Goldsmiths - University of London

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Dr Ariel Hessayon

Position held:
Senior Lecturer (on research leave until 2013)

Phone:
+44 (0)20 7919 7492

Email:
a.hessayon (@gold.ac.uk)

Academic qualifications

BA History, Trinity College, Oxford University, 1990
PhD History, Selwyn College, Cambridge University, 1996

Teaching

First year
HT51023A Ideas and Identities

Second and third year
HT52079A Heresy, the Occult and the Millenium
HT52089A London's History through Literature

MA
HT71120A The Ideas That Shaped Early Modern Europe

Research interests

My research interests include early modern ideas, religion, politics, literature and popular culture. I am a co-convenor of the seminar on seventeenth-century British History at the Institute of Historical Research and would welcome enquiries from those interested in doctoral research in areas relating to radicalism in early modern England.

Research Projects

(with Sarah Apetrei), ‘All in All’: the prophetic thought and legacies of Jacob Boehme and Jane Lead

Funded by The Panacea Society

Doctoral Research Students

Paul Calderwood, ‘Freemasonry and the Press in Twentieth-century Britain’

John Rees, ‘The political organisation of the Leveller movement during the English Revolution’

Philip Smith, ‘The Seekers found: radical religion during the English  Revolution’

Fellowships

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (2009-)
University of London Research Fellowship at School of Advanced Study, 2008
Leverhulme Special Research Fellowship at Royal Holloway, University of London, 1998–2000
New Hall, Cambridge University, Research Fellowship, 1995–1998

Editorial work

Member of the editorial board, Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 2007–
Member of the editorial board, Esoterica, 2007-

Selected publications

Books

  • 'Gold Tried in the Fire'.  The prophet TheaurauJohn Tany and the English Revolution (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007)

Edited collections

      Book cover - Gold Tried in the Fire        Book cover - Radicalism in Context       Book cover - Scripture and Scholarship in Early Modern England

Articles in refereed journals

Articles in edited collections

  • ‘Abiezer Coppe and the Ranters’ in Laura Knoppers (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Literature and the English Revolution (Oxford: Oxford UP, forthcoming)
  • ‘“The Great trappaner of England”: Thomas Violet (1609?–1662), Jews and crypto-Jews during the English Revolution and at the Restoration’, in Michael Braddick and David Smiths (eds.), The Experience of Revolution in Stuart Britain and Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
  • ‘Introduction: reappraising early modern radicals and radicalism’, in Ariel Hessayon and David Finnegan (eds.), Varieties of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century English radicalism in context (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 1–29
  • ‘Gerrard Winstanley, radical reformer’, in Ariel Hessayon and David Finnegan (eds.), Varieties of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century English radicalism in context (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 87–112
  • 'Jacob Boehme, Emanuel Swedenborg and their readers', in Stephen McNeilly (ed.), The Arms of Morpheus: essays on Swedenborg and Mysticism(2007), pp. 17–56
  • ‘Fabricating radical traditions' in M. Caricchio and G. Tarantino (eds.),
    Cromohs virtual seminars: 1. Recent historiographical trends of the British Studies (17th–18th Centuries)    , 2006–2007: 1–6
  • 'Og king of Bashan, Enoch and the Books of Enoch: extra-canonical texts and interpretations of Genesis 6:1–4', in Ariel Hessayon and Nicholas Keene (eds.), Scripture and Scholarship in Early Modern England(Ashgate, 2006), pp. 5–40

Public lectures

Encyclopedia entries

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486-1535?), in J. Gordon Melton (ed.), Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices (2nd edition, forthcoming)

'Laurence Clarkson' in Garrett Sullivan, Alan Stewart, Rebecca Lemon, Nicholas McDowell and Jennifer Richards (eds.), Blackwell Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature (forthcoming)

'Thomas Tany' in Garrett Sullivan, Alan Stewart, Rebecca Lemon, Nicholas McDowell and Jennifer Richards (eds.), Blackwell Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature (forthcoming)

Introductions

Introduction to Sir Keith Thomas, The perception of the past in early modern England, in David Bates, Jennifer Wallis and Jane Winters (eds.), The Creighton Century, 1907-2007 (London: Institute of Historical Research, 2009), pp. 187-90

Biographical Entries

19 entries in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004)
[‘Adams, Mary (supp. fl. 1652)’; ‘Attaway, Mrs (fl. 1645-1646)’; ‘Blunden, Humphrey (b. 1609, d. in or after 1654)’; ‘Brice, Edmund (fl. 1648-1696)’; ‘Bromley, Thomas (bap. 1630, d. 1691)’; ‘Bull, John (d. 1642)’; ‘Burton, Simon (bap. 1613, d. 1663)’; ‘Calvert, Giles (bap. 1612, d. 1663)’; ‘Coppe, Abiezer (1619-1672?)’; ‘Crab, Roger (c.1616-1680)’; ‘Currer, William (c.1617-1668)’; ‘Everard, William (bap. 1602?, d. in or after 1651)’; ‘Franklin , William (b. c.1610)’; ‘Jhones, Basset (b. 1613/14)’; ‘Norwood, Robert (c.1610-1654)’; ‘Pordage, John (bap. 1607, d. 1681)’; ‘Robins, John (fl. 1641-1652)’; ‘Totney, Thomas (bap. 1608, d. 1659?)’; ‘Wyke, Andrew (fl. 1645-1663)’]

Forthcoming books

  • 'Teutonic Philosophy’.  Jacob Boehme (1575–1624) and the reception of his writings in the English speaking world to c.1850
  • ‘Beastly fury and extreme violence’: a cultural history of football in the British Isles, c.1000–c.1850 (Hambledon Continuum)

Book reviews

  • John Brooke and Ian Maclean (eds.), Heterodoxy in Early Modern Science and
    Religion     (Oxford UP, 2005), in History, 93 (2008), pp. 124–26
  • Glenn Burgess and Matthew Festenstein (eds.), English Radicalism 1550–1850 (Cambridge UP, 2007), in Sixteenth Century Journal, 40 (2009), pp. 873-74
  • David Como, Blown by the Spirit. Puritanism and the Emergence of an Antinomian Underground in Pre-Civil-War England (Stanford UP, 2004), in History , 92 (2007), pp. 118–19
  • Thomas Corns, Ann Hughes and David Loewenstein (eds.), The Complete Works of Gerrard Winstanley (2 vols., Oxford UP, 2009), in Reviews in History, no. 1043
  • Christopher Durston and Judith Maltby (eds.), Religion in Revolutionary England
    (Manchester UP, 2007), in H-Albion, www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=22815
  • Eliane Glaser, Judaism without Jews: Philosemitism and Christian Polemic in Early Modern England (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), in Reviews in History, no. 798
  • John Gurney, Brave community. The Digger movement in the English Revolution (Manchester UP, 2007), in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 59 (2008), pp. 778–79
  • Ann Hughes, Gangraena and the Struggle for the English Revolution (Oxford, 2004), in Reviews in History, no.478, www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/hessayon.html
  • Peter Lake and Steven Pincus (eds.), The politics of the public sphere in early modern England (Manchester UP, 2007), in Archives, 34, no. 121 (October, 2009), pp 72-73
  • David Norton, A Textual History of the King James Bible (Cambridge, 2005) and
  • David Norton (ed.), The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with the Apocrypha: King James Version (Cambridge, 2005), in The Sixteenth Century Journal , 37 (2006), pp. 1109–11
  • Kate Peters, Print Culture and the Early Quakers (Cambridge UP, 2005), in Reviews in History, no. 625
  • Martin Porter, Windows of the Soul: The Art of Physiognomy in European Culture 1470–1780 (Oxford UP, 2005), in Sixteenth Century Journal, 39 (2008), pp. 571-72
  • Robert Rix, William Blake and the Cultures of Radical Christianity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), in English Historical Review, 124 (2009), pp. 195-96
  • Jane Shaw, Miracles in Enlightenment England (Yale UP, 2006), in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 59 (2008), pp. 355–57
  • Robert Titler, The face of the city. Civic portraiture and civic identity in early modern England (Manchester UP, 2007), in History, 94 (2009), pp. 236-37
  • François Soyer, The Persecution of the Jews and Muslims of Portugal. King Manuel I and the End of Religious Tolerance (1496–7) (Leiden and Boston: E.J. Brill, 2007), in Reviews in History, no. 797
  • Edward Vallance, A Radical History of Britain. Visionaries, Rebels and Revolutionaries – The Men and Women who Fought for Our Freedoms (London:Little, Brown, 2009), in Reviews in History, no. 888
  • Arthur H. Williamson, Apocalypse Then: Prophecy and the Making of the Modern World (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008), in English Historical Review, 125 (2010), pp 1250-52
  • Michael Winship, Making Heretics: Militant Protestantism and Free Grace in Massachusetts, 1636-1641 (Princeton UP, 2002), in Church History , 75 (2006), pp. 206–08

Conferences organized

Selected recent conference and seminar papers

  • ‘Jacob Boehme’s writings during the English Revolution and afterwards: their publication, dissemination and influence’ [1. Conference entitled: ‘“Teutonic Philosophy”: Jacob Boehme (1575–1624) in context, his life and the reception of his writings’, held at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford (16 September 2010)]
  • ‘Stereotypical representations of Jewishness in early modern Western Europe’ [1. Conference: British Association for Jewish Studies, annual conference, held at the University of Southampton (5 September 2010)]
  • 'Ridiculing Jews in early modern England' [1. Conference entitled: 'Controversy, protest, ridicule, and laughter in the early modern period', held at the University of Reading (10 July 2010)]
  • 'Medieval and early modern attitudes towards Jews: the roots of modern anti-Semitism?' [1. Conference entitled: 'Interpretazioni della vita Etica, Bioetica e Diritto in dialogo con il <Nuovo Pensiero>', held at the University of Naples Federico II (8 June 2010)]
  • 'Gerrard Winstanley, one-time "General" Baptist?' [1. Conference entitled: 'Reassessing Gerrard Winstanley', held at Keele University (6 February 2010)]
  • 'Jewish experiences during the early English Enlightenment' [1. Conference: British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 39th Annual Conference, held at St. Hugh's College, Oxford University (7 January 2010)]
  • 'Radicalism and the English Revolution (1641–1660): rethinking its significance and interpretations'
    [1. Invited lecture at the American University in Bulgaria, Blagoevgrad (2 November 2009)]
  • 'The Theosophical Society, Illuminati and separatist Swedenborgian New Jerusalem Church late 18th century prophecy in contexts' [1. Conference entitled: 'The Bridegroom Cometh!': 'Prophets and Prophecy in the Long Eighteenth Century', held at Nottingham Trent University (24 June 2009)]
  • 'Early modern communism: The Diggers and community of goods’ [1. Conference entitled: ‘1649 and the execution of King Charles’, held at the Institute of Historical Research, London (7 February 2009)]
  • ‘Jews and secret Jews in sixteenth and seventeenth century England’ [1. ‘Jews and antisemitisms’, held at Goldsmiths, University of London (15 October 2008); 2. The Dean’s Seminar. School of Advanced Study, University of London (3 December 2008); 3. Seminar in 17th century British History, Institute of Historical Research, London (12 February 2009); 4. Seminar in Irish and British History, Trinity College Dublin (16 February 2009)]
  • ‘The Reception of Agrippa von Nettesheim’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy in early modern England’ [1. ‘Esotericism, Religion and Nature’, held at the College of Charleston, South Carolina (29 May –1 June 2008)]
  • ‘Restoring the Garden of Eden in England’s green and pleasant land: The Diggers and the fruits of the earth’ [1. Seminar in 17th century British History, Institute of Historical Research, London (24 January 2008); 2. Seminar in History, Goldsmiths, University of London (6 February 2008)]
  • ‘Blake and Radical traditions’ [1. ‘Blake in Contexts. William Blake (1757–1827): His Life and Times’, held at The Swedenborg Society, London (2 November 2007)]
  • ‘The tasks of the translators: social networks and the publication of continental European writings during the English Revolution, 1641–1660’ [1. ‘Social networks in early-modern England’, held at New College, Oxford University (17–19 September 2007); 2. ‘Political and scientific networks among towns in England, France and the Southern Low Countries, c.1580–1700’, held at Université Libre de Bruxelles (16–17 November 2007)]
  • ‘“The Great trappaner of England”: Thomas Violet (fl.1634–c.1662) and the Jews’ [1. ‘Antisemitism and English Culture’, held at Birkbeck College, University of London (9–11 July 2007)]
  • ‘From expulsion (1290) to readmission (1656): Jews and England’ [1. Annual conference of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain, London (29 October 2006); 2. Seminar in History, Goldsmiths, University of London (6 December 2006); 3. Guest lecture at the London Jewish Cultural Centre (8 March 2007)]
  • ‘Radicalism and the English Revolution: legacies, interpretations and new directions’ [1. Seminar in 17th century British History, Institute of Historical Research, London (5 October 2006); 2. ‘The First North American Conference on Radicalism’, held at Michigan State University (25–27 January 2007); 3. ‘17th century British History’, held at Newham Sixth Form College, London (27 February 2007)]
  • ‘“The refiner’s fire”: the prophet TheaurauJohn Tany (1608–1659) and the English Revolution’ [1. Special seminar at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa (7 November 2005); 2. Seminar in Early Modern History, Department of History, Leicester University (20 November 2006)]
  • ‘Jacob Boehme (1575–1624) and his influence on the “Ranters”’ [1. ‘Religious heterodoxy in 17th century England’, held at CRASSH, Cambridge University (25–26 July 2006)]
  • ‘Incendiary texts: radicalism and book burning in England, c.1640–c.1660’
    [1. “This Persecuted Means”: Radicalism and the Book, 1600–1870’, held at Princeton University (2–4 March 2006); 2. ‘Rediscovering radicalism in the British Isles and Ireland, c.1550–c.1700: movements of people, texts and ideas’, held at Goldsmiths, University of London (21–23 June 2006)]
  • ‘Og king of Bashan, Enoch and the Books of Enoch: extra-canonical texts and interpretations of Genesis 6:1-4’ [1. Seminar in Early Modern British History, Faculty of History, Cambridge University (October 2003); 2. Seminar in 17th century British History, Institute of Historical Research, London (November 2003)]
  • ‘“The Teutonicks writings”: translating Jacob Boehme into English
    and Welsh’ [1. ‘Mystischer Spiritualismus zwischen Paracelsus und dem Radikalpietismus: a conference on mysticism and spiritualism’, held at the University of Szeged, Hungary (8 April 2002)]
  • ‘“After-Clap”: Abiezer Coppe (1619–1672)’ [1. Seminar in 17th century British History, Institute of Historical Research, London (October 2001)]
  • ‘Anti-trinitarians in early modern England’ [1. ‘Britons abroad, strangers at home: a conference on seventeenth-century intellectual history’, held at Wolfson College, Cambridge University (12 January 2001)]