Salem Witch Trials in History and Literature  An Undergraduate Course, University of Virginia Fall Semester 2002 RELG 415 Class Photo April 2001

Requirements

 Each student will  be responsible for four short reading response essays dealing with questions about the reading assignments and two other short essays chosen from a list of topics related to the Salem Witch Trials.  Finally,  all students will contribute fifteen questions and answers to the Salem Witch Trials Instructional Board Game.  Five-to-seven Students may choose to work on the design and implementation of the Witch Trials Board game for a extra one-hour credit, requiring one 50 minute meeting a week. All the source materials needed for the class presentations, essays  and the Board Game are readily available from the class text books, the online Research Archive, eBooks at the Electronic Text Center, electronic course reserve, and Clemons Reserve.
 

Class Schedule

Sept. 3  Introduction to the Course
  Video:  "Days of Judgment."
  Pick up ebooks at Electronic Text Center, Alderman, 3rd Floor West
   Wednesday 4th, at 11am or 2pm.  Otherwise by appointment this
 week with Matt Gibson, Asst. Director, msg2d@virginia.edu

Sept. 10 Boyer & Nissenbaum- Salem Possessed.  Prologue & Chs 1-5
  Morgan, Puritan Family, Chs 1, 2, 3, 6.
  Assignment  1

Sept. 17 Boyer & Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed, Chs. 6, 7, 8
Assignment 2

Sept. 24 Karlson, Devil in the Shape of a Woman,  Preface, Chs. 1, 2, 3
Ray, "Teaching the Salem Witch Trials" in Past Time Past Place:  GIS for
History, 2002. http://cit.itc.virginia.edu/~bcr/
Assignment 3

Oct 1  Rosenthal, Salem Story, Introduction, Chs. 1-3.
Rosenthal, Tituba’s Story,” The New England Quarterly,” 71:2
(June, 1998) Reserve – Toolkit
Assignment 4

Oct. 8   No Class -  Fall Break --  Mid-Term Stage

Oct. 15  Rosenthal, Salem Story, Chs. 6-10.
Perry Miller, "Judgment of the Witches"  Reserve -Toolkit
Assignment  5

Oct 22  Mary Beth Norton, "In the Devils Snare," Introduction ,
Chapter 4, Mather's Sermon, Conclusion." Reserve - Toolkit.
Assignment 6
 

Oct. 29   Hawthorne's profiles and characterizations:
 "Main Street," Alice Doan's Appeal," Youngman Goodman Brown"
the character of Judge Pyncheon in House of Seven Gables. eBook.

Assignment 7

Nov. 5  Longfellow's "Giles Corey of Salem Farms" eBook
Brown, David, C., “The Case of Giles Cory,” Essex Institute Historical
Collections, 121:4 (1985). Reserve – Toolkit.
Assignment 8
 

Nov. 12 Miller, The Crucible
Assignment 9

Nov. 19 "Witch City" - video
"Three Sovereigns for Sarah" -- video
 

Nov. 26 No Class -- Thanksgiving Break
 

Dec. 3  Witch Trials Board Game - Party
 

Requirements

1) All students will write four brief reading response papers (3-4 pgs.), two before mid-term and two afterwards, and present one of them to the class.  This paper will be written in response to assigned questions about the week’s readings handed out in advance. Each class will begin with a presentation of one or two responses in order to highlight the issues in the weekly readings for discussion purposes.

2) All students will write an essay on a notable figure in the witch trials (1-2 pages), e.g., Rebecca Nurse. A list of names will be provided

3) All students will write a second essay (1-2) pages on one of following. Lists of people and topics will be provided.

            (a) an event related to the trials (e.g., the new Mass Bay New Charter, contemporary Indian attacks, escapes of accused people from jail).

            (b) a critical examination of one of the theories interpreting the trials, e.g., Ergot theory.

            (c) a literary work related to the trials, e.g., Arthur Miller's Crucible, Whittier's poem, "Mabel Martin," Hawthorne's Ann Doan's Appeal."

            (d) an important religious or social institution in Puritan society, e.g., covenant, family structure, position of women.

4)  Each student will contribute 15 questions and answers to the Board Game , based on the subjects of their essays.

5) At various points in the semester, the Board Game team will present  work-in-progress reports on the Board Game for class discussion.
 

Salem Witch Trials Instructional Board Game  5 to 7 students, one credit.

 This instructional board game is intended for Middle School students and will be available on the Web as an educational instructional project.  It uses the map of Salem Village in 1692 as the game board, and the court documents are the basis for the questions and answers used in the game.  To begin the game, players will choose characters who lived in Salem Village and Salem by rolling dice.  Subsequent rolls of the dice moves the characters across the map, picking up questions along the way.  Players consult the Salem Witch Documentary Archive. Questions are acquired by traversing the several designated roads on the game board, all of which eventually lead the players from the Village to the court in the town of Salem. .In court, questions about the student's historical character are answered, and new questions and research assignments are given out for further homework.  Gallows Hill is the place on the Game Board where further questions must be obtained, depending upon the player's performance in court.  Depending up answers, history may be "changed" --  accused witches exonerated and judges and ministers accused of witchcraft.

 Students will be graded on their individual contributions to the Game and on the overall game design and implementation --  assisted by Ethan Comstock.
 
 

Books:

On Reserve in Clemons Library

Breslaw, Elaine G. Tituba, reluctant witch of Salem : Devilish Indians and Puritan fantasies F 2230.2 .A7 T573 1996

Cooper, James F., Jr., and Kenneth P. Minkema, eds. The sermon notebook of Samuel Parris, 1689-1694. F 61 .C71

Demos, John, Entertaining Satan. Oxford, 1982.

Gildrie, Richard P., Salem Massachusetts 1626-1683 F74.S1G5

Goodbeer, Richard, Devil's Dominion

Gragg, Larry, The Salem witch crisis. BF 1576 .G73 1992

Gragg, Larry, A quest for security : the life of Samuel Parris, 1653-1720 . F 74 .S1 P34 1990

Graham, Judith S., Puritan family life : the diary of Samuel Sewall F7 .G73 2000

Hall, David D., Worlds of wonder, days of judgment : popular religious belief in early New England 1989. BR530 .H35

Hansen, Chadwick, Witchcraft At Salem. Braziller, 1969.

Hill, Francis, A delusion of Satan : the full story of the Salem witch trials .H6456D

Hoffer, Peter Charles, The devil's disciples : makers of the Salem witchcraft trials. H6982D

Hoffer, Peter Charles, The Salem witchcraft trials : a legal history .H6982S

Konig, David T., Law and Society in Puritan Massachusetts, UNC Press Chapel Hill, 1979.

LeBeau, Bryan F. The Story of the Salem Witch Trails. Prentice Hall, 1998

Lounsberry, Alice. Sir William Phips. F 67 .P567 1941

Mappen, Marc editor, Witches & historians : interpretations of Salem BF1576 .M34 1996

Mather, Cotton, magnalia christi Americana F7.M4 1977

Mather, Cotton. Diary of Cotton Mather. volume 1 F 67 .M4 1957

Miller, Perry, The New England Mind, from Colony to Province. F7 .M54 1983

Patton, Anthony, S., A Doctor's Dilemma: William Griggs & the Salem Witch Trials. Salem, 1998. Reserve - Toolkit

Perley, Sidney, History of Salem, Massachusetts, 3 Vols. 1921-24. See Research Archive for digital copy.

Records of the First church in Salem, Mass. 1629 - 1736 F74. S1S173 1974

Reis, Elizabeth (Elizabeth Sarah) Damned women : sinners and witches in Puritan New England Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1997.

Robinson, Enders A., Salem Witchcraft and Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables.Heritage Books, 1992. (On order)

Silverman,. Kenneth, The life and times of Cotton Mather F 67 .M43 S57 1984

Silverman, Kenneth, Selected Letters of Cotton Mather. Baton Rouge, 1971.

Starkey, Marion, The Devil in Massachusetts, a modern inquiry into the Salem witch trials. BF1576 .S8 1949

Strandness, T. B., Samuel Sewall A Puritan Portrait F67.S546 1967

Tapley, Charles S, Rebecca Nurse, saint but witch victim, BF1576.T23

Thomas, Halsey M., The Diary of Samuel Sewall 1674-1729. Vols. 1 & 2. New York, 1973. F 67 .S516 1973, vols 1 & 2

Upham, Charles W, Reis, Elizabeth, Spellbound, Women & Witchcraft in America, "Introduction." Reserve - Toolkit.
. 2 Vols. BF1576 .
See Research Archive for digital copy.

Weisman, Richard, Witchcraft Magic, and Religion in 17th-Century Massachusetts, U. Mass Press, Amherst, 1984.

Books:

eBooks to be Downloaded from the Electronic Text Center

Burr, George Lincoln, NARRATIVES OF THE WITCHCRAFT TRIALS

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN

________, HOUSE OF SEVEN GABLES

________, ALICE DOANE'S APPEAL

________, SCARLET LETTER

________, "The Christmans Banquet," in MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE, Vol 2.

________, ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS

________, EDWARD FANE'S ROSEBUD, in TWICE TOLD TALES

_________, "John Inglefield's Thanksgiving," in THE SNOW IMAGE AND OTHER TWICE TOLD TALES -- I'm not able to find this one.

_________, "MAIN-STREET," in THE SNOW-IMAGE AND OTHER TWICE TOLD TALES.

Longfellow, Henry Wardsworth, "GILES COREY OF SALEM FARMS"

Journal Articles -- Available on Toolkit

Bresaw, Elaine G., "The Salem Witch from Barbados: In Search of Tituba's Roots," Essex Institute Historical Collections 128, No. 4 1992. Reserve - Toolkit.

--------, "Tituba's Confession: The Multicultural Dimnesions of the 1692 Salem Witch-Hunt," Ethnohistory 44:3 (1997). Reserve - Toolkit.

Brown, David, C., "The Case of Giles Cory," Essex Institute Historical Collections, 121:4 (1985). Reserve - Toolkit.

Dinkin, Robert, "Seating the Meetinghouse in Early Massachusetts," in Robert Blair St. George, Material Life in America 1600-1860. Reserve - Tookkit

Green, David, L., "Salem Witches I: Bridget Bishop," The American Genealogist, 57: 3 (1981). Reserve - Toolkit.

Hansen, Chadwick, "The metamorphosis of Tituba, or Why American Intellectuals Can't Tell an Indian Witch from a Negro," The New England Quarterly (March,1974) Reserve - Toolkit.

Harley, David M., "Explaining Salem: Calvinist Psychology and the Diagnosis of Possession," The American Historical Review 110: 2 (April, 1996). Reserve - Toolkit.

Hoffer, Peter, "The Judges, the Ministers, and the Law," Ch. 6, The Salem Witchcraft Trials. Reserve - Toolkit.

Le Beau, Bryan, "Philip English and the Witchcraft Hysteria," Historical Journal of Massachusetts 15:1 (January 1987). Reserve - Toolkit.

Lovejoy, David, S., "Between Hell and Plum Island: Samuel Sewall and the Legacy of the Witches, 1692-97. The New England Quarterly 70:3 (1997). Reserve - Toolkit.

McCarl, Mary Rhinelander, "Spreading the News of Satan's Malignity in Salem: Benjamin Harris, Printer and Publisher of the Witchcraft Narratives." Essex Institute Historical Collections 129, No. 1 1993. Reserve - Toolkit

Peterson, Mark A., "'Ordinary' Preaching and the Interpretation of the Salem Witchcraft Crisis by the Boston Clergy," Essex Institute Historical Collections 129, No. 1 1993. Reserve - Toolkit

Reis, Elizabeth, Spellbound, Women & Witchcraft in America, "Introduction." Reserve - Toolkit.

Roach, Marilynne K, "That child Betty Parris": Elizabeth (Parris) Barron and the People in Her Life," Essex Institute Historical Collections, 124 (1988). Reserve - Toolkit.

Robbins, Stephen L, "Samuel Willard and the Spectres of God's Wrathful Lion," The New England Quarterly, 60 (Mar/Dec. 1987). Reserve - Toolkit

Rosenthal, Bernard, "Tituba's Story," The New England Quarterly," 71:2 (June, 1998). Reserve - Toolkit

Spanos, Nicholas P. and Jack Gottlieb, "Ergotism and the Salem Village Witch Trials," Science, 194 (24 December 1976). Reserve - Toolkit

Swam, Marshall W. S., "The Bedevilment of Cape Ann," Essex Institute Historical Collections, 117:3 (July, 1981). Reserve - Toolkit.

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