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Laura Stokes

Assistant Professor of History

E-mail: lpstokes@stanford.edu

Full Contact Information

At Stanford Since 2007

PhD, University of Virginia; MA, University of Virginia; BA. Reed College.

Bio Sketch

Laura Stokes completed her Ph.D. at the University of Virginia in 2006. Her dissertation, "Demons of Urban Reform," examines the origins of witchcraft prosecution in fifteenth-century Europe against the backdrop of a general rise in the prosecution of crime and other measures of social control. In the process she has investigated the relationship between witchcraft and sodomy persecutions as well as the interplay between the unregulated development of judicial torture and innovations within witchcraft prosecution. She is currently in the process of revising the dissertation into a book manuscript. Her future research plans include a social history of greed in the age of the Reformation.

Research Interests

  • Gender and social history
  • Witches and witch hunting
  • History of sexuality
  • Criminal law
  • Usury and greed
  • Utopian thought

Current Research

  • "Hagel und Hexen: The meaning of weather magic in the formation of witch stereotypes" presented at Boundaries of Witchcraft in the Upper Rhine Region in Oxford, UK in March, 2008.
  • "Experiments in Pain: Reason and the development of judicial torture" presented at the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference in Minneapolis, MN in October, 2007.
  • "Rethinking Early Modern Justice: Witchcraft, Sodomy, and the Demonization of Crime in Lucerne" presented as "Gendered Persecutions of Witchcraft and Sodomy in Basel and Lucerne" at the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference in Salt Lake City, UT in October, 2006.

Publications

  • Demons of Urban Reform: The Rise of Witchcraft Prosecution, 1430-1530 (Palgrave Macmillan, under contract)
  • Translator of Johannes Dillinger 'Böse Leute': A comparative study of witch hunts in Swabian Austria and the Electorate of Trier University of Virginia Press (Forthcoming)
  • Translator of Sönke Lorenz “Germany, Southwestern” in Richard Golden, ed., Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2006
  • • "Nürnberg" and "Luzern" in the Hexenforschung Lexikon at www.historicum.net

Honors and Awards

  • Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship, George Mason University, 2006
  • Graduate Fellowship, Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fund, 2004, 2005
  • GSAS Dissertation Year Fellowship, University of Virginia, 2005 (declined)
  • Graduate Travel Grant for International Conference, Frühe Neuzeit Interdisziplinär, 2005
  • Dumas Malone Fellowship, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 2002, 2003
  • Graduate Research Fellowship, DAAD, 2002 (declined)
  • Paleography Seminar, German Historical Institute, 2002
  • Governor’s Fellowship, University of Virginia, 1997, 2000, 2001
  • Summer Research Travel Grant, University of Virginia, 2001
  • Latin Summer Language Institute Grant, University of Virginia, 2001
  • Academic Scholarship, Reed College, 1993, 1994, 1995
  • Commendation for Academic Excellence, Reed College, 1993, 1994, 1995

Academic Service and Memberships

  • Conference Organizing Committee and Panel Chair, “Transmissions and Omissions: Media in German Literature and History,” University of Virginia Graduate German Studies Conference, 2005
  • Collaborated with committee to choose topics, review abstracts, and host events. Served as Panel Chair for “Delivering the Message before the 19th Century.”
  • Conference Organizing Committee, “Confinement” University of Virginia Graduate German Studies Conference, 2002
    Collaborated with committee to choose topics, review abstracts, and host events, designed call for papers
  • Arbeitskreis Interdisziplinär Hexenforschung (AKIH: Interdisciplinary Witchcraft Research Workshop) Member 2001-present