Welcome to the Home Page of

 

Dr. Timothy Fehler

 

Professor of History

 

 

“This great world … is the mirror into which we must look if we are to behold ourselves from the proper standpoint.  So many dispositions, sects, judgments, opinions, laws, and customs teach us to judge sanely of our own, and teach our understanding how to recognize its imperfections and natural weaknesses; which is no trivial lesson.”

 - Michel de Montaigne, “On the Education of Children” (c. 1573).

 

˜™

 

“Every human generation has its own illusions with regard to civilization; some believe that they are taking part in its upsurge, others that they are witnesses of its extinction.  In fact, it always both flames up and smolders and is extinguished, according to the place and the angle of view.”

- Ivo Andrić, The Bridge on the Drina (1945).

Immensis laboribus comparatUr eruditio:
ac post moriendum est.

 - Erasmus of Rotterdam, “Colloquium familiare abbatis et eruditae” (1526)

 

 


Rembrandt.  Philosopher in Meditation (1632). 
Oil on wood. Musee du Louvre, Paris.


Hendrick Avercamp.  Winter Landscape with Iceskaters (c. 1608).
Oil on panel. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Course Information

 

Class Hours, Readings, and other information:

 (Fall 2009)

 

TR, 11:30-12:45 (RH 107)  FYS 1165 (First Year Seminar): “Epidemics: History and Mathematical Modeling”

T, 2:30-5:30 (FH 119)         HST 475 (Senior Seminar): “Life on the Margins in Early Modern Europe”

 

 

My photo essay on Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps from the “Europe East of the Rhine” study away program that I co-directed in Winter 2008.  [In July 2008, I viewed the 1955 documentary Night and Fog for the first time. I decided to include my photos from my earlier trip to Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps in order to construct a short photo essay to illustrate some of Jean Cayrol’s rather moving text from that documentary.]

 

Contact Information

 

Office: Furman Hall 200L 

 

Phone: (864) 294-3347 

 

Department Phone: (864) 294-2182 

 

E-mail:

 

Office Hours (Fall 2009):

Mondays  9:30-10:25, 1:00-2:00

Tuesdays  9:30-11:00

Wednesdays  9:30-10:30

Thursdays  9:30-11:00, 1:00-2:00

Fridays  9:30-11:00

Please feel free to contact me to arrange to get together outside of these times.

 

Links to the History Department Website

    and to the History Major on the FU Admissions Site

 

 

 

 

“By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad.’  But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests….  All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side ... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

- George Orwell, “Notes on Nationalism” (1945)

“When our own nation is at war with any other, we detest them under the character of cruel, perfidious, unjust and violent: But always esteem ourselves and allies equitable, moderate, and merciful.  If the general of our enemies be successful, ‘tis with difficulty we allow him the figure and character of a man.  He is a sorcerer: He has a communion with daemons; as is reported of Oliver Cromwell, and the Duke of Luxembourg: He is bloody-minded, and takes a pleasure in death and destruction.  But if the success be on our side, our commander has all the opposite good qualities, and is a pattern of virtue, as well as of courage and conduct.  His treachery we call policy: His cruelty is an evil inseparable from war.  In short, every one of his faults we either endeavor to extenuate, or dignify it with the name of that virtue, which approaches it.  It is evident the same method of thinking runs thro’ common life.”

- David Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature (1740).

 

 

Professional Information

 

Education

Ph.D., The University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1995.

M.A., The University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1990.

B.A., magna cum laude, Baylor University (Mathematics & History), 1988.

 

Teaching Distinctions
Alester G. Furman, Jr. and Janie Earle Furman Award for Meritorious Teaching, 
      Furman University, 2001.

 

Research Distinctions
Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolmann Stiftung Fellowship, 
      for cultural studies in East Frisia, 2002.

Research Fellow, Johannes a Lasco Bibliothek,
      Emden, Germany, 2001-2002.

1999 Johannes a Lasco Prize (2nd Place), international competition: “Johannes a Lasco und seine Zeit” for essay “Diakonenamt und Armenfürsorge bei a Lasco: Theologischer Impuls und praktische Wirklichkeit”

Fellow, Institut für Europäische Geschichte,
      Mainz, Germany, 1993-1994.

J. William Fulbright Research Scholar,
      Universität Giessen, Germany, 1991-1992;
      Humboldt Universität, Berlin, 1992-1993.


Albrecht Dürer.  Erasmus of Rotterdam  (1526). 
Copper Engraving.

A few of my favorite things…

 


My three favorite women:

Jacquelyn, Gabrielle, & Mireille

 

 

My favorite city:

Emden, Germany

(from Braun & Hogenberg’s Civitates orbis terrarum, c. 1574)

 

 

    My favorite movies: here   The Godfather: Part II      

 

Some of my all-time favorite readings  along with some interesting recent commentaries.

Research Information

 

Select Publications

 

Poor Relief and Protestantism: The Evolution of Social Welfare in Sixteenth-Century Emden.  Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999.  (St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History).

 

“Refashioning Poor Relief in Early Modern Emden” in Thomas Max Safley (ed.), The Reformation of Charity. The Secular and the Religious in Early Modern Poor Relief.  Leiden: Brill, 2003: 92-106.

 

“The French Congregation’s Struggle for Acceptance in Emden, Germany” in Bertrand van Ruymbeke and Randy Sparks (eds), Memory and Identity: Minority Survival among the Huguenots in France and the Atlantic Diaspora.  Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003: 73-89.

 

“Diakonenamt und Armenfürsorge bei a Lasco: Theologischer Impuls und praktische Wirklichkeit” in Christroph Strohm (ed.), Johannes a Lasco (1499-1560). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000: 173-185. (Spätmittelalter und Reformation, Neue Reihe).

 

“The Burden of Benevolence: Poor Relief and Parish Finance in Early Modern Emden” in Beat Kümin (ed.), Reformations Old and New. Essays on the Socio-Economic Impact of Religious Change c. 1470-1630. Scolar Press, 1996: 219-236.

 

 

Recent Professional Presentations

“Pastors and the Poor in 16th-century Calvinist Emden,” Colloquy Agir pour l’Eglise: Ministères et charges ecclésiastiques dans les églises réformées (XVIe – XIXe siècles), (University of La Rochelle, France, June 2009).

 

“Conflict and Compromise in Exile and Beyond: Ysbrand Trabius Balck’s Pastoral Mediations in Emden and Leiden,” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference (Geneva, Switzerland, May 2009).

 

“Religious Immigrants during the Dutch Revolt of the 16th century: Responses to War and Poverty in the Immigrant Communities,” Symposium on Poverty, Welfare and Religion: Poverty and Displacement, 2nd Annual symposium sponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems (Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, May 2006).

 

“Protestant Welfare Policy in the Sixteenth Century,” Symposium on Religious Perceptions of Poverty and Welfare Policy, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems (Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, May 2005).

 

Commentary “New Approaches to Polemics,” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference (Toronto, October 2004).

 

“‘All Luck is in God’s Hand’: Lottery Fundraising and Games of Chance in Calvinist Emden,” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference (Pittsburgh, October 2003).

 

“Merchant Capital, Port Cities and Public Health in the Sixteenth Century,” XIII triennial World Congress of the International Economic History Association (Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 2002).

 

“Refashioning Poor Relief in early modern Emden,” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference (San Antonio, October 2002).

 

“Church Discipline, Social Disciplining, and Poor Relief in Calvinist Emden,” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference (St. Louis, 1999).

 

“Armenfürsorge und Diakonenamt bei a Lasco,” International Johannes a Lasco Symposium (Emden, Germany, 1999).

 

“The Evolution of Emden’s Hospital in an Age of Religious Change and Upheaval,” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference (Toronto, 1998).

 

“Religious Ideology and Practical Reality in Early Modern Emden: Refashioning Poor Relief in an Age of Religious Change,” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting (College Park, MD, 1998).

 

Recent Public Lectures

“Elizabeth I and Philip II: Diplomacy, Intrigue, and War,” Hughes Main Library (Greenville, SC), 8 June 2004, (part of program for the traveling “Elizabeth I: Ruler and Legend” exhibit hosted April 30-June 11).

 

“The English Reformations: Faith, Politics and Foreign Affairs in the Reign of Elizabeth, ” Hughes Main Library (Greenville, SC), 3 May 2004, (part of program for the traveling “Elizabeth I: Ruler and Legend” exhibit hosted April 30-June 11).

 

“‘Gott will datt nemant under sein volk bedele’: Emdens neuorganisierte Armenfürsorge in der Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts,” Emden, Germany, 15 August 2002.

 

“Emdens berühmte Mildtätigkeit,” Newspaper column published in the Emder Zeitung, 17 August 2002 (p. 10).

 

“Neues aus der Armenunterlagen des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Aurich, Germany (hosted by the Upstalsboom-Gesellschaft für historische Personenforschung und Bevölkerungsgeschichte), 1 June 2002.

 


Jeden Krieg gewinnt der Tod


Pieter Bruegel the Elder.  The Triumph of Death (c. 1562). 

Oil on panel.  Museo del Prado, Madrid.



Peace

We passed their graves:

The dead men there,

Winners or losers,

Did not care.

 

In the dark

They could not see

Who had gained

The victory.

 

-             Langston Hughes

“No peace, regardless of the injustice it involves, should be passed over in favor of war.”

- Erasmus of Rotterdam (1517)

 

 

“How will peace come about? By a multilateral ‘peaceful’ arms buildup designed to ensure peace?  No!  The path of security will not give us peace.  We have to take a chance with peace.  It demands great risk, and it can never be guaranteed.  To ask for security means to be suspicious, and this suspicion leads once again to war.”

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1934)