W&L History Professor Receives Fellowship at the Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities Mikki Brock will perform research leading to a new book at the Wellesley College-based academic center this year.

By Brian Laubscher
August 30, 2024

Mikki Brock, professor of history at Washington and Lee University, has received a fellowship to Wellesley College’s Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities for the 2024-2025 academic year.

The fellowship provides a stipend of up to $60,000, private office space, some clerical support, technical and computing resources and the collegiality offered through the center and the Wellesley community at large.

Brock, who is on sabbatical in 2024-2025, is one of seven fellows selected to participate this academic year. Four external faculty members were chosen, along with three members of the Wellesley College faculty. Brock is already onsite at Wellesley and will perform her research through May 2025. While there, Brock will be working on her next book project, tentatively titled “An Unnatural Woman: Crime, Gender and Spectacle in 18th-century Scotland.”

“I could not be more thrilled to have the opportunity to pursue this project while part of the vibrant community of scholars at Wellesley’s Newhouse Center,” said Brock. “It is also exciting to be in the Boston area for the year — I teach classes on Puritans and Salem, and my new project has a witchcraft component. I am deeply grateful to Dean Chawne Kimber, Provost Lena Hill and the history department for encouraging and supporting my sabbatical work.”

Brock’s project tells the story of Margaret Dickson, a Scottish woman who was found guilty in 1724 for the crimes of infanticide and concealment of pregnancy after her newborn’s body — conceived out of wedlock and almost certainly stillborn — was discovered on the banks of a river.

“The state produced little evidence that harm had been done to the infant, but the charges against her had been brought in a moment of intense preoccupation with the crime of infanticide; she had lost her child in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Brock. “Her case soon became infamous because it had a surprising ending: Margaret survived her hanging, and because of Scots law, she could not be hanged again. Dickson went on to live a long life in Edinburgh, becoming the subject of both local lore and an intense national debate about sin and culpability.”

Using court records and printed news sources, “An Unnatural Woman” investigates how changing ideologies and media cultures on the eve of the Enlightenment produced a moral panic about female bodies and choices.

“This 18th-century story of one woman’s tragedy turned public spectacle speaks directly to the criminalization of reproductive decisions in our current moment,” Brock added.

A scholar of early modern Scotland, as well as demonology, witchcraft and the British reformations, Brock is the author of the book “Satan and the Scots: The Devil in Post-Reformation Scotland, c. 1560-1700.” She is also the co-editor of “Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period” and the forthcoming book “The Routledge History of the Devil in the Western Tradition.” Additionally, she is co-director of “Mapping the Scottish Reformation,” a digital prosopography of the Scottish clergy between 1560 and 1689. Her second monograph, “Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a 17th-century Scottish Town,” will be published this fall.

Brock, who also serves as a core faculty member in the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program and as an affiliate faculty member in the Women and Gender Studies Program, has taught at W&L since 2014. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in humanities and western civilization from the University of Kansas, as well as a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas at Austin.

The Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities was founded in 2004 and supports the work of humanities faculty and students in fellowships, symposia, projects, special classes, public humanities projects, events and collaborations. The center is an inclusive place for faculty, staff, students and visiting fellows to gather in community for lively discussion, research and learning about the topics that matter most to all. The Newhouse Center is committed to supporting visionary work in the humanities that centers on interdisciplinarity work, collaboration, creativity, joy and wonder.

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