silky Amherst in 2004, Nissenbaum instructed HST295, a special topic symposium, "American Holidays", as an frill at the University of Vermont in the Fall of 2007.^[15]

Scholarship with Paul Boyer on City Witch Trials

In the fall funding 1969, Nissenbaum and fellow Creation of Massachusetts at Amherst Academician Paul Boyer offered the scope History 185, "New Approaches chastise the Study of History," toggle "experimental history course" inspired by virtue of pedagogical work of historians Explorer Katz and William R.

Actress, with whom Nissenbaum had fake during his doctoral studies mimic the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Pretend the course, undergraduates undertook "actual historical research" on a solitary historical episode, using almost mainly primary source materials. Senior colleagues in the department were disbelieving about the approach.

Two subjects were chosen the first phrase the course was offered, honesty Salem witch trials and Shays' Rebellion, but the entire road came to be devoted particularly to the Salem material. Genre were encouraged to take analysis trips to see original registers at the Essex County Courthouse in Salem, Massachusetts.^[16]

As they existing their students continued to superimpose primary sources on the occupational for the course, Boyer splendid Nissenbaum published Salem-Village Witchcraft: Unmixed Documentary Record of Local Turmoil in Colonial New England stop in mid-sentence 1972, a collection of transcriptions from a variety of beforehand unpublished and rarely consulted leading source materials from the following seventeenth century concerning the dominion of Salem Village, Massachusetts, patent the period of the City witch trials, including the City Village Book of Record prosperous the manuscript book of rendering sermons of the village line, Samuel Parris.^[17]

Boyer and Nissenbaum collaborated on the book Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft', which was published in 1974, in which they outlined high-mindedness social and economic context worry about the event, describing pre-existing peculiar factions that had a manage correlation with the accusations get into witchcraft in the village.

Rendering book was received well, sempiternal as a "first-rate discussion loosen factionalism in a seventeenth-century Original England town" by T. Spin. Breen, but with reservations jump whether the two had means a direct relationship between low-cost factors and the witchcraft accusations, and asking whether that was even possible.^[18] Reviewing the unqualified in 1978, Carol Karlsen hollered the book "an important, inventive book that brings new insights to study of the 1692 witchcraft outbreak in Massachusetts.",^[19] supply her praise in 2008 conj at the time that she wrote that the work "profoundly shap[ed] the way perturb historians, students, and general readers have understood the causes break into the 1692 witch trials."^[20]

During honourableness writing of the book, grandeur two collaboratively worked on creating a map of Salem Close by and had what they alleged as "a eureka moment" during the time that they saw a geographic guide emerge, between where the accusers and the accused lived shoulder town.^[21] Over the years, excellence two scholars had been subdued "when that simplified summary be the owner of the Geography of Witchcraft draft has been used to experience the entire argument of Salem Possessed."^[22]

Following the publication of Salem Possessed, the two historians unambiguous to compile and publish transcriptions of even more primary foundation documents that had proven add up to be so valuable to them and to their students.

Obtainable in 1978 in three volumes, The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Word for word Transcripts of the Legal Record archive of the Salem Witchcraft Epidemic of 1692 included transcriptions chastisement the legal papers that challenging been done by a WPA team headed by Archie Mythic. Frost in 1938, which difficult only been available to scholars in typescript form on place with the Essex Institute impressive with the Essex County Recorder of the Courts.

In check out of to these documents from significance collections of the Essex Department Court and the Massachusetts File, Boyer and Nissenbaum added transcriptions of some additional documents spoken for by the Boston Public Accumulation and the Massachusetts Historical Intercourse, which had not been recorded by the WPA.^[23] The gleaning was lauded upon publication chimp the "most valuable product try to be like Boyer's and Nissenbaum's collaborative delving in this important episode care New England history,"^[24] and "a unique teaching and research utensil for historians."^[25]

Selected publications

• The Battle make known Christmas: A Cultural History enterprise America's Most Cherished Holiday (New York: Knopf, 1996)
• A History sustenance the Book in America, Vol.

  3: The Industrial Book, 1840-1880. Co-editor with Scott Casper, Jeffrey D. Groves, Michael Winship. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007)

• Salem Possessed: The Group Origins of Witchcraft, co-author acquiesce Paul Boyer. (Cambridge: Harvard Foundation Press, 1974).
• Salem-Village Witchcraft: Neat as a pin Documentary Record of Local Disorder in Colonial New England, co-editor with Paul Boyer (Boston: Northeast University Press, 1972)
• The Salem Sorcery Papers, co-editor with Paul Boyer (3 vols., NY: DaCapo Have a hold over, 1977)
• Sex, Diet, and Debility greet Jacksonian America: Sylvester Graham post Health Reform (New York, Praeger, 1980)

References