Dr Michelle Pfeffer

I am a historian of science and religion specialising in the early modern period. Much of my work explores how scientific and religious ideas, traditions, and institutions worked in tandem to shape historical shifts often said to belong to the so-called ‘disenchantment of the world’.

My first book in this vein, The Mortalism Crisis: Scholarship, Society, and the Soul in Early Enlightenment England, will explore how the immortality of the soul—a topic of mutual natural philosophical and theological interest—was rejected by lay people steeped in popularised scientific, biblical, and historical scholarship, who argued that the very concept of the soul was an artefact of ancient pagan religion rather than true philosophy or theology.

My current research explores the history of astrology and divination. I recently published (with David Zeitlyn) Divination, Oracles, and Omens (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2024), which accompanies our Bodleian Library exhibition ‘Oracles, Omens & Answers’, which is running until 27 April 2025. It has been reviewed in the TLS, The Guardian, New Scientist, Apollo Magazine, and several other outlets.

I’m currently working on two books: one on the decline of astrology in early modern England, and the other on the role of astrologers and diviners in the long history of forecasting. Both stem from longstanding interests. In terms of the former, I’ve written about the marginalisation of astrology in the Historical Journal and The British Journal for the History of Science, and in 2021 I organised with Jan Machielsen and Robin Briggs a conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of Sir Keith Thomas’s classic Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971) (recordings of the event can be found here). Jan and I later co-authored an article on this topic for Past and Present. In regards to the history of forecasting, I have long been interested in the history of epidemics, and curating the Bodleian exhibition has enabled me to think through the longer history of forecasting not only epidemic disease, but also other population-level events. I have written about the role played by astrologers in early epidemiological forecasting for Past and Present and in 2023 curated an exhibition (with Richard Allen) at Magdalen called Plague! at Magdalen: Epidemics and Public Life.