Lecture | Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History
Silence, Faith and Sexual Violence: Reflections on Methodologies for Trauma in Early Modern France
- Date
- Friday 11 April 2025
- Time
- Series
- Research Seminars Medieval and Early Modern History academic year 2024 - 2025
- Location
-
Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden - Room
- Conference room (2.60)
This talk considers trauma related to sexual violence within the 17th- and 18th-century French church. How do we account for common symptoms of trauma—fragmentation and silence when studying the distant past? Drawing from Black feminist Scholarship and Trauma Studies, Choudhury suggests alternative methodologies by examining possible abuse and trauma in mysticism and demonic possession in the early modern period. She considers the role historians play in continuing this trauma.
About the speaker
Mita Choudhury (NIAS / Vassar College, History Department) is a historian of early modern France, specializing in gender, political culture, and religion. In her current research project, she investigates the history of sexual abuse and the Church in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, asking how we can write a victim-centered history that brings out forgotten voices and holds us accountable as practitioners of history.
Research Seminars Medieval and Early Modern History
The seminars are informal and intended to foster discussion. There are drinks afterwards. Everyone is welcome to join.
If you would like to join a session, and/or receive invitations for the upcoming sessions, you can send an e-mail to: ngassistent@hum.leidenuniv.nl. Further information can be obtained from the organizers Marlisa den Hartog, Judith Pollmann, Jeroen Duindam and Philippe Buc.