Researcher biography
Debra Parish completed her PhD in History with The School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry and the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities at UQ. Her research area is the early modern period with a focus on seventeenth-century English women’s religiosity, prophecy, and witchcraft. She is interested in early modern witchcraft and demonology, especially in the politico-religious contexts of the European Reformation and the English Civil War period. Debra has presented several conference papers on these topics, including at the University of London, Oxford University, and the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall, UK. She is currently researching early seventeenth-century English conduct books for women and their role in political and religious debate. Debra's new book titled 'Prophets and Witches', explores the dynamics of these categories in the context of the religious politics of revolutionary England, and is due for release in August 2025.
Debra’s PhD title is: Anna Trapnel: Prophet or Witch? Witchcraft, Power and Identity in Revolutionary England.
Her publications include:
Prophets and Witches: Witchcraft, Gender and Politics in Revolutionary England. Routledge Studies in the History of Witchcraft, Demonology and Magic (Taylor and Francis, August 2025). In production.
‘Anna Trapnel: Prophet or Witch?’ In Women on the Edge in Early Modern Europe, edited by Lisa Hopkins and Aidan Norrie, 113–36. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019.
"Without Al Womanly Modesty": Civility, Gender and Women's Preaching.' The Seventeenth Century 39, issue 6 (Dec. 2024)
‘The Power of Female Pietism: Women as Spiritual Authorities and Religious Role Models in Seventeenth-Century England.’ The Journal of Religious History 17 (1992): 33–46.