Cohen, Esther

Personal: Born 1947, Jerusalem; Ph.D. 1976, Brown Univ.; (Lect. Ben-Gurion Univ., 1976; Sen. Lect. 1982; Assoc. Prof. 1993); Assoc. Prof. (HU) 1995.

Research Interests:

History of medieval crime. History of medieval law. History of physical pain in the Middle Ages.

Abstracts of Current Research:

Physical manifestations of religious experience:

In the context of the late medieval concern with physicality, religious experience is often articulated in somatic terms and metaphors. This study seeks to point out topoi of somatic manifestations of religious experience, as opposed to individual experiences.

A history of attitudes towards physical pain in the later Middle Ages:

The project analyzes a wide range of attitudes and expressions: theology, law, art, literature, medicine, attempting to integrate them into a coherent picture.

Recent Publications:

Cohen, E. (1994) Economic activity and popular religiosity in the Middle Ages. In: Religion and Economy, ed. M. Ben-Sasson, Jerusalem, The Zalman Shazar Center, pp.123-137 (Hebrew).

Cohen, E. (1994) Animals in mediaeval perceptions: The image of the ubiquitous other. In: Animals and Human Society: Changing Perspectives, eds. A. Manning and J. Serpell, London, Routledge, pp.59-80.

Cohen, E. (1995) Towards a history of physical sensibility: Pain in the later Middle Ages. Science in Context, 8: 47-74.

Cohen, E. and Cohen, R. (1996) Popular culture and elite culture: An illusory contrast. In: Studies in the History of Popular Culture, ed. B.Z. Kedar, Jerusalem, The Zalman Shazar Center, pp.13-30 (Hebrew).

Cohen, E. (1996) The Hundred Years' War and crime in Paris, 1332-1488. In: The Civilization of Crime: Violence in Town and Country Since the Middle Ages, eds. E.A. Johnson and E.H. Monkkonen, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, pp.109-124.

Cohen, E. (1996) Peaceable Domain, Certain Justice: Crime and Society in Fifteenth Century Paris. Verloren, Hilversum, 113 pp.