College of Arts and Humanities
Philosophy, History, Law, and Society
David Davis, PhD
- Professor of History
- Director, Graduate Programs, College of Arts and Humanities
Education
- PhD, History, University of Exeter
- MA, History, Cardiff University
- BGS, General Studies, University of Texas at Tyler
Courses Taught
- Western Civilization I
- Western Civilization II
- The Medieval World
- Renaissance and Reformation
- Tudors and Stuarts
- Studies in British History
- Early Modern Europe
- Blood & Fire: Religion, Science, and Medicine, 1000–1700
- History of Medicine
- The Philosophy of History
- Readings in European History
-
King Arthur in History and Art
Teaching Focus
Dr. Davis teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels, specializing in medieval and early-modern British history and offering courses that focus upon intellectual, cultural, and religious history as well as the history of science. He regularly teaches the Western Civilization I and Western Civilization II sequence, and he teaches in the Honors College at Houston Christian University.
Publications
Books
Experiencing God in Late Medieval and Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2022)
From Icons to Idols: Documents on the Image Debate in Reformation England (Pickwick, 2016)
Seeing Faith, Printing Pictures: Religious Identity in the English Reformation (Brill, 2013)
Articles / Chapters
“Visual Culture and Reformation Bibles,” in The Oxford Handbook for the Bible and the Reformation, eds. Jennifer McNutt and Hermann Selderhuis (forthcoming, Oxford University Press)
“Royal Supremacy and Religious Tolerance in Early Modern England,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Church and State, vol. II, ed. Shannon Holzer (Palgrave, 2023)
“Reforming the Holy Name: The Afterlife of the IHS in Early Modern England,” Journal of Early Modern Christianity (2021)
“‘Rapt in Spirit’: The Ritualizing of Divine Revelation in Early Modern England,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (2018)
“Godly Visions and Idolatrous Sights: Images of Divine Revelation in Early English Bible,” in Illustrated Religious Texts in the North of Europe, 1500-1800, eds. Feike Dietz, Adam Morton, Els Stronks, and Marc Van Vaeck (Ashgate 2014)
“‘The Means of Justification’: A Catholic Letter on the Image Debate in Reformation Britain,” Reformation and Renaissance Review (2013)
“English Printing Before the King James Bible: A Reconsideration” in The KJV at 400: Assessing its Genius as Bible Translation and its Literary Influence, ed. David Burke (Society of Biblical Literature, 2013)
“‘The vayle of Eternall memorie’: Sixteenth Century Woodcuts and the Representation of Queen Elizabeth,” Word and Image (2011)
“Regarding Men: The Insufficiency of the Current Early Modern Witchcraft Paradigm,” in ERAS Journal
“Destructive Defiance: Catholic and Protestant Iconoclasm in England, 1550-1585,” in CROMOHS Virtual Seminars
Selected Essays / Reviews
“America’s Professor: The Afterlife of C.S. Lewis,” The Spectator World (2023)
“Raucous Reading in the Library of Alexandria,” The Wall Street Journal (2022)
“Jansenism and England,” Renaissance Quarterly (2022)
“Remembering the Reformation,” Renaissance and Reformation (2022)
“Precarious Identities: Studies in Fulke and Southwell,” Renaissance Quarterly (2022)
“Our Great Purpose,” The Wall Street Journal (2019)
“From Comity to Culture War,” The Wall Street Journal (2018)
“Newton, the Faithful,” The Wall Street Journal (2017)
“Europe after Wyclif,” Journal of British Studies (2017)
“All Things Made New,” Reviews in History (2017)
“Bosch, A Little Less Bizarre,” The New Criterion (2017)
“Devotio Tarantino,” First Things (2016)
Additional Information
Dr. Davis has been nominated for the Opal Goolsby Outstanding Teaching Award at HCU three times, winning the award in 2013 and 2022. In 2016, Dr. Davis was made a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society for his contributions to historical scholarship, and he was nominated for the Piper Professor Award in 2020. His research and publications have earned several grants and research fellowships at institutions like the Huntington Library, the Johannes a Lasco Bibliothek, and the Bridwell Library. When he isn’t writing and teaching, he can be found drinking coffee and reading (or wishing he were reading).