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Dr Sarah Ferber

BA Hons (History), PhD (History), University of Melbourne

Email: sferber@uow.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 4221 3704
Location: 19:2041

Dr Sarah Ferber is Head of Postgraduate Studies for the Faculty of Arts at UoW. She obtained a PhD in history from the University of Melbourne (1994) and taught at the University of Queensland from 1995 to 2009, where she also had administrative roles in postgraduate studies.

Her research is in two fields of cultural history: early modern European religion and contemporary bioethics, and she is available to undertake Honours and HDR supervision in both these areas.

Students seeking advice on Higher Degrees by Research at UoW are welcome to contact Sarah either in person, by phone or via email, as per above contact details.

Teaching and Honours/HDR supervision areas

• Modern medical and bioethics history
• European religious and cultural history

Recent Awards and Fellowships

• 2009 All Souls College, Oxford University, Visiting Fellowship
• 2008 UQ Promoting Women Fellowship ($13 700)
• 2005 Visiting Scholar, Hastings Center, New York
• 2003 UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award ($65 000)

Memberships

• 2005- American Historical Association
• 2004- Network for Early European Research (Australian Research Council-funded major research network)
• 2001- Religious History Society of Australia
• 1994- Australian Historical Association
• 1994- International Federation of University Women
• 1989- Australian and New Zealand Association of Medieval and Early Modern Scholars (ANZAMEMS; formerly AHMEME)

Competitive Research Funding

• 2006–2007 Medicine and culture: bioethics in historical perspective (Individual Discovery Grant) Australian Research Council Discovery $82,000
• 2004–2009 Member, Network for Early European Research (with Dr P. Sharpe and others) Australian Research Council $1,600,000 (as one of c. 50)
• 2000 Research Infrastructure Grant, individual application for purchase of medical history microfilm collection University of Queensland/ DEST $154,000

Publications

Books

• 2004 Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France, London: Routledge.
• 1995 Enhancing the First-year Experience. With C. McInnis et al. Melbourne: University of Melbourne, Centre for the Study of Higher Education.
• 1994 Beasts of Suburbia: Reinterpreting Cultures in Australian Suburbs. Editor, with Chris Healy and Chris McAuliffe. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Contracted

• Bioethics in Historical Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan. MS under revision, for 2010 release.
  Witchcraft and Demonology in Early Modern Europe and the Atlantic World; contracted to Cambridge University Press.
• The Body Divided: Anatomy and the History of Human Remains. Editor and contributor, with Helen MacDonald; contracted to Ashgate, for 2010 release.

Refereed Articles and Book Chapters

• 2009 ‘Possession and the Sexes.’ Alison Rowlands (ed.), Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2009.
• 2008 ‘Ecstasy, Possession, Witchcraft’ (2004), in Darren Oldridge, ed., The Witchcraft Reader, 2nd edition, London: Routledge, 2008, pp. 230-239, (excerpt from Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France.)
• 2008 ‘The Abuse of History? Identity Politics, Disordered Identity and the “Really Real” in French Cases of Demonic Possession’, Stephanie Tarbin and Susan Broomhall (eds), Women, Identities and Communities in Early Modern Europe, Aldershot: Ashgate. pp. 29–41.
• 2007 ‘As Sure As Eggs? Responses to an ethical question posed by Abramov, Elchalal and Schenker’, Journal of Clinical Ethics, 18:1. pp. 35–48.
• 2007 ‘Some Reflections on IVF, Emotions, and Patient Autonomy’, Journal of Clinical Ethics, 18:1. pp. 53–55.
• 2005 ‘Cultivating Charisma: Elisabeth de Ranfaing and the Médailliste cult in seventeenth-century Lorraine’, F.W. Kent and Charles Zika (eds), Rituals, Images and Words: Varieties of Cultural Expression in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Turnhout: Brepols. pp. 55–84.
• 2005 ‘Delivering Demons, Punishing Wives: False imprisonment, exorcism and other matrimonial duties in a late 20th-century manslaughter case.’ With Adrian Howe, Punishment & Society, 7:2, April. pp. 123–46.
• 2005 ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Devil: Exorcism, expertise and secularisation in a late twentieth-century Australian criminal court.’ With Adrian Howe. Hans de Waardt, Juergen Schmidt, and Dieter Bauer (eds), Dämonische Besessenheit Zur Interpretation eines kulturhistorischen, Phänomens, Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte. pp. 281–92.
• 2004 ‘Miracle in Iowa: Metaphor, analogy and anachronism in the history of bioethics.’ Monash Bioethics Review, 23:3. pp. 6–15.
• 2003 ‘Possession Sanctified: The case of Marie des Vallées.’ Jürgen Beyer, Albrecht Burkardt, Fred van Lieburg and Marc Wingens (eds), Confessional Sanctity (c. 1500 – c. 1800), Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte Mainz, Abteilung abendländische Religionsgeschichte, Herausgegeben von Gerhard May, Beiheft 51, Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern. pp. 259–70. 
• 2002 ‘Reformed or Recycled? Possession and exorcism in the sacramental life of early modern France.’ Kathryn Edwards (ed.), Witches, Werewolves and Wandering Spirits: Traditional Belief & Folklore in Early Modern Europe, Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies, vol. 62, Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press. pp. 55–75.
• 1997 ‘Charcot’s Demons: Retrospective medicine and historical diagnosis in the writings of the Salpêtrière school’, in Marijke Gijswit-Hofstra, Hilary Marland, Hans de Waardt (eds), Illness and Healing Alternatives in Western Europe, Routledge Social History of Medicine, London: Routledge. pp. 120–40.
• 1993 ‘Le Sabbath et son double.’ Nicole Jacques-Chaquin and Maxime Préaud (eds), Le Sabbat des Sorciers en Europe, XVe XVIIIe siècle, Grenoble: Jerôme Millon. pp. 101–09.
• 1991 ‘The Demonic Possession of Marthe Brossier, France, 1598–1600.’ Charles Zika (ed.), No Gods Except Me: Orthodoxy and Religious Practice in Europe, 1200–1600, Melbourne University History Monographs 14. pp. 59–83.
• 1985 ‘Finding the Witch Within: Two confessions of demonic crime.’ Melbourne Historical Journal. pp. 2–8.

Refereed Encyclopedia Entries

• 2006 ‘Bérulle, Pierre de.’ Richard M. Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The European tradition, New York: Garland Publishing, vol. 1. pp. 113–15.
• ‘Body of the Witch.’ Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol. 1. pp. 131–33.
• ‘Cambrai nuns, 1491.’ Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol. 1. pp. 159–160.
• ‘Coton, Pierre.’ Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol 1. pp. 219–20.
• ‘Discernment of Spirits.’ Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol. 1. 282–83.
• ‘Duval, André.’ Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol. 1. 300–02.
• ‘Exorcism.’ Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol. 2. pp. 338–40.
• ‘Féry, Jeanne.’ Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol. 2. pp. 367–68.
• ‘Lille nuns.’ Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol. 3. pp. 652–53.
• ‘Louviers nuns.’ Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol. 3. pp. 672–73.
• ‘Possession, Demonic.’ Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol. 3. pp. 920–25.
• ‘Ranfaing, Elisabeth de.’ Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol. 4. pp. 950–51.
• ‘Vallées, Marie des.’ Golden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol. 4. pp. 1156–57.

Selected Other

• 2005 ‘Bioethics: The historical questions remain valid.’ The Brisbane Line, Brisbane Institute, http:// www.brisinst.org.au/resources/brisbane_institute_bioethics.html, 27 October.
• 2006 Lyndal Roper, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany, Gender & History 18:2. pp. 436–38.
• 2005 Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels, Selling Sickness: How drug companies are turning us all into patients, The Courier-Mail, 17 December
• 2005 Jill Singer, Immaculate Conceptions: Thoughts on babies, breeding and boundaries, The Courier-Mail, 10 December.

External Refereeing

Brepols Publishing House.
Oxford University Press
Archive for Reformation History
ARC Discovery Grant and Small Grant applications
Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies
Australian Feminist Law Review
Encyclopaedia of Witchcraft
Health and History
Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies
Limina Interdisciplinary Studies Journal
Melbourne Historical Journal
Parergon
Hecate

Selected Recent Conference organisation and Community Engagement

• 2009 Convener, Cultural Forms and Ideology in Early Modern Europe, upcoming 2009 conference.
• 2008 Invited submission, Queensland Government enquiry into surrogacy.
• 2008 Co-ordinator, Australian Historical Association keynote session.
• 2007 Convenor, ‘Human beings: human “materials”,’ Symposium, UQ.
• 2007 NEER conference, Perth, Panel convenor, ‘Gender and Witchcraft’.
• 2006 ARC funded Network for Early European Research cluster ‘Supernatural powers and social relations’, joint co-ordinator.
• 2006 Australian and New Zealand Association of Medieval and Early Modern
  Scholars (ANZAMEMS, 2007): convenor for panels ‘Early Modern Ghosts’;
  ‘Miracles’.