Presenter 1:Jenny Smith Seeing the future in 1590s English popular print: mirrors in conjuring and mirrors of conscience The future was hard to see in 1590s England, clouded by an imminent succession crisis, religious war, and widespread famine, and subject to the intervention of providence. Speculation and prognostication were outlawed, and ‘conjuring’ including scrying was also condemned on theological grounds, by Puritan preachers and popular playwrights alike. But mirrors retained authority as way to engage with the future in popular texts. News from Europe was reported as a mirror of what might happen at home. Jenny Smith is a PhD student at Monash University, writing a history of the mirror as a metaphor in sixteenth-century England. Presenter 2: Isabelle Moss Witchcraft Belief in Fifteenth-Century Zurich: Intersections Between Learned and Popular Demonologies This paper explores the richness and plurality of fifteenth-century witchcraft belief in the early modern city of Zurich. It examines community accusations of flying wolves, magical milking, bewitching, weather magic, and yet, this paper will argue that it is the sexual activity of witches with their demonic accomplices which proves most concerning for the Council. This exploration is used to consider the ways in which both the Zurich Council and the wider community processed the emerging threat of witchcraft in the city. In doing so, it complicates existing expectations of demonological belief and the role of demonic copulation in early witchcraft prosecutions. Isabelle Moss is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Melbourne. Her research examines witchcraft in early modern Zurich, focused on the ways in which demonic copulation was conceptualised and its implications for trial proceedings.
We are delighted to share the first seminar in the 2026 Early Modern Circle series!
Two wonderful PhD candidates from Melbourne surrounds, Jenny Smith and Isabelle Moss, will present their research 💫
When: April 15, 6.15pm, UniMelb Campus
DM for details or see poster below ⬇️
#earlymodern #emhist
