Elwin Hofman
Biographic Data
| ID | 1458653 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elwin Hofman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elwin |
| FAMILY NAME | Hofman |
| SIGNATURE | HOFMAN E |
| AFFILIATIONS | KU Leuven |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4671-6341 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Experimental Interrogations
In 1904, Max Wertheimer and Julius Klein published a paper that shook the worlds of criminal justice and psychology. They proposed using psychological experiments, particularly word association tests, to assess whether criminal suspects had committed a particular crime. Over the following months and years, almost every German-language journal on psychology or criminal law, as well as many foreign-language journals, published something on this so-…
Cyd Sturgess, Different from the Others
Confess and you’ll Feel Better
This introduction questions long-held assumptions regarding criminal interrogations between 1650 and 1850. It discusses the actors and actants involved in criminal interrogations: interrogators, suspects, and clerks, but also laws and customs. Drawing on a scattered historiography of interrogations, it brings together initial insights and outlines questions and problems that can guide the history of criminal interrogation. Premodern criminal inte…
Strategic Inequality
Criminal procedure in eighteenth-century France is regularly seen as unequal. This article engages with this view by attending to the role of social status during criminal interrogations in the final decades of the old regime and the first of the new. It argues that, throughout this period, in sources such as laws, doctrines, reformist critiques and interrogation transcripts, a general concern for equality, especially wealth equality, is discerni…
Rudolf Dekker, De criminele autobiografie van 1600 tot heden. Van blauwboekje tot bestseller
A useful science
This article argues that psychology gained prestige as a useful and practical science in Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Focusing on discussions of the practice of criminal interrogation, the article shows that around 1800, legal scholars increasingly turned to psychology as a solution to practical problems of criminal justice that had arisen with the abolition of judicial torture. Whereas up to the eighteenth centu…
Nieuwe Tijd
Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community
Corporeal Truth
This article studies the changing meanings given to the bodily behaviour of suspects during criminal interrogations in France between 1750 and 1850. Early modern legal scholars and magistrates already developed a crude practical understanding of the bodily behaviour of suspects during interrogations: a calm body signified innocence, an agitated body suggested guilt. In practice, however, eighteenth-century magistrates displayed little interest in…
A Wholesome Cure for the Wounded Soul
This article explores how C atholic practices of auricular confession related to emotions and self in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, focusing on the situation in B elgium as a revealing case study. Relying on both prescriptive sources and depositions in criminal case records, it is argued that the sacrament of penance occupied a central place in everyday life, influencing modes of self‐reflection. Penitents were to examine their c…
Managing Stigma
© Histoire sociale / Social History. This article examines the relationship between prostitutes and the communities in which they lived through the lens of stigma and stigma management. In the Southern Netherlands between 1750 and 1800, prostitutes were well aware of social tensions and negative sanctions that could result from their behaviour. To avoid conflict, they often concealed their trade in everyday interactions. If they were unable or un…
How to do the history of the self
The history of the self is a flourishing field. Nevertheless, there are some problems that have proven difficult to overcome, mainly concerning teleology, the universality or particularity of the self and the gap between ideas and experiences of the self. In this article, I make two methodological suggestions to address these issues. First, I propose a ‘queering’ of the self, inspired by recent developments in the history of sexuality. By destabi…
An obligation of conscience
This article investigates how gossip developed as a tool of social control in eighteenth-century Kortrijk, an average-sized town in Flanders. Through gossip, people influenced others' behaviour, by performing social norms, by punishing violators of norms, by publicising the punishments of these deviants, and finally, by spreading information about improper behaviour, possibly leading to other sanctions. Previous research has insufficiently consid…
How to do the history of the self
The history of the self is a flourishing field. Nevertheless, there are some problems that have proven difficult to overcome, mainly concerning teleology, the universality or particularity of the self and the gap between ideas and experiences of the self. In this article, I make two methodological suggestions to address these issues. First, I propose a ‘queering’ of the self, inspired by recent developments in the history of sexuality. By destabi…
Corporeal Truth
This article studies the changing meanings given to the bodily behaviour of suspects during criminal interrogations in France between 1750 and 1850. Early modern legal scholars and magistrates already developed a crude practical understanding of the bodily behaviour of suspects during interrogations: a calm body signified innocence, an agitated body suggested guilt. In practice, however, eighteenth-century magistrates displayed little interest in…
A Wholesome Cure for the Wounded Soul
This article explores how C atholic practices of auricular confession related to emotions and self in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, focusing on the situation in B elgium as a revealing case study. Relying on both prescriptive sources and depositions in criminal case records, it is argued that the sacrament of penance occupied a central place in everyday life, influencing modes of self‐reflection. Penitents were to examine their c…
An obligation of conscience
This article investigates how gossip developed as a tool of social control in eighteenth-century Kortrijk, an average-sized town in Flanders. Through gossip, people influenced others' behaviour, by performing social norms, by punishing violators of norms, by publicising the punishments of these deviants, and finally, by spreading information about improper behaviour, possibly leading to other sanctions. Previous research has insufficiently consid…
An obligation of conscience
This article investigates how gossip developed as a tool of social control in eighteenth-century Kortrijk, an average-sized town in Flanders. Through gossip, people influenced others' behaviour, by performing social norms, by punishing violators of norms, by publicising the punishments of these deviants, and finally, by spreading information about improper behaviour, possibly leading to other sanctions. Previous research has insufficiently consid…
How to do the history of the self
The history of the self is a flourishing field. Nevertheless, there are some problems that have proven difficult to overcome, mainly concerning teleology, the universality or particularity of the self and the gap between ideas and experiences of the self. In this article, I make two methodological suggestions to address these issues. First, I propose a ‘queering’ of the self, inspired by recent developments in the history of sexuality. By destabi…
A Wholesome Cure for the Wounded Soul
This article explores how C atholic practices of auricular confession related to emotions and self in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, focusing on the situation in B elgium as a revealing case study. Relying on both prescriptive sources and depositions in criminal case records, it is argued that the sacrament of penance occupied a central place in everyday life, influencing modes of self‐reflection. Penitents were to examine their c…
Managing Stigma
© Histoire sociale / Social History. This article examines the relationship between prostitutes and the communities in which they lived through the lens of stigma and stigma management. In the Southern Netherlands between 1750 and 1800, prostitutes were well aware of social tensions and negative sanctions that could result from their behaviour. To avoid conflict, they often concealed their trade in everyday interactions. If they were unable or un…
Nieuwe Tijd
Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community
Corporeal Truth
This article studies the changing meanings given to the bodily behaviour of suspects during criminal interrogations in France between 1750 and 1850. Early modern legal scholars and magistrates already developed a crude practical understanding of the bodily behaviour of suspects during interrogations: a calm body signified innocence, an agitated body suggested guilt. In practice, however, eighteenth-century magistrates displayed little interest in…
Confess and you’ll Feel Better
This introduction questions long-held assumptions regarding criminal interrogations between 1650 and 1850. It discusses the actors and actants involved in criminal interrogations: interrogators, suspects, and clerks, but also laws and customs. Drawing on a scattered historiography of interrogations, it brings together initial insights and outlines questions and problems that can guide the history of criminal interrogation. Premodern criminal inte…
Strategic Inequality
Criminal procedure in eighteenth-century France is regularly seen as unequal. This article engages with this view by attending to the role of social status during criminal interrogations in the final decades of the old regime and the first of the new. It argues that, throughout this period, in sources such as laws, doctrines, reformist critiques and interrogation transcripts, a general concern for equality, especially wealth equality, is discerni…
Rudolf Dekker, De criminele autobiografie van 1600 tot heden. Van blauwboekje tot bestseller
A useful science
This article argues that psychology gained prestige as a useful and practical science in Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Focusing on discussions of the practice of criminal interrogation, the article shows that around 1800, legal scholars increasingly turned to psychology as a solution to practical problems of criminal justice that had arisen with the abolition of judicial torture. Whereas up to the eighteenth centu…
Cyd Sturgess, Different from the Others
Experimental Interrogations
In 1904, Max Wertheimer and Julius Klein published a paper that shook the worlds of criminal justice and psychology. They proposed using psychological experiments, particularly word association tests, to assess whether criminal suspects had committed a particular crime. Over the following months and years, almost every German-language journal on psychology or criminal law, as well as many foreign-language journals, published something on this so-…
Sociology (9 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Art (4 works) · Criminology (4 works) · History (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Conscience (3 works)