Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in History
“A Case For History”, Magda Teter
“A Case For History”, Magda Teter
Magda Teter
With history evoked every week by politicians, often misusing and abusing history. What such misuses and abuses of history demonstrate is that our society needs more exposure to history. With STEMs championed by politicians and investors alike as the focus in national education, the humanities, including history, has been on the defensive. The humanities, some argue, are irrelevant, fiscally unjustifiable for their utility to society, and socially redundant. But without them outrageous and ignorant comments like those recently uttered by Sen. Cruz and Mr. Benmosche are frequently left unchallenged. They demonstrate clearly that history and the humanities are an essential …
Review Of Michael Ostling, Between The Devil And The Host: Imagining Witchcraft In Early Modern Poland. Oxford University Press, 2011, For Polin/American Association For Polish Jewish Studies, Magda Teter
Magda Teter
Witches and witchcraft have fascinated not only the people of the premodern era, but also modern scholars who produced a tremendous amount of scholarship that has covered not only a large geographic area but also a wide variety of topics related to this subject in European history. Scholars have studied the legal and cultural underpinnings of witch-hunts; records of witch trials and works on witchcraft have served scholars as sources for the history of women and gender and the history of folk medical practices in the premodern era. Anyone interested in the history of witchcraft and magic in Europe can …
Putting "Blood Libel" In Historical Context, Magda Teter
Putting "Blood Libel" In Historical Context, Magda Teter
Magda Teter
When Sarah Palin used the term “blood libel” in response to the shooting in Arizona that left six people dead and severely injured others, including Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, she stirred a controversy. To defend herself in the midst of the controversy, Palin defined the term “blood libel” very broadly as “being falsely accused of having blood on your hands.” Despite her broad definition, blood libel is a term that refers very specifically to the historical accusation that Jews killed Christian children to obtain their blood. A false accusation, to be sure, but one with a long and painful history, …
Social And Cultural Boundaries In Pre-Modern Poland, Magda Teter, Adam Teller, Antony Polonsky
Social And Cultural Boundaries In Pre-Modern Poland, Magda Teter, Adam Teller, Antony Polonsky
Magda Teter
Boundaries—physical, political, social, religious, and cultural—were a key feature of life in medieval and early modern Poland, and this volume focuses on the ways in which these boundaries were respected, crossed, or otherwise negotiated. It throws new light on the contacts between Jews and Poles, including the vexed question of conversion and the tensions it aroused. The collected articles also discuss relations between the various elements of Jewish society—the wealthy and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, and the religious and the lay elites, considering too contacts between Jews in Poland and those in Germany and elsewhere. Classic studies …
Jews And Catholics In Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church In The Post Reformation Era, Magda Teter
Jews And Catholics In Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church In The Post Reformation Era, Magda Teter
Magda Teter
My first book, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post Reformation Era (Cambridge University Press, 2006, pbk 2009), introduced Jews into a traditional Polish narrative of post-Reformation Poland that had been grounded in a Catholic-Protestant dichotomy, allowing me to reposition the role of Jews and other non-Catholics in multicultural Poland in a completely new way. My approach has broadened the context of Poland’s religious history and has revealed the superficiality of the re-Catholicization of the ruling elites, whose economic interests triumphed over their religious loyalties, challenging the view of the “triumph of the Counter-Reformation” in …