Mollenauer

Lynn Wood Mollenauer, Department Chair and Associate Professor

Degrees

Ph.D., Northwestern
M.A., University of Chicago
B.A. Amherst

Academic Interests

I am a cultural historian specializing in the history of France between the Renaissance and the Revolution. Both my teaching and my research reflect my interest in the complex interconnections between science, magic, and religion in early modern Europe. My current book project explores the construction and transmission of medical knowledge, practice, and goods in seventeenth-century France through an examination of the wonder drugs then in circulation: bezoar stones imported from India, potable gold distilled by alchemists, and compounds of precious gems prepared by apothecaries, among others.

Courses Taught

HST 101: Western Civilization to 1650
HST 270: Society and the Supernatural
HST 391: Age of the Renaissance
HST 394: Absolutism and Enlightenment
HST 395: Science, Magic, and Medicine
HST 414/554: Seminar in Early Modern Europe (recent topics have included "Power and Authority," "Criminals and Crime," and "A World of Goods: Commerce, Commodities, and Consumption in the Early Modern World")
HST 494/554: Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft in Europe, 1400-2000
HST 542: The Age of the Witch Hunts in Europe and America, 1500-1750

Significant Publications

"Breaching the Wall: Beyond the Convent in Catholic Reformation Europe," Journal of Women's History 26 2 (Summer 2014): 191-200
Strange Revelations: Poison, Magic, and Sacrilege in Louis XIV's France (Pennsylvania State Press, 2007)
"Popular Culture, Religion, Education, and Science," in A Day in the Life: Seeing Daily Life Through History, ed. Peter N. Stearns (Greenwood Press, 2006)
"The End of Magic: Superstition and "So-Called" Sorcery in Louis XIV's Paris," Studies in Law, Politics, and the Humanities 37 (2005): 35-56
"Justice v. Secrecy: Investigating the Affair of the Poisons, 1679-1682," Zeitsprünge: Forschungen zur Frühen Neuzeit 6 (2002): 179-205.