Joel F. Harrington
Associate Professor of History
Assistant Provost for International Affairs
Member, Graduate Department of Religion.

PhD, Michigan, 1989

History of early modern Germany; history of marriage, children, family;
Reformation; history of Christianity. Telephone: 615-322-3334

Email: joel.f.harrington@vanderbilt.edu
Office Hours: None during the summer, email for an appointment.
Office: Alumni Hall 201

Joel Harrington is a historian of Europe, specializing in the Reformation and early modern Germany, with research interests in various aspects of social history, particularly marriage, children, and the family.  His most recent book, A Burden Shared: The Circulation of  Unwanted Children in Early Modern Germany (forthcoming in 2008), approaches the problem of abandoned and street children in from the perspectives of six historical individuals in the city of Nuremberg: an unwed mother accused of infanticide, an absconding mercenary father, a dedicated patrician reformer, a street orphan turned thief, and a brother and sister pair of orphaned twins who grow up in the city's foundling home.  The book concludes that the great success of informal child circulation (in various guises) effectively minimized the impact of governmental involvement in Nuremberg and elsewhere in pre-modern Europe--contrary to most modern portrayals of the period.   His other scholarly publications include Reordering Marriage and Society in Reformation Germany (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995; paperback 2005), and A Cloud of Witnesses: Readings in the History of Western Christianity (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001).  Projects currently underway include a study of an early modern executioner's journal and a comparison of concepts and laws relating to infanticide and witchcraft. He has been awarded fellowships from--among others--the Fulbright-Hayes Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Herzog August Bibliothek, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the American Philosophical Society.

Professor Harrington has taught a variety of graduate and undergraduate courses at Vanderbilt since his arrival in 1989, including the history of Christian traditions, Reformation Europe, religion and the occult in early modern Europe, and early modern social history.  Since 2004 he has served as assistant provost for international affairs, a full-time administrative position, but will offer his History of Christian Traditions class in the spring of 2008.

Please link here to my home page.