Eric Nelson
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, History | Missouri State University
Springfield, MO, UNITED STATES
Dr. Nelson studies iconoclasm and early modern French history.
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Biography
Dr. Eric Nelson is Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies in the History Department at Missouri State University. His areas of expertise are in early modern French and world history.
Dr. Nelson's recent book publications include Ways of the World: A Brief Global History with Sources (3rd edition) and The Legacy of Iconoclasm: Religious War and the Relic Landscape of Tours, Blois and Vendôme 1550-1750.
Industry Expertise (2)
Education/Learning
Research
Areas of Expertise (5)
European History
Early Modern France
World History
Religious Violence and Peacemaking
Sacred Landscapes
Accomplishments (7)
Nacy Lyman Roelker Prize (professional)
2015 Named for Professor Roelker of Boston University; awarded by the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference
Master Online Course Recognition Award (professional)
2015, 2011 Missouri State University
STARS Successability Award (professional)
2014 Missouri State University
Top 23 Arts and Humanities Professors in Missouri (professional)
2013 Online Schools Missouri
Missouri Professor of the Year (professional)
2012 CASE/Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Foundation Award for Teaching (professional)
2011 Missouri State University
Governor's Award for Teaching Excellence (professional)
2011 Missouri State University
Education (2)
University of Oxford: Ph.D., History 1999
George Washington University: B.A., Early Modern European Studies 1992
Links (3)
Languages (1)
- English
Event Appearances (4)
Seeing the Forest and the Trees: Teaching World History in the Twenty-First Century
Fort Lauderdale High School (2016) Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Perspective, Inclusion ... and Wax Mangoes in World History
North Highland High School (2016) Chicago, Illinois
Remembering the Martyrdom of Saint Francis of Paola: History, Memory and Minim Identity in the Seventeenth Century
Institute for Advanced Historical Research (2013) London, England
Remembering Iconoclasm: Identity and Memory in Post Religious War France
'Networks and Identities in the Catholic Reformation Conference (2012) Galway, Ireland
Research Grants (7)
Grant
Sixteenth Century Studies Conference and Society $3,182.00
2015
Grant
Sixteenth Century Studies Conference and Society $3,090.00
2014
Grant
Sixteenth Century Studies Conference and Society $3,000.00
2013
Grant
Sixteenth Century Studies Conference and Society $2,319.00
2012
Grant
Missouri State University, Graduate College $7,300.00
2012
Grant
Sixteenth Century Studies Conference and Society $2,252.00
2011
Grant
Sixteenth Century Studies Conference and Society $2,125.00
2010
Minds-Eye (1)
History and memory: Making peace after religious conflict
History and memory, according to Dr. Nelson, are two very different ways of remembering the past. In the spring of 1562, France erupted into the first of many religious wars between Protestants and Catholics. While the history of these battles illuminates the divide between Protestants and Catholics, the memory of what happened has the ability to reconcile differences between the two sides.
Articles (5)
The Historiography of the Pre-Suppression Jesuit Mission in France
A History of Jesuit Historiography
2016 The Society of Jesus’s future French province was also its birthplace. While studying at the University of Paris, Ignatius of Loyola met the other six founding members of the Jesuits and this small group first bound themselves together through a vow taken on August 15, 1534 in the crypt of a church on Montmartre just outside the French capital.
Defining the Sacred in the Community: Iconoclasm, Renewal and Remembrance at the Basilica of Saint Martin in Tours
The Sacralization of Space and Behavior in the Early Modern World
2015 Over the course of 100 days in the spring and early summer of 1562, iconoclastic attacks permanently transformed the relic shrine of Saint Martin, one of the most prominent in France.
Remembering the Martyrdom of Saint Francis of Paola: History, Memory and Minim Identity in Seventeenth-Century Franc
History and Memory
2014 On April 7, 1562, Protestant forces sacked the Minim monastery on the grounds of the royal chateau at Plessis outside Tours in France. During the looting iconoclasts forced open the tomb of the order's founder, Saint Francis of Paola, and burnt his remains. This study examines the processes through which oral accounts within the Minim community concerning the “martyrdom” of Saint Francis were committed to writing during the first quarter of the seventeenth century.
Henri IV
Oxford Bibliographies On-Line: Renaissance and Reformation
2011 Since his death in 1610, interpreters of Henri IV have reinvented him on numerous occasions. Early chroniclers of his reign cast him as the good and pious king; in the 18th century, Enlightenment thinkers focused on his brokering of religious coexistence through the Edict of Nantes to define him as a tolerant and enlightened king; during the 19th century, Third Republic biographers focused on tales of Henri’s bon mots, encounters with common people, and amorous adventures to portray him as the peasant king who shared the values and sensibilities of his subjects. These reinventions have in many ways overshadowed the historical Henri that modern scholars are only now coming to terms with.
The Parish in its Landscapes: Pilgrimage Processions in the Archdeaconry of Blois, 1500-1700
French History
2010 Drawing on account books from sixteen rural parishes in the vicinity of Blois, this article explores how pilgrimage processions helped to celebrate and define the parish as a space and community.