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BA(Hons) (Memorial), MA (USask), PhD (Exeter)
Initially from the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, Dr. Samuel Gillis Hogan completed his PhD in history at the University of Exeter, England, where he wrote his dissertation on late medieval and early modern fairy summoning rituals and occult philosophy under the supervision of Professors Catherine Rider and Jonathan Barry. The central contention of his PhD findings was that in renaissance and early modern ritual magic and occult philosophy conceptualizations of fairies shifted from being the otherworldly entities of medieval romance to being redefined as spirits intrinsically connected to and ubiquitously filling this world. He argues that this can best be understood as the emergence of a learned Christian animism. He is currently adapting his PhD into a monograph and a reference book with the goal of publication. He intends his next project to further expand upon his animism argument and explore the intersections between environmental history and the history of magic.
Dr. Gillis Hogan is an intellectual and cultural historian broadly interested in the history of magic, especially in the premodern world. He primarily studies magic that was understood to be real by those who practised it (opposed to stage tricks or witchcraft where those accused of magic rarely practised it). He focuses on the extant practical manuals of magic and the manuscript context in which they circulated.
