Description
Denounced by neighbors and scrutinized by demonologists, the early modern French witch also confessed, self-identified as a witch and as the author of horrific deeds. What led her to this point? Despair, solitude, perhaps even physical pain, but most decisively, demonology's two-pronged prosecutorial and truth-seeking confessional apparatus. This book examines the systematic and well-oiled machinery that served to extract, interpret, and disseminate witches' confessions in early modern France. For the demonologist, confession was the only way to find out the truth about the clandestine activities of witches. For the witch, however, trial confessions opened new horizons of selfhood. In this book, Virginia Krause unravels the threads that wove together the demonologist's will to know and the witch's subjectivity. By examining textual and visual evidence, Krause shows how confession not only generated demonological theory but also brought forth a specific kind of self, which we now recognize as the modern subject.
Situated at the crossroads of history and literary studies, this book examines confession's place at the heart of French demonology.
About the Author
Virginia Krause is Associate Professor of French Studies at Brown University. She received a research fellowship from the Newberry Library in 1999 and has been invited to speak at universities in the United States (Harvard, Cornell, University of Virginia, Dartmouth, University of Indiana, and Brandeis University), France (Universite de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and Universite de Toulouse), and the United Kingdom (University of Hull). Krause currently serves on the external editorial committee of French Forum. She is the author of Idle Pursuits: Literature and 'Oisivete' in the French Renaissance and is currently finishing a critical edition of Jean Bodin's De la demonomanie des sorciers (coedited with Christian Martin and Eric MacPhail).
Book Information
ISBN 9781107074408
Author Virginia Krause
Format Hardback
Page Count 204
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 480g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 160mm * 18mm
Situated at the crossroads of history and literary studies, this book examines confession's place at the heart of French demonology.
About the Author
Virginia Krause is Associate Professor of French Studies at Brown University. She received a research fellowship from the Newberry Library in 1999 and has been invited to speak at universities in the United States (Harvard, Cornell, University of Virginia, Dartmouth, University of Indiana, and Brandeis University), France (Universite de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and Universite de Toulouse), and the United Kingdom (University of Hull). Krause currently serves on the external editorial committee of French Forum. She is the author of Idle Pursuits: Literature and 'Oisivete' in the French Renaissance and is currently finishing a critical edition of Jean Bodin's De la demonomanie des sorciers (coedited with Christian Martin and Eric MacPhail).
Book Information
ISBN 9781107074408
Author Virginia Krause
Format Hardback
Page Count 204
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 480g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 160mm * 18mm
