The Devil and Dissent: Early Modern Perspectives

EMoDiR is now planning for the upcoming RSA conference in San Francisco (February 19–21, 2026), a series of panels analyzing the concept of the devil in the context of religious dissent. The significance of discourses surrounding the devil in understanding early modern practices of resistance and subversion is both deep and wide-ranging. By examining, on the one hand, the ways in which the devil was identified and, on the other, the implications of demonization as a process of othering, we aim at clarifying the place the “devil” held in the context of early modern politics, religious polemics, visual and material culture, daily communal life, and personal devotion and beliefs.