 Hello. Welcome to Global Connections. I'm Patrick Bratton. Today we're going to shift topics a little bit. We're going to talk with one of my colleagues, Dr. Linda Leerheimer, and about her research on nuns in 17th century France. So without further ado, welcome to Think Tech. Hi. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Linda. This is your first time, right? Yeah, my first time. Okay, interesting. Be kind. We're always very kind. We've got glowing stained glass behind us. Oh, perfect. Like a refuge or in solace in a sense. So one of the things I find very interesting is your research and a lot of the classes that you teach at HBU. But normally my tradition is to start a little bit about you yourself, a little bit about your background and why you got interested in the topic that many people seem quite unique. So the basic question, where are you from and how did you get involved in this? So where I'm from is like the hardest question anybody ever asked me. That's what we started with, right? Well, I was born in the Bay Area and then when I was two, I moved and then basically moved for the rest of my life. Okay. Hawaii's the longest I've lived anywhere. But before that, I'd never lived anywhere more than six years in a row. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So that was, it was a peripatetic childhood. Okay. In Asia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Indonesia. I was actually there when Obama was there. Oh, interesting. About the same age. Did you know Barry? No, I think we just missed each other. Oh, okay. Okay. And then I went to college in Oregon at Reed College where I majored in history and then I went to, for graduate school, I got my PhD at Princeton University. Then I got my first job at St. John's University College of St. Benedict in Minnesota and then I came here and I've been here for the last, well, more than 15 years. Okay. Right. Interesting. So, I mean, given your research in sort of religious history, women's history, I mean, that's an interesting place to start teaching then, right? Yeah. It was the colleges, well, these are two colleges that used to be single sex with, there's a monastery on one campus. I think I had two campuses like HPU, but one was, we're in the monastery and the other campus had the convent. And so actually my colleagues, some of my colleagues were nuns, which maybe I think part of why they hired me was they were interested in my work. And it was a very interesting place to be, especially teaching religious history. The resources there, it's one thing I miss about that place because they had amazing research sources for doing religious studies. For example, I taught a course on the Reformation and I was able to take my students to visit their relic collection. Oh, wow. It was like an evil relic, like a whole body of a saint in their relic, you know, in the basement of the church. So it was really an interesting experience to be there. Okay. So you started off as an undergraduate studying history, then you made the decision to continue into graduate level. I mean, you've chosen what got you interested both in early modern France than looking at early church and religious history and some of these social history. Well, when I went to college, I thought I was going to do Asian studies, but then I chose a college that didn't have that, which was kind of a... I did realize I wanted to go to a particular college and it was a choice I made. And then it took me a while to find a major, but I had some really amazing teachers that one of the first history courses I took was a course on the French Revolution and I just became enamored of that period. And then I took a class, which was a joint, teamed up by an anthropologist and a historian, and this was like sort of the big thing when I was in college and graduate school was intersections between history and anthropology. So I became fascinated with sort of being an anthropologist of the past and that's... my mentor was a French historian and that sort of... I also knew had been studying French since I was in junior high school, so that kind of... it was sort of by chance. Okay, interesting. I just got... that was what engaged me and ever since then I haven't looked back. Okay, interesting. I mean, one of the things that, you know, a lot of our watchers, a lot in popular culture, I mean, we do have this sort of viewpoint of France in the 16th and 17th century. You have a viewpoint? Most people don't. Maybe they don't know anything about it. Well, I think in popular culture... Well, Louis XIV. Right, Louis XIV, three musketeers, these sorts of things, films with Isabelle Gianni or something. But one thing that comes across as this kind of funny contrast since you brought up Louis XIV, that the one stage, by the end of the 17th century, we've got this absolute estate, absolute monarchy. We have a cultural, political, sort of military leader of the Western world. But if you go back to sort of the 16th, early 17th century, we see a France that is sort of at face value, sort of torn apart by unrest. Whether it's the religious wars in the 16th century, Huguenot rebellions, the fronds, all those sorts of stuff. I mean, was that sort of the reason that sort of drew you, the sort of heady period of sort of conflict and unrest and change and turmoil? Was that something that drew you? Not really. Although I am interested in issues of power. I'm more interested, so everybody thinks about 17th century France as being the rise of the absolute estate, but I'm interested in the challenges to that and the ways that absoluteism didn't work. There's a whole historical debate about whether absoluteism really ever existed. And I'm interested, because I'm mostly interested in the people at the bottom and how they, I guess, sort of the traditional societies. I am interested in the unrest in terms of how people negotiated that. And one of my mentor in graduate school, Natalie Siemen Davis, wrote a really seminal article about religious violence and what she called the rights to violence and how violence was enacted during the religious wars. And those are the kinds of questions that I find really interesting. Not so much the unrest, but how that, I guess it is the unrest. Periods of great change are always fascinating because they bring to the surface all sorts of things that you don't see otherwise. It's an old Thomas Hardy saying that war is rattling good history and pieces poor reading. Yeah, exactly. It's not that interesting to study times where there's nothing exciting or different going on. I want to pick up one word that you mentioned was sort of negotiator, negotiation. And so a lot of people use the term sort of negotiation or brokerage for the societies at this time that we have this image of sort of Louis Catorra's and the sort of absolute state, but in some ways while one could argue the beginnings of bureaucracy, taxation, standing armies were happening, there still is this sort of milieu in which people exist, which is very traditional, very medieval. And so the powers of the monarchy were in many ways more limited than, say, a modern democratic state. Very much. How does this maybe get into sort of where you're looking at with nuns and monasteries and things? It's a really good question. So in early modern France, prior to the French Revolution, there were all these overlapping jurisdictions. So it's really hard for the state to impose, even to make anybody do anything. Because you have local institutions, you have different types of currency even, different taxations in different areas of France, different languages. So one of the things that I'm interested in is, well, in general, how people use that in order to resist. So they use these different, they can play one power against the other. So the nuns that I'm studying for a book project right now, they use, there's the bishop's power and then there's the local parliament, which is the law courts, that is secular law. And then there's the pope in Rome. And they're using all of these different jurisdictions against one another. They all have different rules, right? So no rule necessarily trumps the other. No law necessarily. Laws always have to be negotiated because there's all these different kinds and they don't, they often conflict with one another. That makes sense. So that's something, at first, when I was in graduate school, I had to study all these. I remember having to try to memorize all the different jurisdictions in France as part of my general exams. And it was just, it was really hard. But now I look back and I say, oh, well, that's what makes this so interesting. Once you get to the modern state, there's less of that. I mean, we do have things like states' rights versus national rights, but there's much more, the state has an easier, you know, it's much more straight line between the state saying what people are supposed to do. But in all these overlapping jurisdictions in early modern Europe just make it both impossible but also fascinating. Is anyone about to jump ahead? I want to stick with nuns, but I thought since you brought this up. I mean, does that in a sense in any ways inform this sort of revolution that happens in France, very inspired by Rousseau, about not wanting to have intervening identities and variables or factions between people in the state? Yep. So there's different arguments about the French Revolution, but one of them is that it's continuing that effort by the absolute estate to try and impose the authority of the state of a single, you know, of a single nation where there's only one set of rules. And some people would say they are, that's what, it's actually the success that the absolute estate never had. Okay. And also this kind of fascinating voyage in the 19th century of sort of constructing both the French state and the French nation or as Eugene Weber would talk about it. That's true. You still have, some people would say you didn't even have that until the 20th century, right? Okay. Because, well, Weber's thesis is that, you know, from peasants into Frenchmen, there were no Frenchmen until the 20th century. I'm not sure where he dates that, but... Okay. All right. We'll close there in the French Revolution. Come back to nuns and monasteries. And after a very short series of announcements about other programs on Think Tech. Aloha. We invite you to join us on our Keys to Success show, which is live on the Think Tech live streaming network series weekly on Thursdays at 11 a.m. My name is Danilia, D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm now the half of the duo, John Newman. Our goal for Keys to Success is to provide a platform for professional and personal development tools and profound insights on how to achieve success in life, career, and or business. We have incredible guests from all walks of life, including politicians, successful business owners, leaders, entrepreneurs, and authors. As this is a live show, there are live mess ups as well, which are fun to watch. Aloha, and we'll see you on Thursday. Welcome to ThinkTechHawaii.com. This is Johnson Choi, your host. The topic is Asia and Reveal. We'll do it on Monday basis on Thursday at 11 o'clock. Be sure to check the schedule. See you. Hello, back to ThinkTech. We are talking with Linda Lerheimer, talking about her research on nuns in early 17th century France. Before the break, we were talking a bit about French history, French revolution, that stuff. But I'd like to get refocused on Linda's research. And so you've been doing a series of projects about these nuns and how they're sort of maybe rebelling or acting against both temporal and maybe even spiritual authority. What are some of the stuff that you've been working on lately? Right now I'm working on a book. It's taking me a long time, but gradually it's emerging. It's a micro history where I'm looking at this one event in 1620, 1623 in particular, a conflict between nuns and their bishop. It tries to depose their mother's superior because he doesn't like their choice. And they appeal to Rome, to the local courts. And they are successful actually at that. So in my book I'm trying to, as I'm interested in nuns resisting authority and trying to establish religious, using the rules of the church to establish religious autonomy. Because often there are these stereotypes about nuns, especially in the past, where the idea was that families just sent their daughters to these monasteries and that these women were enclosed and it was repressive. But in fact I argue that this was a sphere where they could exercise religious autonomy. I have a number of cases where nuns lock out, they lock the doors and don't let the religious authorities in. Literally lock the doors. This is the cloister you can't come in. And it's very hard for the bishop who's supposed to be in charge to resist that. But in my book I'm trying to look at different the nuns, the bishop, and the families of these nuns who are mostly lawyers and judges at the local parliament and all the different conflicts that were taking place. It's not so much this particular event but what it tells us about local politics, about the relationship between religious authorities and nuns, religious authorities and secular authorities and all the family patronage too is really important because the bishop supposedly is the most powerful. He's like one of the richest men in France. He's trying to reform this vast diocese but he's an outsider and he comes in and there are all these other powers that are on the nun's side. And the nuns are playing the pope against the bishop too because the bishops in France were appointed by the king so there's all these different competing types of powers. And they're really ingenious at how they use that. How much does the background of the women in question who become nuns have with it? Because I think often that we tend to perhaps lose track. A lot of them or some of them, I don't know the percentages, come from very wealthy educated families and so they were brought up to be very literate and all these other things. Does that in a sense give them a skill set or a background in a sense to leverage the rules or not so much? I think it does but I have examples of nuns who didn't have that. I actually translated the memoirs of a nun. I mean obviously she was literate but she was from a peasant family and did much of the same thing. But the nuns I'm studying, they came from legal families and they used the law to its fullest extent. I mean all of their arguments, and today they would all be lawyers. Right. Maybe none lawyers. It was dangerous. They were brought up in that environment and they knew how to use these arguments to their benefit. One thing I was going to ask you about your teaching before we get to there, one of the questions I like pop culture and I like representations of history in pop culture, kind of maybe a potentially difficult question for you. Is there a book in fiction or movies or theater that maybe sort of illustrates or captures some of this, whether it's accurate or a stereotype is another matter, that our viewers might be curious or have seen? Not so much about nuns, but so my PhD advisor in Adolesium and Davis wrote a book called The Return of Martin Gair and she also was a historical advisor on the film. It's a film, French film, you can get it with subtitles, English subtitles. And to me that's one of the greatest historical films particularly about this period. It really gives you a visual image and delves into the lives not of the people at the top, but at the people at the bottom. And it's a fun mystery because it's about a case of mistaken identity that really happened in 16th century France. So for me it's not so much the topic, but the way her model of how she does history, that's what I'm striving for because she's so brilliant at telling a story and of using these stories to get us to think ourselves into the shoes and the heads of people in the past. So for me, I'm different from like wanting to make some big grand pronouncement. I want people to be able to try and I guess historical empathy and understanding how people thought and what motivated them. That's a model for me. So a big thing for you is contextualization in a sense. Or the zeitgeist at the time perhaps? Yeah, I guess. One of the challenges of doing microhistory is how representative is it. But you can use it to tell to then connect it to other things that were happening at the time. And because in the period I study there aren't that many documents, these are like little glimpses that you can't say everybody was like this, but if you get enough little glimpses that illustrate the same point, then you can generalize to a bit. Interesting. One thing that I hear a lot from students and from your colleagues is a lot of the innovative things that you do in the classroom. From games to role play and a whole bunch of other things. How does your research in a sense affect how you interact with students and do things in the classroom? Yeah, unfortunately I don't get to teach the things I'm researching very often, but I try and integrate the approaches. And sometimes when I teach a course on the historians craft and I integrate a lot of the types of history, micro history, I make them read a lot of French historians because that's what I love. And so that's one way, the kind of history I do influences how I teach students or history majors about how to do history, in particular the importance of the archive and using primary sources. And then when I teach, even though the French Revolution is not really, I don't really work on that period, it's one of my passions, my historical passions is studying the French Revolution and I do get to teach that class and I have them do this. I've been having them for the last few times I've taught the course, I've had them play a role playing game and they are members of the National Assembly trying to construct a constitution in the years before the terror. And so they take on roles, they are parts of political factions, they read Rousseau and they have to use him. It's the only time I've ever got students to actually really try and grapple with the hard ideas in Rousseau. They really do, they come out saying, you know, Rousseau-ian things, at least the people who are on that side of the debate. It's really a lot of debating but the work they do, it's hard, students will do extra work because they're competing to win the game and also because they get so engaged with their role that they'll do a lot of extra work. And then I've spun that off into teaching a course where I just do historical games and not all of those are related to my, directly to my research. I do a game set in Ancient Athens and then in China. Yeah, we do the trial of Socrates. Interesting. And yeah, students have to come up with interesting ideas for pig sacrifices. One thing I dabble a bit with using sort of simulations in my classes and I find them really, well, they are a lot of work to construct. I find them really profound teaching tools for really, in my case, it's a little bit different but having them thinking about making choices and how it's easy in hindsight, right? Yeah. Oh, they should have just... And they realize how difficult these choices were and how many different possibilities there were. It really teaches students about the contingency of history. Not like what if somebody did differently but there's so many different possible ways history can go. And individuals do have an impact on shaping it, maybe not completely but individual decisions are important. What's one of the things that you've kind of learned, something surprising perhaps in teaching students in these classes, something that's been interesting to you over the years? In my simulation? Yeah, something you've learned about students or changing generations or anything. God, that's a good question. That's a hard question. Well, I've learned that students who are quiet often have a lot to say. I mean, maybe that's not so much about something concrete but almost every time I teach the games there's somebody really quiet who just blossoms because they get so engaged with their role that they just start naturally. I think acting role-playing can give people the freedom to be people that they're not but also I think that students start to empathize with people in the past and we often see them as foreign beings especially when it's that far away like ancient Athens. Those are the lessons. Okay, interesting. A question I've asked several of my guests. I'm curious about it. Have you found that given that you've been teaching for some time, have you found that there's been occasional shifts about interests or attitudes of your students from maybe when you started teaching for today? It's almost become like a cliche that our students have moved from being historical to ahistorical to non-historical. There's less and less knowledge of history. Do you find that that's the case or not? Yes, although I'm not sure there's a huge difference but I do feel like historical training is at a pre-collegiate level leaves a lot to be desired and students come in really having a lot of misconceptions or wrong knowledge about history but just to take your question in a different way because I do women's and gender history. In the beginning, this was a really hot topic and when I first started becoming interested, this one of the reasons I became interested in history was because it was the beginning of women's history and then for a while it became kind of uncool. That's not really... But I kind of feel like it's having a resurgence. I think women's issues in general and gender issues are becoming central cultural issues and I have students a lot more interested in studying history from that angle so that's a hopeful thing. I agree with that. It's a thing that's interesting that it's become instead of being sort of like a sort of specialization in a sense, it's very integral or mainstream. It's no longer... It used to be sort of ghetto-wise and now there's a place for women's history classes but it's more integrated into every history class. You always have to address issues of race, gender, class. It's become one of those categories of analysis and that was always the goal for women to not be just a special topic but to be integrated into the history that everybody tells. Interesting. And you're doing part of this for yourself? That's been my goal since the beginning. That was one of the things that inspired me to be a historian. Interesting. All right. Well, fascinating conversation. That's all the time we have for today on Global Connections but thank you for joining me, Linda. Thank you. All right. And all from my watchers out there, I'll see you again next week. We'll probably be talking more about the use of films and teaching history next week. I think that's the plan. See you guys next week.