Imagining the Witch: Emotions, Gender, and Selfhood in Early Modern Germany, by Laura Kounine

Abstract

Can we access the inner lives of people, and how? Do we ever reach the authentic voices of the people living in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? These are the questions Laura Kounine sets off with in her fascinating book. The challenge of accessing the inner lives of early modern people has drawn historians for the past half century, and the strong interest in the history of emotions for the past fifteen years has sparked a renewed interest. Kounine comes from a strong Anglo-academic tradition of brilliant scholars working on early modern Germany, and she elegantly fuses works on witchcraft and gender with the history of the self in the early modern (Lutheran) world. She makes no secret of her inspiration gained from the works of Tom Robisheaux, David Sabean and Lyndal Roper, to mention some well-known scholars, although Kounine challenges their arguments throughout the book. Kounine uses trial records...