Dr Heather Wolffram
Position
Lecturer in Modern European History
Qualifications
PhD. (University of Queensland)
Room
Room 306, level 3, History Building
Contact Details
Phone: +64 (03) 364 2279
Internal Phone: 6279
Postal address
History Department
School of Humanities
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch 8140
New Zealand
Background
Heather is a historian of modern Germany with interests in the histories of medicine, science and crime. She has been a postdoctoral fellow at both the National University of Singapore and the Centre for the History of European Discourses at the University of Queensland, Australia.
Undergraduate Courses
HIST136 Revolutions and Revolutionaries
HIST137 Modern World History
HIST281 Resistance and Collaboration in Nazi Europe
HIST293 Special Topic: Europe of the Dictators, 1918-1953
HIST395 Special Topic: Crime, Criminology and Policing in Modern Europe since 1750
Graduate Courses
HIST449 Issues in Modern European History
Hist450 History as a Discipline
Research Interests
Interests
The histories of spiritualism, occultism and psychical research/parapsychology; the histories of psychology and psychiatry; the history of forensic psychology.
Research
Much of my doctoral and postdoctoral work has been concerned with the history of psychical research and parapsychology in Germany. I have published several papers on aspects of this history and my book The Stepchildren of Science: Psychical Research and Parapsychology in Germany, c. 1870-1939 was released in 2009 as part of Clio Medica: The Wellcome Series in the History of Medicine – Rodopi.
1) "Crimes of Suggestion: Hypnosis, Psychology and the Law in Imperial Germany", which considers a number of late nineteenth and early twentieth century criminal trials, such as the Berchtold, Sauter and Czynski trials, that involved hypnosis, suggestion or false memory. The aim here is to consider the social, medical and legal meaning of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century discourse on hypnosis and crime in the German context.
2) "The Emergence and Development of Forensic Psychology in Imperial and Inter-War Germany". This project aims to explore the neglected interdisciplinary history of forensic psychology in Germany, looking in particular at the boundary contests between psychiatrists, jurists and psychologists over the application of psychological knowledge in the courtroom.
Heather is able to supervise research in:
(1) Modern German history
(2) History of medicine in modern Europe
(3) History of crime and criminology in modern Europe
Recent Publications
BookThe Stepchildren of Science: Psychical Research and Parapsychology in Germany, c. 1870-1939.Clio Medica: The Wellcome Series in the History of Medicine. (Rodopi: Amsterdam, 2009).
Articles
“An Object of Vulgar Curiosity: Legitimizing Medical Hypnosis in Imperial Germany”, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Advanced copy published on-line 10 November 2010.
“The Nazi Occult and The Castle in the Forest: Raw Material, Historiographical Trends, and Fictional Transformations”, in John Whalen-Bridge (ed.) Norman Mailer’s Mature Fiction (Bassingstoke & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
“In the Laboratory of the Ghost Baron: Parapsychology in Germany in the Early Twentieth Century”, Endeavour, vol. xxx, x (2009), 152-157.
“Crime, Clairvoyance and the Weimar Police”, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 44, 4 (October 2009), 581-601.