Abigail Hill
Abigail Hill
Ph.D. Candidate
Contact
Email: hillej@bc.edu
Education
- M.A. University of Chicago, Social Sciences with a concentration in history, 2020
- B.A. Converse College (now Converse University), History and English, 2019
Courses
Atlantic Worlds I
Latin America in the World II
Research Interests
- Early Modern Europe
- Print Culture and Book History
- Witchcraft and Supernatural Belief
- Social and Cultural History
Advisor
Department
Biography
Abigail Hill is a PhD candidate and researches how communities evaluated and communicated supernatural events and magical belief in the early modern period, especially in the broader British Atlantic world. She is particularly interested in the ways in which print circulation affected how individual communities and those shaping printed narratives interacted with broader debates about supernatural or magical occurrences.
Abigail graduated summa cum laude with a BA in History and English from Converse College in 2019 and received an MA in the Social Sciences with a concentration in history from the University of Chicago in 2020. Her prior research focused on the British Atlantic world of witchcraft belief and the tension between institutional beliefs about witchcraft and individual authors’ and printers’ reflections of their own communities’ beliefs and perceived modes of truth within printed texts in England, New England, and Scotland.
Conference Presentations
“Belief in and Credibility of Witchcraft Narratives in the Broader British Atlantic,” Enemies in the Early Modern World Conference, University of Edinburgh (virtually), March 2021
“A Tale of Two Essexes: Witchcraft and Gender in Old and New England,” Phi Alpha Theta Georgia Regional Conference, Carrollton, GA, March 2019
“From Prince Pleasers to Concrete Advice: The Role of Sir John Fortescue,” the Southeastern Medieval Association Regional Conference, Charleston, SC, November 2017