An Interview with Charles Zika

Abstract

Charles Zika is a Professorial Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, and a Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, at the University of Melbourne. His research interests lie in the intersection of religion, magic, visual culture and emotion in German-speaking Europe between the 15th and 18th centuries, and at present focus on sacred place and pilgrimage, natural disasters and witchcraft. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and has held visiting fellowships at the Lichtenberg Kolleg, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Göttingen, the Centre for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, and Centre for Early Modern European Culture, Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbuettel. He is an editor of the Brepols series, Late Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and sits on various advisory and editorial boards, such as for Cromohs and Emotions: History, Culture, Society. His main publications include: Johannes Reuchlin und die okkulte Tradition der Renaissance (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke, 1998); Exorcising our Demons: Magic, Witchcraft and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003); The Appearance of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Europe (London: Routledge, 2007). He has also co-edited three catalogues for art exhibitions in which he has been involved. He has recently edited (with Jennifer Spinks) Disaster, Death and the Emotions in the Shadow of the Apocalypse, 1400-1700 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).