Colin Hoch

Colin Hoch is a doctoral candidate in History and Early Modern Studies. His disseration research explores how contested historical memory, or the competing ways that European Christians envisioned themselves as part of an ancient and authoritative biblical tradition, constituted the creative engine at the heart of shaping the early modern Bible in all its diversity (c.1450-1650). Working with understudied manuscripts and printed Bibles in German, French, English, and Latin, the project highlights how particular translations and genres shaped new historically informed identities for linguistic and religious groups in an emerging global early modern Christianity. The project seeks to transcend traditional temporal, geographic, and confessional boundaries to address how the early modern Bible answered the most pressing questions of historical identity and authority, both in its own era and into the present through contemporary cultures of commemoration. Interdisciplinary in nature, the project draws upon and contributes to debates in the history of religion, cultural history, translation studies, memory studies, diaspora studies, and book history.

 

Colin’s research has been supported by the Baden-Württemberg Stipendium Award while in residence at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg and presented at major conferences in the field. Before the doctoral program, he received an M.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and an M.A. from Yale in European and Russian Studies.

 

He currently serves as the Education Coordinator of Saint Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University, helping Catholic students to better understand the history and traditions of the Church.