OXFORD, Miss. – Jeffrey Watt, professor of history, is
recipient of the 2007 Humanities Teacher Award at the
University of Mississippi.
Presented each fall to distinguished humanities scholars at
senior and community colleges throughout the state, the
award is part of an annual celebration of Arts and
Humanities Month by the Mississippi Humanities Council. In
connection with the honor, Watt delivers a free, public
lecture Oct. 11 and receives a $500 honorarium.
Titled “The Scourge of Demons: Exorcism, Witchcraft, and
the Inquisition in a Seventeenth-Century Convent,” the
lecture is set for 6:30 p.m. in the Tupelo Room of Barnard
Observatory on the Oxford campus.
“In the 1630s, a dozen nuns in a convent in the town of
Capri in northern Italy simultaneously suffered from some
extraordinary ills. When medical cures proved ineffective,
these women were believed to be the victims of demon
possession and witchcraft rather than a natural malady,”
Watt said. “The lecture will concentrate on the role played
by exorcists who ministered to the ailing nuns, especially
on whether they were providing relief or exacerbating fears
in the convent.”
Watt is completing a third book on this episode in Roman
Inquisition. With research interests in the intersection
between religious developments and social change, Watt
previously authored two books: “The Making of Modern
Marriage: “Choosing Death: Suicide and Calvinism in Early
Modern Geneva” (Truman State University Press, 2001) and
“Matrimonial Control and the Rise of Sentiment in Neuchâ
tel, 1550-1800” (Cornell University Press, 1992).
Among his other teaching honors, Watt received the UM
College of Liberal Arts’ Cora Lee Graham Award for
Outstanding Teacher of Freshmen in 1991.
“Dr. Watt’s well-received first book, published by Cornell
University Press, established him as an important scholar,
and his academic star continued to shine,” said Glenn
Hopkins, dean of UM’s College of Liberal Arts. “Couple that
with his demonstrated excellence in teaching and you see
that he is, indeed, a professor of the first rank.”
Watt joined the Ole Miss faculty in 1988. He previously
taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he
earned his doctorate. He also holds degrees from Grove City
College and Ohio University.
Watt said that he has been greatly influenced in his career
by the three advisers he had at the different institutions
where he studied.
“David McKillop was the first to pique my interest in the
fascinating subject of early modern European history,” he
said. “Phillip Bebb was instrumental in getting me more
specifically interested in the history of the Reformation.
Finally, Robert Kingdon encouraged me to pursue topics that
examined the intersection between religious developments
and social change.”
Courses Watt teaches include Western Civilization, the
history of the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Era of
Absolutism and Enlightenment. He has also taught seminars,
both graduate and undergraduate, on the history of the
family, the history of witchcraft and the historiography of
early modern Europe.
Watt is the 13th UM professor to receive the Humanities
Teacher Award. Others are Aileen Ajootian, Louis Pojman,
Colby Kullman, Charles Wilson, Winthrop Jordan, Mary
Stuckey, Ben Fisher, Katie McKee, William Lawhead, Ethel
Young-Minor, Don Dyer and Ann Fisher-Wirth.
To learn more about the UM Department of History, visit
http://www.olemiss.edu/dept/history.
For assistance related to a disability at Watt’s lecture,
call 662-915-7046.