David R. Winter
In Suður-Þingeyjarsýsla, Iceland, August 2019.
B.A., M.A. (McMaster), Ph.D. (Toronto)
Professor
Current Projects:
- I participated in Svartárkot – Nature – Culture field school in Bárðardalur and Vatnajökull, Iceland in August, 2023. This is a ongoing program that explores the history and literature of Iceland through the lens of the environmental humanities.
- I presented a paper on the literary circle around Bishop Guðbrandur Þorláksson of Hólar (d. 1627) and its attempts to frame a new natural history of Iceland in the seventeenth century at Scientiae Prague 2023.
- Maclean’s Magazine named my “History of the Devil” seminar (54:450) one of Brandon University’s “cool courses” in their University Rankings for 2022: https://www.macleans.ca/schools/brandon-university/
- In October 2022, I gave a paper on the the controversy that attended the publication of Hamburg merchant Gories Peerse’s satirical poem Van Yslandt (ca. 1561) for the Sixteenth Century Society’s conference in Minneapolis. This is preliminary research towards the Oddur Einarsson translation project.
- Together with Richard Raiswell (PEI), Mikki Brock (Washington and Lee), Sarah Hughes (Temple), Peter Dendle (Penn State, Mont Alto), and Kathryn Morris (King’s College, Halifax), I am organizing a major conference on the history of the devil to be held in Halifax, Canada, in May, 2024. The conference will be called Devil 2024 and it is a re-imagined version of the Devil 2020 Conference that was postponed due to COVID-19. Watch this space for details.
- I was one of the principal organizers of Scientiae Belfast 2019 (June 12-15). This annual conference draws more than 150 scholars and explores emerging epistemologies in Europe between ca. 1400 and 1800. In addition to helping to organize the conference, I participated in a session on “teaching the uncanny.”
- I was in the Westfjords, Iceland, studying the Icelandic language in August 2019. I also met with Viðar Hreinsson (Reykjavik Academy, Stefansson Arctic Institute) to explore Strandir and Árneshreppur, and to discuss the development of a summer programme (in Iceland) focussing on the environmental humanities in the early modern period. My own contribution will centre on the life and works of Bishop Oddur’s Descriptio Islandiae.
Research Interests:
- Western Europe in the Middle Ages and early modernity (ca. 1100-1650 CE), exemplaria and pastoral handbooks, the history of the devil, Iceland.
Publications:
Books
- The Medieval Devil: A Reader (with Richard Raiswell, PEI) (Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures 24). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. [Link to UTP’s description: https://utorontopress.com/9781442634169/the-medieval-devil/]
- The Llanthony Stories: A Translation of the Narrationes aliquot fabulosae. With an introduction by David R. Winter (Mediaeval Sources in Translation 59). Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2021. [Link to UTP’s distribution page: https://utpdistribution.com/9780888443090/the-llanthony-stories/]
- Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period (with Michelle D. Brock, Washington and Lee, and Richard Raiswell, PEI). Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. [Link to Palgrave’s description: https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319757377]
Articles
- “Three short exempla concerning the purity of Master Gerard ‘la Pucelle’,” Opuscula: Short Texts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance 4, no. 1 (January, 2020).
- “Theory and Practice in Early Modern Epistemologies of the Preternatural” (with Michelle D. Brock), in Michelle D. Brock, Richard Raiswell, and David R. Winter (eds), Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period. Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 3-19.
- “Becket and the Wolves: Imagining the Lupine Welsh in a Thirteenth-Century Latin Preaching exemplum from Llanthony Secunda Priory,” in Tristan Sharp and others (eds.), From Learning to Love: Schools, Law, and Pastoral Care in the Middle Ages. Essays in Honour of Joseph W. Goering (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2017), 590-612.
- “Marking the City for Christ: spatiality and the ‘invention’ of Utrecht’s medieval cross of churches,” in Meredith Cohen and Fanny Madeline (eds.), Space in the Medieval West: Places, Territories and Imagined Geographies (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2014), 77-99.
- “Preaching the Demonic Family in the West Country: An account of the devil and his mother in an early thirteenth-century example book from Llanthony Secunda Priory,” in Richard Raiswell and Peter Dendle (eds.), The Devil in Society in Premodern Europe (Toronto: Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies Publications, 2012), 137-165.
- “Master Wiger of Utrecht’s Liber exemplorum sub titulis redactorum,” The Journal of Medieval History 38, no. 4 (December 2012), 443-471.
- “The Life and Career of Master Wiger of Utrecht (fl. 1209-1237): an Early Convert to the Order of Friars Minor,” The Journal of Medieval History, 31 (March 2005), 71-126.
Selected Papers:
- “The Beginning of Wisdom: Bishop Guðbrand, the Gories Peerse incident, and the natural description of Iceland,” Scientiae 2023, Charles University, Prague, 9 June, 2023.
- “The Description of Iceland against the slanders of Gories Peerse,” Sixteenth Century Society Conference, Minneapolis, 30 October 2022.
- “The blood libel in an early preaching exemplum from Llanthony Secunda priory,” International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, UK (digitally delivered panel), 08 July 2021.
- “Stop Making Sense: Struggling with demons in the classroom,” Scientiae 2019, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 13 June 2019.
- “Demons as environmental threat in the Íslendingasögur (Icelandic Family Sagas),” St. Paul’s College, University of Manitoba. Winnipeg, 21 November 2018. Invited talk.
- “On the beach: the preternatural origins of drift whale conflicts in the later Icelandic sagas (ca. 1350-1450),” Scientiae 2018, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 18 May 2018.
- “Shattered thresholds, the flensing of demons, and northern liminalities in Grettis saga,” Scientiae 2017, University of Padua, 21 April 2017.
- “Slipping between the Branches of the Fairy Tree: Joan of Arc, the Inquisitors, and the Longaevi,” Scientiae 2016, St. Anne’s College, Oxford University, 06 July 2016.
Works in Progress
- The Qualiscunque descriptio Islandiae of Oddur Einarsson: Study and Translation.
- The Routledge History of the Devil in the Western Tradition (with Michelle D. Brock and Richard Raiswell) (under contract).
- “The Devil’s Minions,” in The Routledge History of the Devil in the Western Tradition (with Michelle D. Brock and Richard Raiswell) (under contract).
Teaching Interests:
- The European Middle Ages, Late Antiquity, Ancient Greek and Roman civilization
- Medieval and Early Modern Iceland
- Ecclesiastical and cultural history, demons and spirits, premodern epistemologies and “ways of knowing”
Courses Taught:
- 54:153 World History to 1500
- 54:154 World History since 1500
- 54:253 Early Modern Europe
- 54:260 Early Medieval Europe
- 54:261 Ancient I: The Ancient Near East and Greece
- 54:262 Ancient II: The Roman World
- 54:264 The High and Late Middle Ages
- 54:343 History of Iceland
- 54:369 The Crusades
- 54:374 History of European Women I: 500 BCE to 1500 CE
- 54:378 The Viking World
- 54:450 History of the Devil
- 54:462 Reading the Sagas
- 54:463 Medieval Popular Religion
