Meet the Authors Series: Timothy Walker

Tuesday, October 14, 12:00 - 1:30 pm
Board of Trustees Room, Foster Administration Building

About the Book

Inquisition trials for sorcery and witchcraft in Portugal reached a late crescindo (1715 to 1755). This study of those events focuses on the Inquisition's role in prosecuting and discrediting popular healers (called saludadores or curandeiros), who were charged with practicing magical crimes. Significantly, these trials coincide with the entrance of university-trained physicians and surgeons into the paid ranks of the Portuguese Inquisition in unprecedented numbers. State-licensed medical practitioners, motivated by professional competition combined with a desire to promote rationalized "scientific" medicine, used their positions within the Holy Office to initiate trials against purveyors of superstitious folk remedies. The repression of folk healing reveals a conflict between learned medical culture and popular healing culture in Enlightenment-era Portugal. In this rare instance, the Inquisition functioned as an instrument of progressive social change.

From the back cover.

About the Author

Timothy Walker (B.A., Hiram College, 1986; M.A., Ph.D., Boston University, 2001) is assistant professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and a visiting professor at the Universidade Aberta in Lisbon, Portugal. He is also a member of the graduate faculty of the U. Mass. Dartmouth Department of Portuguese Studies and an affiliated faculty member of the U. Mass. Dartmouth Center of Indian Studies. Teaching fields include Early Modern Europe, the Atlantic World, the Portuguese and their empire, maritime history and European global colonial expansion.