Professor spellbound by witchery

Years of writing and research on early American witchcraft paid off for a new UW-River Falls faculty member, leading to a book contract and new history course at UWRF.

Assistant history professor Roark Atkinson’s project began when he heard about a very unusual book of magic spells from South Carolina from the 1780s. This book was filled with counter-magic, which was used to harm witches, Atkinson said.

It’s rare to find this type of subject matter 100 years after the infamous Salem Witch Trials, he said, and it led him to search for other sources.

“There were dozens of incidents where people were hunting witches in the late 18th century, early 19th century, which is much later than people thought witchcraft was happening,” Atkinson said.

This spring, Atkinson will teach a course called, “Witches, Demons and Popular Religion in the Atlantic World 1450-1900.” It marks the first time a course on witchcraft has been offered at UWRF.

The course explores early American witchcraft and witch hunting beginning in the 17th century — resulting in witch hunts that killed thousands of colonials, Atkinson said.

The assistant professor was first contacted in August about his book “Invisible Plantations: Religious Violence, Occult Healing, and Witchcraft in the Scottish Atlantic World, 1590-1820,” published by The Johns Hopkins University Press in Maryland.

Atkinson’s book took 10 years to complete, including six years of research and four years of writing.

“We welcome this book as an example of the very best research that involves trans-Atlantic issues in early American history,” Johns Hopkins University Press Senior Acquisitions Editor Robert Brugger said.

The book is set to be part of the “Early America: History, Context, Culture” series.

The project started out as Atkinson’s dissertation while he was a graduate student at Indiana University more than a decade ago. He finished writing it in July 2005 and began teaching at UWRF that fall.

“There is a distinction here that a young emerging scholar has a book contract within a year [of completion] with such a prestigious press,” said Betty Bergland, professor and chair of UWRF history and philosophy.

Thanks to some good advice, Atkinson began the project with a larger scope in mind.

“Some of the professors I worked with in graduate school told me, ‘Don’t think of the dissertation as a dissertation; think of it as the rough draft of a book,’” Atkinson said. “This thinking helped a lot.”

Much of Atkinson’s dissertation looks at history from an interdisciplinary perspective, which has become a focus for many scholars, Bergland said.

“It foregrounds the scholarly work we [UWRF faculty] all do,” she said. “It calls attention to the very new important type of thinking he’s engaged with.”

An initial contract was approved Oct. 12 after the book was sent through The Johns Hopkins University Press editorial board.

Atkinson’s revised manuscript is scheduled for completion in August 2008.

The technical name for Atkinson’s project is a monograph.

“It’s like a thinner slice of history than you get from a textbook,” he said.

Atkinson has had articles published in journals past, but never anything of this magnitude.

“It’s what I live to do,” he said. “To contribute as a teacher and produce scholarship [published research] to my field.”

It is possible that Atkinson’s book could be used at other universities, or as a part of a broader history text.

“I really, really hope so,” he said. “That depends on what interest there is in the project.”

Still, not many of Atkinson’s students are aware of his book deal.

“I haven’t made any announcement,” he said. “The subject comes up when I’m talking with them about writing history.”

Atkinson has remained humble through the entire process.

“I’m not doing it for my benefit,” he said. “I’m doing it for the love I have for history.”