Owen Davies

Owen Davies (born 1969) is a British historian who specialises in the history of magic, witchcraft, ghosts, and popular medicine. He is currently Professor in History at the University of Hertfordshire and has been described as Britain's "foremost academic expert on the history of magic".

Early life and education

Reading Alan Garner as a child led Davies to be interested in magic. He studied archaeology and history at Cardiff University. He went on to a Ph.D at Lancaster University. Completed in 1995, Davies's thesis looked at the continuation and decline of popular belief in witchcraft and magic from the Witchcraft Act 1735 to the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 (1991–1994).

Career Davies has authored and edited 15 books and numerous research articles.

He has been a key collaborator in a number of large-scale historical research projects. From 2010 to 2015, Davies was Co-Investigator on 'Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse', a Wellcome Trust funded project exploring "the meanings, treatment, and uses of the criminal corpse". Davies was also a Co-Investigator on the major Leverhulme-funded project 'Inner Lives: Emotions, Identity, and the Supernatural, 1300-1900'. Davies and University of Hertfordshire colleague Dr Ceri Houlbrook are currently Co-Investigators in 'Bottles Concealed and Revealed', an Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project investigating witch bottles.

Davies has been based at the University of Hertfordshire since the early 2000s. In 2019, he instigated a Folklore Studies MA at the University of Hertfordshire, which is currently the only academic qualification of its kind in England and Wales.

In 2020, Davies was elected President of the Folklore Society.

Selected publications

Davies, Owen and Blécourt, Willem de (editors) (2004). Beyond the witch trials: witchcraft and magic in enlightenment Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press. . OCLC 186315672. Davies, Owen and Blécourt, Willem de (editors) (2004). Witchcraft continued: popular magic in modern Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press. . OCLC 784959128.

Davies, Owen (2007). The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. . OCLC 145379850. Davies, Owen and Barry, Jonathan (editors) (2007) Palgrave advances in witchcraft historiography. Basingstoke [England]: Palgrave Macmillan. 2007. . OCLC 122702023.

Davies, Owen (editor) (2010) Ghosts: A Social History. London: Pickering & Chatto. 2010. . OCLC 501394897.

Davies, Owen (2012). Magic: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . OCLC 749871159. Davies, Owen (2013). America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft after Salem. Oxford. . OCLC 812686039. Davies, Owen and Matteoni, Francesca (2017). Executing Magic in the Modern Era: Criminal Bodies and the Gallows in Popular Medicine. Cham: Springer International Publishing. . Davies, Owen (editor) (2017) The Oxford Illustrated History of Witchcraft and Magic. Oxford, United Kingdom. . OCLC 972537073. Davies, Owen (2018). A Supernatural War: Magic, Divination and Faith during the First World War. Oxford, United Kingdom. . OCLC 1022082619.