If the Halloween season has you itching for real-life information about witch trials, plan to attend the Edward Moritz Lecture in History at Kalamazoo College on Wednesday, October 29.

The event will feature Associate Professor Rochelle Rojas presenting a lecture titled Gender, Gossip and Religious Revival: Crafting Witches in Early Spain. The lecture will run from 5 to 6 p.m. in Dewing Hall, Room 103, followed by a reception in Dewing Commons. A livestream will be available for remote attendees.

Drawing on witch-trial records from early modern Spain, Rojas will illuminate how shifting gender roles, religious reforms and social control shaped beliefs about witchcraft in communities. She will explore how narratives from villagers, judges and Inquisitors reveal an inner logic of early modern witch belief systems and investigate how issues of identity and moral regulation resonate with contemporary debates.

Rojas earned a Ph.D. from Duke University. She joined Kalamazoo College’s faculty in 2018 and recently published Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525-1675 (Cornell University Press, 2025). This lecture is part of the history department’s annual Moritz Lecture series, established in honor of Professor Edward Moritz, who taught at Kalamazoo College from 1955–88.  For more information about this event, contact History Department Chair Christina Carroll at Christina.Carroll@kzoo.edu.