11 Facts About Philip Benedict

Philip Benedict was born on 20 August 1949 and is an American historian of the Protestant Reformation in Europe, currently holding the title of Professor Emeritus at the University of Geneva's Institute for Reformation History.

Philip Benedict has stated that he is agnostic and that his parents raised him in a secular Jewish household, wholly disconnected from the Calvinism in which he would come to specialize.

Philip Benedict's publications have ranged from economic history to the history of printmaking and information, but have chiefly focused on the social and political history of the Reformation, with primary reference to the French Wars of Religion and the Protestant minority in sixteenth and seventeenth-century France.

In contrast to Denis Crouzet and Natalie Davis, who have explored the motivations and psychology behind Roman Catholic religious violence in early modern France, Philip Benedict has asserted various motivations and reasons that Huguenots engaged in religious violence against Catholics.

Philip Benedict became a Professor Emeritus at the University of Geneva in 2015.

Philip Benedict held the title of professeur ordinaire at the University of Geneva's Institute for Reformation History for nine years prior to his retirement.

Philip Benedict taught at Brown University for 26 years, where he was the Willard Prescott and Annie McClelland Smith Professor of Religious Studies.

Philip Benedict has held visiting positions or fellowships at Cornell University, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, All Souls College, Oxford, the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, the Lumiere University Lyon 2, Humboldt University, and the National Gallery of Art's Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.

Philip Benedict has published five monographs, one collection of documents, edited thirty-five edited volumes, and contributed chapters to five edited volumes, nineteen peer-reviewed articles in journals.

Philip Benedict has led the Institut d'histoire de la Reformation's intensive graduate seminars, which attract a wide range of participants to Geneva from institutions across Europe and North America.

Taylor and Brockey's first books, both of which began as dissertations under Philip Benedict's supervision, have gone on to win major book prizes.